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ALL SORTS 
 AND CONDITIONS OF MEN 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS 
 OF MEN 
 
 AN IMPOSSIBLE STORY 
 
 BY 
 
 WALTER BESANT 
 
 AND 
 
 JAMES RICE 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 LOVELL, CORYELL & COIVIPANY 
 
 43, 45 AND 47 East IOth Street 
 
 i::^ 
 
Digitized by tine Internet Arciiive 
 in 2010 witii funding from 
 Dul<e University Libraries 
 
 littp://www.archive.org/details/allsortsconditiOObesa 
 

 TO 
 
 Ube /iDemor^ 
 
 OF 
 
 JAMES RICE 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 The ten years' partnership of myself and my late 
 friend Mr. James Rice has been terminated b}' death. 
 I am persuaded that nothing short of death would have 
 put an end to a partnership which was conducted 
 throughout with perfect accord, and without the least 
 difference of opinion. The long illness which termi- 
 nated fatally on April t^oth of this year began in Janu- 
 ary of last 3'ear. There were intervals during which 
 he seemed to be recovering and gaining strength ; he 
 was, indeed, well enough in the autumn to try chmige 
 of air by a visit to Holland ; but he broke down again 
 very shortly after his return : though he did not him- 
 self suspect it, he was under sentence of death, and for 
 the last six months of his life his downward course was 
 steady and continuous. 
 
 Almost the last act of his in our partnership was the 
 arrangement, with certain country papers and else- 
 where, for the serial publication of this novel, the sub- 
 ject and writing of which were necessarily left entirely 
 to myself. 
 
 The many wanderings, therefore, which I undertook 
 last summer in Stepney, Whitechapel, Poplar, St. 
 
6 PREFACE. 
 
 George's in the East, Limehouse, Bow, Stratford, Shad- 
 well, and all that great and marvellous unknown coun- 
 try which we call East London, were undertaken, for 
 the first time for ten years, alone. They would have 
 been undertaken in great sadness had one foreseen the 
 end. In one of these wanderings I had the happiness 
 to discover Rotherhithe, which I afterward explored 
 with carefulness ; in another, I lit upon a certain Haven 
 of Rest for aged sea-captains, among whom I found 
 Captain Sorensen ; in others I found many wonderful 
 things, and conversed with many wonderful people. 
 The "single-handedness," so to speak, of this book 
 would have been a mere episode in the history of the 
 firm, a matter of no concern or interest to the general 
 public, had my friend recovered. But he is dead ; and 
 it therefore devolves upon me to assume the sole respon- 
 sibility of the work, for good or bad. The same re- 
 sponsibility is, of course, assumed for the two short 
 stories, " The Captain's Room," published at Christmas 
 last, and "They Were Married," published as the sum- 
 mer number of the lllust/xited London Neivs. The 
 last story was, in fact, written after the death of my 
 partner ; but as it had already been announced, it was 
 thought best, under the circumstances, to make no 
 change in the title. 
 
 I have been told by certain friendly advisers that 
 this story is impossible. I have, therefore, stated the 
 fact on the title-page, so that no one may complain of 
 being taken in or deceived. But I have never been 
 able to understand why it is impossible. 
 
 Walter Besant. 
 
 United UNrvERSiTiES' Club, August 19, 1882. 
 
COl^TEKTS. 
 
 Prologue— IN Two Parts, 
 I. — News for His Lordship, 
 II.— A Very Complete Case, 
 III. — Only a Dressmaker, 
 IV. — Uncle Bunker, 
 v.— The Cares of "Wealth, 
 VI. — A First Step, 
 VII.— The Trinity Almshouse, 
 VIII. — What He Got by It, 
 IX. — The Day Before the First, 
 X. — The Great Davenant Case, 
 XI.— The First Day, 
 XII. — Sunday at the East End, 
 XIII. — Angela's Experiment, 
 XIV. —The Tender Passion, . 
 XV.— A Splendid Offer, 
 XVI.— Harry's Decision, 
 XVII.— What Lord Jocelyn Thought, 
 XVIII. —The Palace of Delight, 
 XIX.— Dick the Radical, 
 XX. — Do^YN on Their Luck, 
 XXI. — Lady Davenant, . 
 XXII. — Daniel Fagg, 
 XXIII.— The Missing Link, 
 
8 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 XXIV. — Lord Jocelyn's Troubles 229 
 
 XXV.— An Invitation, 238 
 
 XXVI.— Lord Davenant's Greatness, .... 247 
 
 XXVII.— The Same Signs, 257 
 
 XXVIIL— Harry Finds Liberty, 260 
 
 XXIX.— The Figure-heads, 276 
 
 XXX. — The Professor's Proposal, .... 285 
 
 XXXI.— Captain Coppin 292 
 
 XXXII.— Bunker at Bay 303 
 
 XXXIII. —Mr. Bunker's Letter, 310 
 
 XXXIV.— Proofs in Print, 316 
 
 XXXV.— "Then WE'LL Keep Company," . . .323 
 
 XXXVI.— Whai^ WILL be the End? . . . .333 
 
 XXXVII. — Truth with Faithfulness, .... 338 
 
 XXXVIII.— I AM THE Dressmaker, 347 
 
 XXXIX.— Thrice Happy Boy, 356 
 
 XL.— Sweet Nelly, 363 
 
 XLL— Boxing-Night, 371 
 
 XLII. — Not Josephus, but Another, . . . 378 
 
 XLHI.—O MY Prophetic Soul! 387 
 
 XLFV.— A Fool and his Money, 397 
 
 XLV.— Lady Davenant's Dinner-party, . . . 402 
 
 XLVI.— The End of the Case, 413 
 
 XLVII.— A Palace of Delight 418 
 
 XLVIII.— My Lady Sweet, 425 
 
 XLIX. — " IJPROUSE YE THEN, MY MeRRY, MERRY MEN, " 433 
 
All Sorts and Conditions of Men. 
 
 PROLOGUE.— Part I. 
 
 It was the evening of a day in early June. The 
 time was last year, and the place was Cambridge. The 
 Sim had been visible in the heavens, a gracious pres- 
 ence, actually a whole week — in itself a thing remark- 
 able ; the hearts of the most soured, even of landlords 
 and farmers, were coming to believe again in the possi- 
 bility of fine weather; the clergy were beginning to 
 think that they might this year hold a real Harvest 
 Thanksgiving instead of a sham ; the trees at the Backs 
 were in full foliage; the avenues of Trinity and Clare 
 were splendid ; beside them the trim lawns sloped to the 
 margin of the Cam, here most glorious and proudest of 
 English rivers, seeing that he laves the meadows of 
 those ancient and venerable foundations. King's, Trin- 
 ity, and St. John's, to say nothing of Queen's and Clare 
 and Magdalen ; men were lazily floating in canoes, or 
 leaning over the bridges, or strolling about the walks, 
 or lying on the grass; and among them — but not — oh! 
 not with them — walked or rested many of the damsels 
 of learned Newnham, chiefly in pairs, holding sweet 
 converse 
 
 On mind and art, 
 And labor and the changiuji; mart, 
 And all the framework of the land : 
 
 not neglecting the foundations of the Christian faith 
 and other fashionable topics, which ladies nowadays 
 handle with so much learning, originality, dexterity, 
 and power. 
 
 We have, however, to do with only one pair, who 
 
10 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 were sitting together on the banks opposite Trinity. 
 These two were talking about a subject far more inter- 
 esting than any concerning mind, or art, or philosophy, 
 or the chances of the senate-house, or the future of 
 Newnham : for they were talking about themselves and 
 their own lives, and what they were to do each with 
 that one life which happened, by the mere accident of 
 birth, to belong to herself. It must be a curious sub- 
 ject for reflection in extreme old age, when everything 
 has happened that is going to happen, including rheu- 
 matism, that, but for this accident, one's life might 
 have been so very dilferent. 
 
 " Because, Angela," said the one who wore spectacles 
 and looked older than she was, by reason of much pon- 
 dering over books and perhaps too little exercise, " be- 
 cause, my dear, we have but this one life before us, and 
 if we make mistakes with it, or throw it away, or waste 
 it, or lose our chances, it is such a dreadful pity. Oh, 
 to think of the girls who drift and let every chance go 
 by, and get nothing out of their lives at all — except 
 babies" (she spoke of babies with great contempt). 
 " Oh ! it seems as if every moment were precious : oh ! 
 it is a sin to waste an hour of it." 
 
 She gasped and clasped her hands together with a 
 sigh. She was not acting, not at all ; this girl was that 
 hitherto rare thing, a girl of study and of books; she 
 was wholly possessed, like the great scholars of old, 
 with the passion for learning. 
 
 " Oh ! greedy person ! " replied the other with a laugh, 
 "if you read all the books in the University library, 
 and lose the enjoyment of sunshine, what shall it profit 
 you, in the long run?" 
 
 This one was a young woman of much finer physique 
 than her friend. She was not short-sighted, but pos- 
 sessed, in fact, a pair of orbs of very remarkable clear- 
 ness, steadiness, and brightness. They were not soft 
 eyes, nor languishing eyes, nor sleepy eyes, nor down- 
 cast, shrinking eyes; they were wide-awake, brown, 
 honest eyes; which looked fearlessly upon all things, 
 fair or foul. A girl does not live at Newnham two 
 years for nothing, mind you ; when she leaves that seat 
 of learning, she has changed her mind about the model, 
 the perfect, the ideal woman. More than that, she will 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 11 
 
 change the minds of her sisters and her cousins ; and 
 there are going to be a great many Newnhams, and 
 the spread of this revolution will be rapid; and the 
 shrinking, obedient, docile, man-reverencing, curate- 
 worshipping maiden of our youth will shortly vanish and 
 be no more seen. And what will the curate do then, 
 poor thing? Wherefore let the bishop look to certain 
 necessary changes in the marriage service; and let the 
 j-oung men see that their own ideas change with the 
 times, else there will be no sweethearts for them. More 
 could I prophesy, but refrain. 
 
 This young lady owned, besides those mentioned 
 above, many other points which will always be consid- 
 ered desirable at her age, whatever be the growth of 
 feminine education (wherefore, courage, brothers !) . In 
 all these points she contrasted favorably with her com- 
 panion. For her face was simny, and fair to look upon ; 
 one of the younger clerical dons — now a scanty band, 
 almost a remnant — was reported to have said, after gaz- 
 ing upon that face, that he now understood, which he 
 had never understood before, what Solomon meant when 
 he compared his love's temples to a piece of pomegran- 
 ate within her locks. No one asked him what he meant, 
 but he was a mathematical man, and so he must have 
 meant something, if it was only trigonometry. As to 
 her figure, it was wdiat a healthy, naturally dressed, 
 and strong young woman's figure ought to be, and not 
 more slender in the waist than was the figure of Venus 
 or Mother Eve; and her limbs were elastic, so that she 
 seemed when she walked as if she would like to run, 
 jump, and dance, which, indeed, she would have greatly 
 preferred, only at Newnham they " take it out" at lawn 
 tennis. And whatever might be the course of life 
 marked out by herself, it was quite certain to the intel- 
 ligent observer that before long Love the invincible — 
 Love that laughs at plots, plans, conspiracies, and de- 
 signs — would upset them all, and trace out quite an- 
 other line of life for her, and most probably the most 
 commonplace line of all. 
 
 "Your life, Constance," she went on, "seems to me 
 the most happy and the most fortunate. How nobly 
 you have vindicated the intellect of women by your 
 degree !" 
 
12 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 "No, vcij dear." Constance shook her head sadly.. 
 " No : only partly vindicated our intellect ; remember I 
 was but fifth wrangler, and there were four men — men, 
 Angela— above me. I wanted to be senior. " 
 
 " Everybody knows that the fifth is always as good 
 as the first." Constance, however, shook her head at 
 this daring attempt at consolation. "At all events, 
 Constance, you will go on to prove it by your original 
 papers when j'ou publish your researches. You will 
 lecture like Hypatia ; you will have the undergraduates 
 leaving the men and crowding to your theatre. You 
 will become the greatest mathematician in Cambridge ; 
 you will be famous for ever. You will do better than 
 man himself, even in man's most exalted level of intel- 
 lectual strength." 
 
 The pale cheek of the student flushed. 
 
 " I do not expect to do better than men," she replied 
 humbly. " It will be enough if I do as well. Yes, my 
 dear, all my life, short or long, shall be given to sci- 
 ence. I will have no love in it, or marriage, or — or — 
 anything of that kind at all." 
 
 "Nor will T," said the other stoutly, yet with appar- 
 ent effort. "Marriage spoils a woman's career; we 
 must live our life to its utmost, Constance." 
 
 "We must, Angela. It is the only thing in this 
 world of doubt that is a clear duty. I owe mine to sci- 
 ence. You, my dear, to " 
 
 She would have said to " Political Economy,'" but a 
 thought checked her. For a singular thing had hap- 
 pened only the day before. This friend of hers, this 
 Angela Messenger, who had recently illustrated the 
 strength of women's intellect by passing a really bril- 
 liant examination in that particular science, astonished 
 her friends at a little informal meeting in the library 
 by an oration. In this speech she went out of her 
 way to pour contempt upon Political Economy. It was 
 a so-called science, she said — not a science at all : a col- 
 lection of theories impossible of proof. It treated of 
 men and women as skittles, it ignored the principal 
 motives of action, it had been put together for the most 
 part by doctrinaires who lived apart, and knew nothing 
 about men and less about women, and it was a favorite 
 stud}^, she cruelly declared, of her own sex, because it 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 13 
 
 was the most easily crammed and made the most show. 
 As for herself, she declared that for all the good it had 
 done her, she might just as well have gone through a 
 course of sesthetics or studied the symbols of advanced 
 ritualism. 
 
 Therefore, remembering the oration, Constance Wood- 
 cote hesitated. To what Cause (with a capital C) should 
 Angela Messenger devote her life? 
 
 '• I will tell you presentlj'," said Angela, "how I shall 
 begin mj life. Where the beginning will lead me, I 
 cannot tell." 
 
 Then there was silence for a while. The sun sank 
 lower and the setting rays fell upon the foliage, and 
 every leaf showed like a leaf of gold, and the river lay 
 in shadow and became ghostly, and the windows of 
 Trinity Librarj'- opposite to them gMwed, and the New 
 Court of St. John's at their left hand became like unto 
 the palace of Kubla Khan. 
 
 " Oh !" sighed the young mathematician. " I shall 
 never be satisfied till iSTewnham crosses the river. We 
 must have one of these colleges for ourselves. We 
 must have King's. Yes, King's will be the best. And 
 oh ! how differently we shall live from the so-called stu- 
 dents who are now smoking tobacco in each other's 
 rooms, or playing billiards, or even cards — the superior 
 sex !" 
 
 " As for us, we shall presently go back to our rooms, 
 have a cup of tea and a talk, my dear. Then we shall 
 go to bed. As regards the men, those of your mental 
 level, Constance, do not, I suppose, plaj' billiards ; nor 
 do they smoke tobacco. Undergraduates are not all 
 students, remember. Most of tliem are nothing but 
 mere pass-men who will become curates." 
 
 Two points in this speech seem to call for remark. 
 First, the singular igniorance of mankind, common to 
 all women, which led the girl to believe that a great 
 man of science is superior to the pleasures of weaker 
 brethren; for they cannot understand the delights of 
 fooling. The second point is — but it may be left to 
 those who read as they run. 
 
 Then they rose and walked slowly under the grand 
 old trees of Trinit}' Avenue, facing the setting sun, so 
 that when they came to the end and turned to the left. 
 
14 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 it seemed as if they plunged into night. And pres- 
 ently they came to the gates of Newnham, the newer 
 Newnham, with its trim garden and Queen Anne man- 
 sion. It grates upon one that the beginnings of a noble 
 and lasting reform should be housed in a palace built in 
 the conceited fashion of the day. What will they say 
 of it in fifty years, when the fashion has changed and 
 new styles reign? 
 
 "Come," said Angela, "come into my room. Let 
 my last evening in the dear place be spent with you, 
 Constance." 
 
 Angela's own room was daintily furnished and 
 adorned with as many pictures, pretty things, books, 
 and bric-a-brac as the narrow dimensions of a Newn- 
 ham cell will allow. In a more advanced Newnham 
 there will be two rooms for each student, and these 
 will be larger. 
 
 The girls sat by the open window : the air was soft 
 and sweet. A bunch of cowslips from the Coton mead- 
 ows perfumed the room; there was the jug-jug of a 
 nightingale in some tree not far off ; opposite them were 
 the lights of the other Newnham. 
 
 " The last night !" said Angela. " I can hardly be- 
 lieve that I go down to-morrow." 
 
 Then she was silent again. 
 
 "My life," she went on, speaking softly in the twi- 
 light, "begins to-morrow. What am I to do with it? 
 Your own solution seems so easy because you are clever 
 and you have no money, while I, who am — well, dear, 
 not devoured by thirst for learning — have got so much. 
 To begin with, there is the Brewery. You cannot es- 
 cape from a big brewery if it belong to you. You can- 
 not hide it away. Messenger, Marsden & Company's 
 Stout, their XXX, their Old and Mild, their Bitter, 
 their Family Ales (that particularly at eight-and-six 
 the nine-gallon cask, if paid for on delivery), their 
 drays, their huge horses, their strong men, whose very 
 appearance advertises the beer, and makes the weak- 
 kneed and the narrow-chested rush to Whitechapel — 
 my dear, these things stare one in the face wherever 
 you go. I am that brewery, as you know. I am Mes- 
 senger, Marsden & Company, myself, the sole partner 
 in what my lawyer sweetly calls the Concern. Nobody 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIOXS OF MEN. 15 
 
 else is concerned in it. It is — alas! — my own Great 
 Concern, a dreadful responsibility." 
 
 " Wh}'? Your people manage it for j'ou." 
 
 "Yes — oh! yes — they do. And whether they man- 
 age it badly or well I do not know ; whether they make 
 wholesome beer or bad, whether they treat their clerks 
 and workmen generously or meanly, whether the name 
 of the company is beloved or hated, I do not know. 
 Perhaps the very making of beer at all is wickedness." 
 
 "But — Angela," the other interrupted, "it is no bus- 
 iness of yours. Naturally, wages are regulated by sup- 
 ply and " 
 
 " No, my dear. That is political economy. I prefer 
 the good old English plan. If I employ a man and he 
 works faithfully, I should like that man to feel that he 
 grows every day worth to me more than his market- 
 able value." 
 
 Constance was silenced. 
 
 "Then, beside the brewery," Angela went on, "there 
 is an unconscionable sum of money in the funds." 
 
 "There, at least," said her friend, "you need feel no 
 scruple of conscience." 
 
 " But indeed I do ; for how do I know that it is right 
 to keep all this money idle ! A hundred pounds saved 
 and put into the funds mean three pounds a year. It is 
 like a perennial stream flowing from a hidden reservoir 
 in the hillside. But this stream, in my case, does no 
 good at all. It neither fertilizes the soil nor is it drunk 
 by man or beast, nor does it turn mills, nor is it a beau- 
 tiful thing to look upon, nor does its silver current flow 
 by banks of flowers or fall in cascades. It all runs 
 away, and makes another reservoir in another hillside. 
 My dear, it is a stream of compound interest, which is 
 constantly getting deeper and broader and stronger, and 
 yet is never of the least use, and turns no "wheels. 
 Now, what am I to do with this money?" 
 
 "Endow Newnham; there, at least, is something 
 practical." 
 
 " I will found some scholarships, if you please, later 
 on, when 3'ou have made j'our own work felt. Again, 
 there are my houses in the East End." 
 
 "Sell them." 
 "That is only to shift the responsibility. My dear, 
 
16 ALL SORTS AXD CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 I have streets of bouses. The}^ all lie about Wbite- 
 cbapel way. M}" grandfatber, Jobn Messenger, bougbt 
 bouses, I believe, just as otber people buy apples, by 
 the peck, or some larger measure, a reduction being 
 made on taking a quantity. There they are, and mostly 
 inhabited." 
 
 " You have agents, I suppose?" said Constance un- 
 sympathizingl}^ " It is their duty to see that the houses 
 are well kept." 
 
 " Yes, I have agents. But they cannot absolve me 
 from responsibility." 
 
 "Then," asked Constance, "what do j^ou mean to 
 do?" 
 
 " I am a native almost of Whitechapel. My grand- 
 father, who succeeded to the brewery, was born there. 
 His father was also a brewer : his grandfather is, I be- 
 lieve, prehistoric : he lived there long after his son, my 
 father, was born. When he moved to Bloomsbury 
 Square he thought he was getting into quite a fashion- 
 able quarter, and he only w^ent to Portman Square be- 
 cause he desired me to go into society. I am so rich 
 that I shall quite certainly be welcomed in societ}^. 
 But, my dear, Whitechapel and its neighorbhood are 
 my proper sphere. Why, my very name ! I reek of 
 beer ; I am all beer ; my blood is beer. Angela Mars- 
 den Messenger ! What could more plainly declare my 
 connection with Messenger, Marsden & Company? I 
 only wonder that he did not call me Marsden-&-Com- 
 pany Messenger." 
 
 " But— Angela " 
 
 " He would, Constance, if he had thought of it. For, 
 you see, I was the heiress from the very beginning, be- 
 cause mv father died before mj' birth. And mj' grand- 
 father intended me to become the perfect brewer, if a 
 woman can attain to so high an ideal. Therefore I was 
 educated in the necessary and fitting lines. They taught 
 me the industries of England, the arts and manufact- 
 ures, mathematics, accounts, the great outlets of trade, 
 book-keeping, mechanics — all those things that are 
 practical. How it happened that I was allowed to learn 
 music I do not know. Then, wlien I grew up, I was 
 sent here by him, because the very air of Cambridge, 
 lie thought, makes people exact; and women are so 
 
ALL SOIiTS AND COXDITIONS OF 31EN. 17 
 
 prone to be inexact. I was to read while I was here all 
 the books about political and social economy. I have 
 also learned for business jxirposes two or three lan- 
 guages, I am now finished. I know all the theories 
 about people, and I don't believe any of them will work. 
 Therefore, my dear, I shall get to know the people be- 
 fore I apply them." 
 
 " Was your grandfather a student of political econ- 
 omy?" 
 
 " Not at all. But he had a respect for justice, and he 
 Vv^anted me to be just. It is so difficult, he used to saj^ 
 for a woman to be just. For either she flies into a rage 
 and punishes with excess, or she takes pity and for- 
 gives. As for himself, he was as hard as nails, and 
 the people knew it." 
 
 "And your project?" 
 
 " It is very simple. I efface myself. I vanish. I 
 disappear, " 
 
 "What?" 
 
 " If anybody asks where I am, no one will know, ex- 
 cept 5'ou, my dear; and you will not tell." 
 
 " You will be in " ' 
 
 " In Whitechapel, or thereabouts. Your Angela will 
 be a dressmaker, and she will live by herself and be- 
 come — what her great-grandmother was — one of the 
 people." 
 
 " You will not like it at all." 
 
 " Perhaps not ; but I am weary of theories, facts, sta- 
 tistics. I want flesh and blood. I want to feel myself 
 a part of tliis striving, eager, anxious humanity, on 
 whose labors I live in comfort, by whom I have been 
 educated, to whom I owe all, and for whom I have 
 done nothing — no, nothing at all, selfish wretch that I 
 am!" 
 
 She clasped her hands with a fine gesture of remorse. 
 
 " O woman of silence !" she cried ; " you sit upon 
 the heights, and you can disregard — because it is your 
 right — the sorrows and the joys of the w^orld. But I 
 cannot. I belong to the people — with a great big P, 
 my dear — I cannot bear to go on living by their toil and 
 giving nothing in return. What a dreadful thing is a 
 she-Dives!" 
 
 "I confess," said Constance coldly, "that I have al- 
 2 
 
18 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF 3IEN. 
 
 ways regarded wealth as a means for leading the higher 
 life — the life of study and research — unencumbered by 
 the sordid aims and mean joys of the vulgar herd." 
 
 " It is possible and right for you to live apart, my 
 dear. It is impossible, because it would be wrong for 
 me." 
 
 ''But — alone? You will venture into the dreadful 
 region alone?" 
 
 " Quite alone, Constance." 
 
 " And — and — j^our reputation, Angela?" 
 
 Angela laughed merrily. 
 
 " As for my reputation, my dear, it may e care of 
 itself. Those of my friends who think I am not to be 
 trusted may transfer their affection to more worth}^ ob- 
 jects. The first thing in the emancipation of the sex, 
 Constance, is equal education. The next is " 
 
 "What?" for Angela paused. 
 
 She drew forth from her pocket a small bright instru- 
 ment of steel, which glittered in the twilight. Not a 
 revolver, dear readers. 
 
 " The next," she said, brandishing the weapon before 
 Constance's eyes, "is— the LATCH-KEY." 
 
 PROLOGUE.— Part II. 
 
 The time was eleven in the forenoon ; the season was 
 the month of roses ; the place was a room on the first 
 floor at the Park-end of Piccadilly — a noisy room, be- 
 cause the windows were open, and there was a great 
 thunder and rattle of cabs, omnibuses, and all kinds of 
 vehicles. When this noise became, as it sometimes 
 did, intolerable, the occupant of the room shut his 
 doulDle windows, and immediately there was a great 
 calm, with a melodious roll of distant wheels, like the 
 buzzing of bees about the marigold on a summer after- 
 noon. With the double window a man may calmly sit 
 down amid even the roar of Cheapside, or the never- 
 ending cascade of noise at Charing Cross. 
 
 The room was furnished with taste; the books on the 
 shelves were well bound, as if the owner took a proper 
 pride in them, as indeed was the case. There were two 
 
ALL SORTS AND COXDITIOXS OF MEN. Id 
 
 or three good pictures; there was a girl's head in mar- 
 ble; there were cards and invitations lying on the man- 
 tel-shelf and in a rack beside the clock. Everybod}'' 
 could tell at the first look of the room that it was a 
 bachelor's den. Also because nothing was new, and 
 because there were none of the peacockeries, whims and 
 fancies, absurdities, fads and fashions, gimcrackeries, 
 the presence of which does always and infallibly pro- 
 claim the chamber of a young man ; this room mani- 
 festly belonged to a bachelor who was old in the pro- 
 fession. In fact, the owner of the chambers, of which 
 this was the breakfast, morning, and dining-room, 
 whenever he dined at home, was seated in an armchair 
 beside a breakfast-table, looking straight before him, 
 with a face filled with anxiety. An honest, ugly, pleas- 
 ing, rugged, attractive face, whose features were carved 
 one day when Dame Nature was benevolently disposed, 
 but had a blunt chisel. 
 
 "I always told him," he muttered, "that he should 
 learn the whole of his family history as soon as he was 
 three-and-twenty years of age. One must keej) such 
 promises. Yet it would have been better that he should 
 never know. But then it might have been found out, 
 and that would have been far worse. Yet, how could 
 it have been found out? No: that is ridiculous." 
 
 He mused in silence. In his fingers he held a cigar 
 which he had lit, but allowed to go out again. The 
 morning paper was lying on the table, unopened. 
 
 " How will the boy take it?" he asked; " will he take 
 it crying? Or will he take it laughing?" 
 
 He smiled, picturing to himself the "boy's" astonish- 
 ment. 
 
 Looking at the man more closel}', one became aware 
 that he was really a very pleasant-looking person. He 
 was about five-and-forty years of age, and he wore a 
 full beard and mustache, after the manner of his con- 
 temporaries, with whom a beard is still considered a 
 manly ornament to the face. The beard was brown, 
 but it began to show, as wine-merchants say of port, 
 the " appearance of age." In some light, there was 
 more gTay than bro^\'n. His dark-brown hair, how- 
 ever, retained its original thickness of thatch, and was 
 as yet untouched by any streak of gray. Seeing that 
 
20 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 he belonged to one of the oldest and host of English 
 families, one might have expected something of that 
 delicacy of feature which some of us associate with 
 birth. But, as has already been said, his face was 
 rudely chiselled, his complexion was ruddy, and he 
 looked as robust as a plough-boy ; yet he had the air of an 
 English gentleman, and that ought to satisfy anybody. 
 And he was the younger son of a duke, being by cour- 
 tesy Lord Jocelj'n Le Brett n. 
 
 While he was thus meditating, there was a quick 
 step on the stair, and the subject of his thoughts entered 
 the room. 
 
 This interesting young man was a much more aris- 
 tocratic person to look upon than his senior. He pa 
 raded, so to speak, at every point, the thoroughbred air. 
 His thin and delicate nose, his clear eye, his high 
 though narrow forehead, his well-cut lip, his firm chin, 
 his pale cheek, his oval face, the slim figure, the thin, 
 long fingers, the spring of his walk, the poise of his 
 head — what more could one expect even from the de- 
 scendant of all the Howards? But this morning the 
 pallor of his cheek was flushed as if with some disquiet- 
 ing news. 
 
 " Good-morning, Harry, " said Lord Jocelyn quietly. 
 
 Harry returned the greeting. Then he threw upon 
 the table a small packet of papers. 
 
 " There, sir, I have read them ; thank you for letting 
 me see them." 
 
 " Sit down, boy, and let us talk ; will you have a ci- 
 gar? Wo? A cigarette, then? No? You are prob- 
 ablv a little upset by this — new — unexpected revela- 
 tion?" 
 
 "A liffle upset!" repeated the young man, with a 
 short laugh. 
 
 " To be sure — to be sure — one could expect nothing 
 else; now sit down, and let us talk over the matter 
 calmly. " 
 
 The young man sat down, but he did not present the 
 appearance of one inclined to talk over the matter 
 calmly. 
 
 "In novels," said Lord Jocelyn, "it is always the 
 good fortune of 5'oung gentlemen brought up in igno- 
 rance of their parentage to turn out, when they do dis- 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 21 
 
 cover their origin, the heirs to an illustrious name ; I 
 have always admired that in novels. In your case, my 
 poor Harry, the reverse is the case; the distinction 
 ought to console j^ou." 
 
 " Why was I not told before?" 
 
 " Because the boyish brain is more open to prejudice 
 than that of the adult ; because, among your compan- 
 ions, you certainly would have felt at a disadvantage 
 had you known yourself to be the son of a " 
 
 You always told me, " said HaiTj^ " that my father 
 was in the army !" 
 
 "What do you call a sergeant in a line regiment, 
 then?" 
 
 " Oh ! of course, but among gentlemen — I mean — 
 among" the set with whom I Avas brought up, to be in 
 the army means to have a commission." 
 
 " Yes : that was my pardonable deception. I thought 
 that you would respect yourself more if you felt that 
 your father, like the fathers of your friends, belonged 
 to the upper class. Now, my dear boy, you will re- 
 spect yourself just as much, although you know that he 
 was but a sergeant, and a brave fellow who fell at my 
 side in the Indian Mutiny." 
 
 " And my mother?" 
 
 "I did not know her; she was dead before I found 
 you out, and took you from 3^our Uncle Bunker." 
 
 " Uncle Bunker!" Harry laughed, with a little bitter- 
 ness. " Uncle Bunker ! Fancy asking one's Uncle 
 Bunker to dine at the club! What is he by trade?" 
 
 "He is something near a big brewery, a brewery 
 boom, as the Americans say. AVhat he actually is, I 
 do not quite know. He lives, if I remember rightly, at 
 a place an immense distance from here, called Step- 
 ney." 
 
 " Do you know anj'thing more about my father's 
 family?" 
 
 " No ! The sergeant was a tall, handsome, well set-up 
 man; but I know nothing about his connections. His 
 name, if that is any help to you, was, was — in fact " — 
 here Lord Jocelyn assumed an air of ingratiating sweet- 
 ness — " was — Goslett — Goslett ; not a bad name, I think, 
 pronounced with perhaps a leaning to an accent on the 
 last syllable. Don't you agree with me, Harry?" 
 
22 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 "Oh! yes, it will do. Better than Bunker, and not 
 so good as Le Breton. As for my Christian name, 
 now?" 
 
 "There I ventured on one small variation." 
 
 "Am I not, then, even Harry'?" 
 
 " Yes, 5^es, yes, you are — now ; formerly you were 
 Harry without the H. It is the custom of the neigh- 
 borhood in which you were born." 
 
 " I see! If I go back among my own people, I shall 
 be, then, once more 'Arry?" 
 
 "Yes; and shout on penny steamers, and brandish 
 pint bottles of stout, and sing along the streets, in sim- 
 ple abandonment to Arcadian joy ; and trample on flow- 
 ers ; and break pretty things for wantonness ; and ex- 
 ercise a rude but effective wit, known among the an- 
 cients as Fescennine, upon passing ladies; and get 
 drunk o' nights; and walk the streets with a pipe in 
 your mouth. That is what you would be, if you went 
 back, my dear child." 
 
 Harry laughed. 
 
 "After all," he said, "this is a very difficult position. 
 I can no longer go about pretending anything ; I must 
 tell people." 
 
 "Is that absolutely necessarj^?" 
 
 " Quite necessary. It will be a deuce of a business, 
 explaining." 
 
 " Shall we tell it to one person, and let him be the 
 town-crier?" 
 
 " That, I suppose, would be the best plan ; meantime, 
 I could retire, while I made some plans for the future." 
 
 " Perhaps, if you really must tell the truth, it would 
 be well to go out of town for a bit." 
 
 "As for myself," Harry continued, "I suppose I shall 
 get over the wrench after a bit. Just for the moment I 
 feel knocked out of time." 
 
 " Keep the secret, then ; let it be one between you and 
 me only, Harry; let no one know." 
 
 But he shook his head. 
 
 " Everybody must know. Those who refuse to keep 
 up the acquaintance of a private soldier's son — well, 
 then, a non-commissioned officer's son — will probably 
 let me know their decision, some way or other. Those 
 who do not " He pa,used. 
 
ALL SORTS AXD CONDITIONS OF MEN. 23 
 
 " Nonsense, boy ; who cares nowadays what a man is 
 by birth? Is not this great city full of people who go 
 anywhere, and are nobody's sons? Look here, and 
 here"— he tossed half a dozen cards of invitation across 
 the table— "can you tell me who these people were 
 twenty years ago — or these — or these?" 
 
 " No : I do not care in the least who they were. I 
 care only that they shall know who I am ; I will not, 
 for my part, pretend to be what I am not." 
 
 " I believe you are right, boy. Let the world laugh 
 if they please, and have done with it." 
 
 Harry began to walk up and down the room ; he cer- 
 tainly did not look the kind of a man to give in ; to try 
 hiding things away. Quite the contrary. And he 
 laughed — he took to laughing. 
 
 " I suppose it will sound comic at first," he said, " until 
 people get used to it. Do you know what he turns out 
 to be? That kind of thing : after all, we think too much 
 about what people say— what does it matter what they 
 say or how they say it? If they like to laugh, they can. 
 Who shall be the town-crier?" 
 
 " I was thinking," said Lord Jocelyn slowly, "of call- 
 ing to-day upon Lady Wimbledon." 
 
 _ The young man laughed, with a little heightening of 
 his color. 
 
 " Of course — a very good person, an excellent person, 
 and to-morrow it will be all over London. There are one 
 or two things," he went on after a moment, "that I do 
 not understand from the papers which you put into my 
 hands last night." 
 
 "What are those things?" Lord Jocelj-n for a mo- 
 ment looked uneasy. 
 
 "Well — perhaps it is impertinent to ask. But— 
 when Mr. Bunker, the respectable Uncle Bunker, traded 
 me away, what did he get for me?" 
 
 "Every bargain has two sides," said Lord Joceh'n. 
 " You know what I got, you want to know what the 
 honorable Bunker got. Harry, on that point I must 
 refer j'ou to the gentleman himself. " 
 
 "Very good. Then I come to the next difficulty— a 
 staggerer. What did you do it for? One moment, sir— 
 for Lord Jocelyn seemed about to reply. "One mo- 
 ment. You were rich, you were well born, you were 
 
24 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 young. What on earth made you pick a boy out of the 
 gutter and bring him up like a gentleman?" 
 
 " You are twenty-three, Harry, and yet you ask for 
 motiveSo My dear boy, have you not learned the golden 
 rule? In all human actions look for the basest motive, 
 and attribute that. If you see any reason for stopping 
 short of quite the lowest spurs to action, such as re- 
 venge, hatred, malice, and envy, suppose the next low- 
 est, and you will be quite safe. That next lowest is — 
 son altesse, ma vanite." 
 
 " Oh ! " replied Harry, " yet I fail to see how a child 
 of the lowest classes could supply any satisfaction for 
 even the next lowest of human motives." 
 
 " It was partly in this way. Mind, I do not for one 
 moment pretend to answer the whole of your question. 
 Men's motives, thank Heaven, are so mixed up, that no 
 one can be quite a saint, vrhile no one is altogether a 
 sinner. Nature is a leveller, which is a comfort to us 
 who are born in levelling times. In those days I was 
 by way of being a kind of Radical. Not a Radical such 
 as those who delight mankind in these happier days. 
 But I had Liberal leanings, and thought I had ideas. 
 When I was a boy of twelve or so, there were the '48 
 theories floating about the air; some of them got into 
 my brain and stuck there. Men used to believe that a 
 great time was coming — perhaps I heard a whisper of 
 it; perhaps I was endowed with a greater faculty for 
 credulity than my neighbors, and believed in humanity. 
 However, I do not seek to explain. It may have oc- 
 curred to me — I do not say it did — but I have a kind of 
 recollection as if it did — one daj^ after I had seen .you, 
 then in the custody of the respectable Bunker, that it 
 would be an instructive and humorous thing to take a 
 boy of the multitude and bring him up in all the culture, 
 the tastes, the ideas of ourselves — you and me, for in- 
 stance, Harry. This idea may have seized upon me, 
 so that the more I tliought of it, the better pleased I 
 was with it. I may have pictured such a boy so 
 taught, so brought up, with such tastes, returning to 
 his own people. Disgust, I may have said, w^ill make 
 him a prophet ; and such a prophet as the world has 
 never j'et seen. He would be like the follower of the 
 Old Man of the Mountain. He would never cease to 
 
ALL SORTH AND COyDITIOyS OF MEN. 25 
 
 dream of the paradise he had seen: he would never 
 cease to tell of it; he would be always leading his 
 friends upward to the same levels on which he had once 
 stood." 
 
 " Humph !" said Harry. 
 
 " Yes, I know," Lord Jocelyn went on. " I ought to 
 have foretold that the education I prepared for you 
 would have unfitted you for the role of prophet. I am 
 not disappointed in 3'ou, Hany — quite the reverse. I 
 now see that what has happened has been only what I 
 should have expected. By some remarkable accident, 
 you possess an appearance such as is generall}^ believed 
 to belong to persons of long-continued gentle descent. 
 By a still more remarkable accident, all your tastes 
 prove to be those of the cultured classes ; the blood of 
 the Bunkers has, in yourself, assumed the most azure 
 hue." 
 
 "That is very odd," said Harry. 
 
 "It is a very remarkable thing, indeed," continued 
 Lord Jocelyn gravely. " I have never ceased to won- 
 der at this phenomenon. However, I was unable to 
 send you to a public school on account of the necessity, 
 as I thought, of concealing your parentage. But I gave 
 you instruction of the best, and found for you compan- 
 ions — as you know, among the " 
 
 "Yes," said Harry. "My companions were gentle- 
 men, I suppose; I learned from them." 
 
 " Perhaps. Still, the earthenware pot cannot become 
 a brass pot, whatever he may pretend. You were good 
 metal from the beginning." 
 
 "You are now, Harry," he went on, "three-and- 
 twenty. You are master of three foreign languages; 
 you have travelled on the Continent and in America; 
 j'ou are a good rider, a good shot, a good fencer, a good 
 dancer. You can paint a little, fiddle a little, dance a 
 gi'eat deal, act pretty well, speak pretty well ; you can, 
 I dare say, make love as becomes a gentleman ; you can 
 write very fair verses ; you are good-looking, you have 
 the air noble; you are not a prig; j'ou are not an aes- 
 thete; you possess your share of common sense." 
 
 " One thing you have omitted which, at the present 
 juncture, maybe more useful than any of these things." 
 
 "What is that?" 
 
26 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 " You were good enough to give me a lathe, and to 
 have me instructed in tiie mysteries of turning. I am 
 a practical cabinet-maker, it' need be." 
 
 " But why should this be of use to you?" 
 
 " Because, Lord Jocelyn" — Harry ran and leaned over 
 the table with a sweet smile of determination on his 
 face — "because I am going back to my own people for 
 a while, and it may be that the trade of cabinet-making 
 may prove a very backbone of strength to me among 
 them " 
 
 " Harry — you would not — indeed, you could not go 
 back to Bunker?" Lord Jocelyn asked this question 
 with every outward appearance of genuine alarm. 
 
 " I certainly would. My very kind guardian and pat- 
 ron, would you stand in my way? I want to see those 
 people from where I am sprung : I want to learn how 
 they differ from you and your kin. I must compare 
 myself with them — I must prove the brotherhood of 
 humanity." 
 
 "You will go? Yes — I see you will — it is in your 
 eyes. Go, then, Harry. But return to me soon. The 
 slender fortune of a younger son shall be shared with 
 you so long as I live, and given to j^ou when I die. 
 Do not stay among them. There are, indeed — at least, 
 I suppose so — all sorts and conditions of men. But to 
 me, and to men brought up like you and me, I do not 
 understand how there can be any but one sort and one 
 condition. Come back soon, boy. Believe me — no — ■ 
 do not believe me — prove it yourself : in the social pyra- 
 mid, the greatest happiness, Harry, lies near the top." 
 
 CHAPTEH I. 
 
 NEWS FOR HIS LORDSHIP. 
 
 "I HAVE news for your lordship," said Mrs. Borma- 
 lack, at the breakfast-table, " something that will cheer 
 you up a bit. We are to have an addition to our 
 family." 
 
 His lordship nodded his head, meaning that he would 
 receive her news without more delay than was neces- 
 sary, but that at present his mind was wholly occupied 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 27 
 
 with a contest between one of his teeth and a crust. 
 The tooth was an outlying one, all its lovely compan- 
 ions having withered and gone, and it was undefended ; 
 the crust was unj-ielding. For the moment no one 
 could tell what might be the result. 
 
 Her ladyship replied for him. 
 
 Lady Davenant was a small woman, if you go by 
 inches ; her exalted rank gave her, however, a dignity 
 designed for very much larger persons; yet she carried 
 it with ease. She was by no means young, and her 
 hair was thin as well as gray; her face, which was 
 oval and delicately curved, might formerly have been 
 beautiful; the eyes were bright and eager, and con- 
 stantly in motion, as is often the case with restless and 
 nervous persons ; her lips were thin and as full of inde- 
 pendent action as her eyes ; she had thin hands, so small 
 that they might have belonged to a child of eight, when 
 inclined for vaunting, the narrowest and most sloping 
 shoulders that ever were seen, so sloping that people 
 unaccustomed to her were wont to tremble lest the 
 whole of her dress should suddenly slide straight down 
 those shoulders, as down a slope of ice; and strange 
 ladies, impelled by this apprehension, had been known 
 to ask her in a friendly whisper if she could thoroughly 
 depend upon the pins at her throat. As Mrs. Borma- 
 lack often said, speaking of her noble boarders among 
 her friends, those shoulders of her ladyship were " quite 
 a feature." Next to the pride of having at her table 
 such guests — who, however, did not give in to the good 
 old English custom of paying double prices for having 
 a title — was the distinction of pointing to those unique 
 shoulders and of talking about them. 
 
 Her ladyship hail a shrill, reedy voice, and spoke 
 loudly. It was remarked by the most superficial ob- 
 server, moreover, that she possessed a very strong Amer- 
 ican accent. 
 
 "At our first boarding-house," she said, replying in- 
 directly to the landlady's remark, ''at our first board- 
 ing-house, which was in Wellclose Square, next to the 
 Board Schools, there was a man who once actually 
 slapped his lordship on the back. And then he 
 laughed ! To he sure, he was only a Dane, but the dis- 
 respect was just the same." 
 
28 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 " My dear," said his lordship, who now spoke, having 
 compromised matters with the crust, " tiie ignominy of 
 being- slapped on the back by a powerful sea-captain is 
 hardly to be weighed in comparison with the physical 
 pain it causes." 
 
 "We are quite sure, however, Mrs. Bormalack," the 
 lady went on, " that you will admit none under your 
 roof but those prepared to respect rank; we want no 
 levellers or mischievous Radicals for our companions." 
 
 " It is to be a young lady, " said Mrs. Bormalack. 
 
 " Young ladies, at all events, do iiot slap gentlemen 
 on the back, whether they are noblemen or not," said 
 his lordship kindly. " We shall be happy to welcome 
 her, ma'am." 
 
 This ornament of the Upper House was a big, fat 
 man, with a face like a full moon. His features were 
 not distinctly aristocratic ; his cheeks were flabby and 
 his nose broad ; also he had a double chin. His long 
 hair was a soft, creamy white, the kind of white which 
 in old age follows a manhood of red hair. He sat in an 
 arm-chair at the end of the table, with his elbows on the 
 arms, as if he desired to get as much rest out of the 
 chair as possible. His eyes were very soft and dreamy ; 
 his expression was that of a man who has been accus- 
 tomed to live in the quieter parts of the world. He, 
 too, spoke with a marked American accent and with 
 slowness, as if measuring his words, and appreciating 
 himself their importance. The dignity of his manner 
 w^as not wholly due to his position, but in great meas- 
 ure to his former profession. For his lordship had not 
 always rejoiced in his present dignity, nor, in fact, had 
 he been brought up to it. Persons intending to be- 
 come peers of Great Britain do not, as a rule, first spend 
 more than forty years as schoolmasters in their native 
 town. And just as clergymen, and especially young 
 clergymen, love to talk loud, because it makes people 
 remember that they are in the presence of those whose 
 wisdom demands attention, so old schoolmasters speak 
 slowly because their words — even the lightest, which 
 are usually pretty heavy — have got to be listened to, 
 under penalties. 
 
 As soon, however, as he began to "enjoy the title," 
 the ex-schoolmaster addressed himself with some care 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 29 
 
 to the cultivation of a manner which he thought due to 
 his position. It was certainlj^ pompous; it was in- 
 tended to be affable ; it was naturally, because he was 
 a man of a most kind disposition and an excellent heart, 
 courteous and considerate. 
 
 " I am rejoiced, Mrs. Bormalack," he went on grandl}'', 
 and with a bow, " that we are to be cheered in our do- 
 mestic circle by the addition of a young lady. It is an 
 additional proof, if any were needed, of the care with 
 which you consider the happiness of your guests." The 
 professor, who owed for five weeks, murmured that no 
 one felt it more than himself. "Sometimes, ma'am, I 
 own that even with the delightful society of j^ourself " 
 (*' O my lord, your lordship is too kind," said Mrs. 
 Bormalack) "and of the accomplished professor" — 
 here he bowed to the professor, who nodded and spread 
 out his hands professionally — " and of the learned Mr. 
 Daniel Fagg" — here he bowed to Mr. Fagg, who took 
 no notice at all, because he was thinking of his triangles 
 and was gazing straight before him — "'' and of Mr. Jo- 
 sephus Coppins" — here he bowed to Josephus Coppins, 
 who humbly inclined his head without a smile — " and 
 of Mr. Maliphant" — here he bowed to Mr. Maliphant, 
 who with a breakfast knife was trying to make a knobly 
 crust assume the shape of a human head, in fact the head 
 of Mr. Gladstone — " and of Mr. Harry Goslett, who is 
 not with us so much as we could desire of so sprightly 
 a young man ; and surrounded as we are by all the gay- 
 ety and dissipation and splendor of London, I some- 
 times suspect that we are not always so cheerful as we 
 might be." 
 
 "Give me," said his wife, folding her little hands 
 and looking round her with a warlike expression, as if 
 inviting contradiction — "give me Canaan Cit}", New 
 Hampshire, for gayet}'." 
 
 Nobody combated this position, nor did anybod}" re- 
 ply at all, unless the pantomime of the professor was 
 intended for a reply by gesture, like the learned Thau- 
 mast. For, with precision and abstracted air, he rolled 
 up a little ball of bread, about as big as a marble, placed 
 it in the palm of his left hand, closed his fingers upon 
 it, and then opened them, showing that the ball had 
 vanished. Then he executed the slightest possible 
 
80 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 shrug of his shoulders, spread out his hands, and nodded 
 to his lordship, saying, with a sweet smile : 
 
 ■'Pretty thing, isn't it?" 
 
 "I hope, sir, that she will be pretty," said his lord- 
 ship, thinking of the young lady. " To look at a pretty 
 face is as good as a day of sunshine." 
 
 "She is a beautiful girl," Mrs. Bormalack replied 
 with enthusiasm, " and I am sure she must be as good 
 as she is pretty ; because she paid three months in ad- 
 vance. With a piano, too, which she will play her- 
 self. She is a dressmaker by trade, and she wants to 
 set herself up in a genteel way. And she's got a little 
 money, she sa3's ;" a sweet smile crossed her face as she 
 thought that most of this little money would come into 
 her own pocket. 
 
 "A dressmaker!" cried her ladyship. "Do tell! I 
 was in that line myself before I married. That was 
 long before we began to enjoy the title. You don't 
 know, ma'am" — here she dropped her voice — " you don't 
 know how remarkably fond his lordship is of a pretty 
 face; choice with them, too. Not every face pleases 
 him. Oh! you wouldn't believe how particular. Which 
 shows his aristocratic descent; because we all know 
 what his ancestors were." 
 
 " To be sure, " said the landlady, nodding signifi- 
 cantly. "We all know what they were. Rovers to 
 a man — I mean a lord. And as for the young lady, 
 she will be here this evening, in time for tea. Shrimps 
 and Sally Lunn, my lord. And her name is Miss Ken- 
 nedy. Respectable, if poor ; and illustrious ancestors is 
 more than we can all of us have, nor yet deserve." 
 
 Here the professor rose, having finished his break- 
 fast. One might have noticed that he had extremely 
 long and delicate fingers, and that they seemed alwa5"S 
 in movement; also that he had a way of looking at you 
 as if he meant you to look straight and steady into his 
 eyes, and not to go rolling your eyes about in the frivo- 
 lous, irresponsible way affected by some people. He 
 walked slowly to the window ; then, as if seized with 
 an irresistible impulse to express his feelings in panto- 
 mime, or else, it may be, to try an experiment, returned 
 to the table, and asked for the loan of his lordship's 
 pocket-handkerchief, which Vv^as a large red silk one. 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 31 
 
 well fitted for the purpose. How he conve3*od a saucer 
 uuseen from the table into that handkerchief, and how 
 that saucer got into the nobleman's coat-tail pocket, 
 were things known only to himself. Yet familiarity 
 breeds contempt, and though everybody looked on, no- 
 body expressed delight or astonishment, for this exhibi- 
 tion of magic and spells went on every day, and when- 
 ever the professor was among them. He moved about 
 accompanied, so to speak, by a legion of invisible at- 
 tendants and servants, who conveyed, hid, brought back, 
 uncovered, discovered, recovered, lost, found, rapped, 
 groaned, cried, whistled, sang, moved chairs and ta- 
 bles, and, in fact, behaved as only a troop of well- 
 drilled elves can behave. He was a young man of 
 twenty-five, and he had a great gift of silence. By 
 trade he was a professor of legerdemain. Other pro- 
 fessors there are who hold up the light of this science, 
 and hand it down to posterity undimmed; but none 
 with such an ardent love for their work as Professor 
 Climo. For he practised all daj^ long, except when he 
 was reading the feats of the illustrious conjurers, sor- 
 cerers, necromancers, and wizards of old time, or in- 
 venting new combinations, traps for the credulous, 
 and contrivances to make that which was not seen like 
 unto that which was. The East End of London is not 
 the richest field for such performers ; but he was 3'oung, 
 and he lived in hope — very often, when there were no 
 engagements — upon it. At such times ho became a 
 simi)le lodger, instead of a boarder, at Mrs. Bormu- 
 hick's, and went without any meals. 
 
 The situation of this boarding-house, poetically de- 
 scribed by his lordship as in the midst of the gayety of 
 London, was in the far East, in that region of London 
 which is less known to Englishmen than if it were sit- 
 uated in the wildest part of Colorado, or among the 
 pine forests of British Columbia. It stood, in fact, 
 upon Stepney Green, a small strip of Eden which has 
 been visited by few, indeed, of those who do not live in 
 its immediate vicinity. Yet it is a romantic spot. 
 
 Two millions of people, or thereabouts, live in the 
 East End of London. That seems a good-sized popula- 
 tion for an utterly unknoAvn town. They have n(^ in- 
 stitutions of their own to speak of, no public buildings 
 
33 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 of any importance, no municipality, no gentry, no car- 
 riages, no soldiers, no picture-galleries, no theatres, no 
 opera — they have nothing. It is the fashion to believe 
 that they are all paupers, which is a foolish and mis- 
 chievous belief, as we shall presently see. Probably 
 there is no such spectacle in the whole world as that of 
 this immense, neglected, forgotten great city of East 
 London. It is even neglected by its own citizens, who 
 have never yet perceived their abandoned condition. 
 They are Londoners, it is true, but they have no part 
 or share of London ; its wealth, its splendors, its hon- 
 ors exist not for them. They see nothing of any splen- 
 dors; even tlie Lord Mayor's show goeth westward: 
 the city lies between them and the greatness of Eng- 
 land. They are beyond the wards, and cannot become 
 aldermen; the rich London merchants go north and 
 south and west; but they go not east. Nobody goes 
 east ; no one wants to see the place ; no one is curious 
 about the way of life in the east. Books on London 
 pass it over ; it has little or no history ; great men are 
 not buried in its church-yards, which are not even an- 
 cient, and crow^ded by citizens as obscure as those who 
 now breathe the upper airs about them. If anything 
 happens in the east, people at the other end have to 
 stop and think before they can remember where the 
 place may be. 
 
 The house was old, built of red bricks with a "shell" 
 decoration over the door. It contained room for about 
 eight boarders, who had one sitting-room in common. 
 This was the breakfast-room, a meal at which all were 
 present; the dining-room — but nobody except his lord- 
 ship and wife dined at home; the tea-room — but tea 
 was too early for most of the boarders ; and the supper- 
 room. After supper tobacco was tolerated. The 
 boarders were generally men, and mostly elderly men 
 of staid and quiet manners, with whom the evening 
 pipe was the conclusion and solace of the day. It was 
 not like the perpetual incense of the tqp-room, and yet 
 the smell of tobacco was never absent from the room, 
 lingering about the folds of the dingy curtain, which 
 served for both summer and winter, clinging to the 
 horsehair sofa, to the leather of the chairs, and to the 
 rusty table-cloth. 
 
ALL SORTS AXD CONDITIO XS OF MEN. 33 
 
 The furniture was old and mean. The wall-paper 
 had once been crimson, but now was only dark; the 
 ceiling had for many years wanted whitewashing bad- 
 ly ; the door and windows wanted painting ; the win- 
 dows always wanted cleaning ; the rope of one of the 
 blinds was broken ; and the blind itself, not nearly so 
 white as it might have been, Avas pinned half-wa}' up. 
 Everything was shabb}* ; everj'thing wanted polishing, 
 washing, brightening up. 
 
 A couple of arm-chairs stood, when meals were not 
 going on, one on either side of the fireplace — one being 
 reserved for his lordship, and the other for his wife; 
 the)^ were, like the sofa, of horsehair, and slippery. 
 There was a long table covered bj' a faded red cloth ; the 
 carpet was a Brussels once of a warm crimson, now 
 worn threadbare; the hearth-rug was worn into holes; 
 one or two of the chairs had broken out and showed 
 glimpses of stuffing. The sideboard was of old-fash- 
 ioned build, and a shiny black by reason of its age; 
 there were two or three hanging shelves filled with 
 books, the property of his lordship, who loved reading, 
 the mantel-shelf was decorated by a small collection of 
 pipes ; and above it hung the portrait of the late Samuel 
 Bormalack, formerly a collector in the great brewing 
 house of Messenger,, Marsden & Compan}-. 
 
 His widow, who carried on the house, was a comfort- 
 able — a serenely comfortable woman, who regarded the 
 world from the optimist's point of view. Perfect health 
 and a tolerably prosperous business, where the returns 
 are regular though the profits are small, make the pos- 
 sessor agree with Pope and Candide that everything is 
 for the best in this best of all possible worlds. Impos- 
 sible not to be contented, happy, and religious, when 
 5'our wishes are narrowed to a tidy dinner, a comforta- 
 ble supper with a little something hot, boarders who 
 pay up regular, do not grumble, and go to bed sober; 
 and a steady hope that you will not get "something," 
 by which of course is meant that you may not fall ill 
 of any disagreeable or painful disease. To " get some- 
 thing" is one of the pretty euphemisms of our daily 
 speech. 
 
 She had had one or two unlucky accidents, such as 
 the case of Captain Saffrey, who stayed two months, 
 3 
 
34 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 and drank enough beer to float a three-decker, and then 
 sailed away, promising to pay, and would have done 
 so — for he was an honest man — but had the misfortune 
 to fall overboard while in liquor. But her present 
 boarders seemed most respectable, and she was at ease. 
 
 Of course, the persons of greatest consideration among 
 them were the noble pair who enjoyed the title. Rank 
 is respected, if you please, even at the East End of 
 London, and perhaps more there than in fashionable 
 quarters, because it is so rare. King John, it is true, 
 had once a palace at Stepney; but that is a long time 
 to look back upon, and even the oldest inhabitant can 
 now not remember to have been kicked by the choleric 
 monarch. Then the Marquis of Worcester had once a 
 great house here, what time the sainted Charles was 
 ripening things for a row royal. That house is gone 
 too, and I do not know where it used to stand. From 
 the time of this East End marquis to the arrival of 
 Lord and Lady Davenant, last year, there have been 
 no resident members of the English aristocracy^ and no 
 member of the foreign nobilit}^, wath the exception of a 
 certain dusky Marquis of Choufleur, froin Hayti, who 
 is reported on good authority to have once lived in these 
 parts for six months, thinking he was in the politest 
 and most fashionable suburb of London. He is further 
 said to have carried on with Satanic wildness in Lime- 
 house and the West India Dock Road of an evening. 
 A Japanese, too, certainly once went to a hotel in 
 America Square, which is not quite the East End, and 
 said he was a prince in his own countr}'. He stayed a 
 week, and drank champagne all day long. Then he 
 decamped without paying the bill ; and when the land- 
 lord went to the embassy to complain, he thought it 
 was the ambassador himself, until he discovered that 
 all Japanese are exactly alike. Wherefore he desisted 
 from any further attempt to identify the missing prince 
 for want of the missing link, namely, some distinctive 
 feature. 
 
 The illustrious pair had now been in the house for six 
 weeks. Previously they had spent some time in Well- 
 close Square, which is no doubt well known to fashion- 
 able readers, and lies contiguous to St. George's Street. 
 Here happened that accident of the back-slr»pping so 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF 3IEN. 35 
 
 frequently alluded to by her lad3'ship. They were come 
 from America to take up an old family title Avliicli had 
 been in abeyance for two or three generations. Tlicy 
 appeared to be poor, but able to find the modest weekly 
 sum asked b}' Mrs. Bormalack ; and in order to secure 
 her confidence and good- will, the}- paid every week in 
 advance. They drank nothing but water, but, to make 
 up, his lordship ate a great deal, especially at breakfart, 
 and they asked for strange things, unknown to English 
 households. In other respects they gave no kind of 
 trouble, were easily satisfied, never grumbled, and were 
 affable. For their rank they certainl}- dressed shabbil}^ 
 but high social station is sometimes found coupled with 
 eccentricity. Doubtless Lord Davenant had his reasons 
 for going about in a coat white at the seams and shiny 
 at the back, which, being made of sympathetic stuff, 
 and from long habit, had assumed the exact shape of 
 his noble back and shoulders, with a beautiful model 
 of his illustrious elbows. For similarly good and suffi- 
 cient reasons Lady Davenant wore that old black gown 
 and those mended gloves and — but it is cruel to enu- 
 merate the shortcomings of her attire. 
 
 Perhaps on account of this public character, the pro- 
 fessor would rank in the house after his lordship. Noth- 
 ing confers greatness more quickly than an unabashed 
 appearance upon a platform. Mr. Maliphant, however, 
 who had travelled and could relate tales of adventure, 
 might dispute precedence with him. He was now a 
 carver of figure-heads for ships. It is an old and hon- 
 orable trade, but in these latter days it has deca3-ed. 
 He had a small j-ard at Limehouse, where he worked 
 all by himself, turning out heads in the rough so that 
 they might be transformed into a beauteous goddess, 
 or a Saucy Poll, or a bearded Neptune, as the owners 
 might prefer. He was now an old man with a crumpled 
 and million-lined face, but active still and talkative. 
 His memory played him tricks, and he took little inter- 
 est in new things. He had a habit, too, which discon- 
 certed people unaccustomed to him, of thinking one 
 part of the reminiscence to himself and saying the rest 
 aloud, so that one got onl}' the torso or mangled tir.nk 
 of the story, or the liead, or the feet, with or without 
 the tail, which is the point. 
 
?6 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 The learned Daniel Fagg, wrapt always in contem- 
 plation, was among them but not of them. He was 
 lately arrived from Australia, bringing with him a dis- 
 covery which took away the breath of those who heard 
 it, and tilled all the scholars and learned men of Eu- 
 rope with envy and hatred, so that they combined and 
 formed a general conspiracy to keep him down, and to 
 prevent the publication of his great book, lest the world 
 should point the finger of scorn at them, and laugh at 
 the blindness of its great ones. Daniel himself said so, 
 and an oppressed man generally knows his oppressor. 
 He went away every morning after breakfast, and re- 
 turned for tea. He was believed to occupy the day in 
 spreading a knowledge of his discovery, the nature of 
 which was unknown at the boarding-house, among 
 clerg3"men and other scholars. In the evening he sat 
 over a Hebrew Bible and a dictionary, and spoke to no 
 one. A harmless man, but soured and disajjpointed 
 with the cold reception of his great discovery. 
 
 Another boarder was the unfortunate Josephus Cop- 
 pin, who was a clerk in the great brewing-house of 
 Messenger, Marsden & Company. He had been there 
 for forty years, being now fifty-five years of age, gray 
 and sad of face, because, for some reason unknown to 
 the world, he was not advanced, but remained forever 
 among the juniors at a salary of thirty shillings a week. 
 Other men of his own standing were chief brewers, col- 
 lectors, and chief accountants. He was almost where 
 he had started. The j'oung men came and mounted 
 the ladder of promotion, passing him one after the 
 other ; he alone remained upon the rung which he had 
 reached one day, now thirty years bygone, when a cer- 
 tain thing hai3pened, the consequences of which were to 
 keep him down, to ruin his prospects, to humiliate and 
 degrade him, to sadden and embitter his whole life. 
 Lastly, there was a young man, the only young man 
 among them, one Harrj^ Goslett by name, who had 
 quite recently joined the boarding-house. He was a 
 nephew of Mr. Coppin, and was supposed to be looking 
 for a place of business. 
 
 But he was an uncertain boarder. He paid for his 
 dinner but never dined at home; he had brought with 
 him a lathe, Avhich he set up in a little garden-house, 
 
ALL SORTS AXD CONDITIONS OF MEN. '^ 
 
 and here he work(>d by himself, but in a fitful, lazy way, 
 as if it mattered nothing whether he worked or nor. 
 He seemed to prefer strolling aljout tlie place, looking 
 around him as if he had never seen thmgs before, and 
 he was wont to speak of familiar objects as if the}' were 
 strange and rare. These eccentricities were regarded 
 as due to his having been to America. A handsome 
 young man and cheerful, which made it a greater pity 
 that he was so idle. 
 
 On this morning the first to start for the day's busi- 
 ness was Daniel Fagg. He put his Hebrew Bible on 
 the book-shelf, took out a memorandum-book and the 
 stumjj of a pencil, made an entry, and then counted out 
 his money, which amounted to eight-and-sixpence, with 
 a sigh. He was a little man, about sixty 3-ears of age, 
 and his thin hair v/as sandy in color. His face was 
 thin, and he looked hungry and underfed. I believe, 
 in fact, that he seldom had money enough for dinner, 
 and so went without. Nothing was remarkable in his 
 face, except a pair of very large and thick eyebrows, 
 also of sandy hue, which is unusual, and produces a 
 very curious effect. With these he was wont to frown 
 tremendously as he went along, frightening the little 
 children into fits ; when he was not frowning he looked 
 dejected. It must have been an unhappy condition of 
 things which made the poor man thus alternate between 
 wrath and depression. There were, however, moments 
 — those when he got hold of a new listener — in which 
 he would light up with enthusiasm as he detailed the 
 history of his discovery. Then the thin, drawn cheek 
 would fill out, and his quivering lips would become 
 firm, and his dejected ej'es would brighten with the old 
 pride of discovery, and he would laugh once more, and 
 rub his hands with pride, when he described the honest 
 sympathy of the people in the Australian township 
 where he first announced the great revelation he was 
 to make to the world, and received their enthusiastic 
 cheers and shouts of encouragement. 
 
 Harrj^ Goslett was his last listener, and, as the en- 
 thusiast thought, his latest convert. 
 
 As Daniel passed out of the dining-room, and was 
 looking for his hat among the collection of hats as bad 
 as was ever seen out of Canadian backwoods, Harry 
 
38 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 Goslett himself came downstairs, his hands in his 
 pockets, as slowy and lazily as if there was no such 
 thing as work to do or time to keep. He laughed and 
 nodded to the discoverer. 
 
 "Oho! Dan'l," he said; "hoAV are the triangles? and 
 are you really going back to the lion's den?" 
 
 " Yes, Mr. Goslett, I am going back there ! I am not 
 afraid of them ; I am going to see the head of the 
 Egyptian department. He says he will give me a hear- 
 ing ; they all said t\\ej would, and they have. But they 
 won't listen; it's no use to hear unless you listen. 
 What a dreadful thing is jealousy among the learned, 
 Mr. Goslett!" 
 
 "It is indeed, my prophet; have they subscribed to 
 the book?" 
 
 "No! they won't subscribe. Is it likely that they 
 will help to bring out a work which proves them all 
 wrong? Come, sir, eA'en at your age you can't think 
 so well of poor humanity." 
 
 " Daniel" — the j^oung man laid his hands impres- 
 sively ujDon the little man's shoulders — " you show^ed me 
 yesterday a list of forty-five subscribers to your book, 
 at twelve shillings and sixpence apiece. Where is that 
 subscription-money ? " 
 
 The poor man blushed and hung his head. 
 
 " A man must live," he said at length, trying to frown 
 fiercel}'. 
 
 " Yes, but unpleasant notice is sometimes taken of the 
 way in which peoj^le live, iwj dear friend. This is not 
 a free country ; not bj^ any means free. If I were you, 
 I would take the triangles back to Australia, and print 
 the book there, among your friends." 
 
 "No!" The little man stamped on the ground, and 
 rammed his head into his hat wdth determination. 
 " No, Mr. Goslett, and no again. It shall be printed 
 here. I xAW hurl it at the head of the so-called scholars 
 here, in London — in their stronghold, close to the Brit- 
 ish Museum. Besides" — here he relaxed, and turned a 
 pitiful face of sorrow and shame upon his adviser — 
 " besides, can I forget the day when I left Australia? 
 They all came aboard to say good-by. The papers had 
 paragraphs about it. They shouted one after the other, 
 and nobblers went around surprising, and they slapped 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIOXS OF MEX. 39 
 
 me on the back and said, 'Go, Dan'l,' or 'Go, Fagg,'or 
 'Go,Mr. Fagg, ' according to their intimac}' and the depth 
 of their friendship — 'Go where honor and glory and a 
 great fortune, with a pension on the Queen's civil-list, 
 are waiting for yon.' On the A'oyage I even dreamed 
 of a title ; I thought Sir Daniel Fagg, knight or baro- 
 net, or the Right Reverend Lord Fagg, would sound 
 well to go back to Australia with. Honor? Glor}'?, 
 Fortuned where are they? Eight-and-sixpence in my 
 pocket ; and the head of the Greek department calls me 
 a fool, because I won't acknowledge that truth — yes, 
 TRUTH— is error. Laughs at the triangles, Mr. Goslett !" 
 
 He laughed bitterly and went out, slamming the 
 door behind him. 
 
 Then Harr}' entered the breakfast-room, nodding 
 pleasantly to everybody ; and without any apolog}" for 
 lateness, as if breakfast could be kept about all the 
 morning to suit his convenience, sat down and began 
 to eat. Jonathan Coppin got up, sighed, and went away 
 to his brewery. The professor looked at the last comer 
 with a meditative air, as if he would like to make him 
 disappear, and could do it, too, but v/as uncertain how 
 Harry would take it. Mrs. Bormalack hurried away 
 on domestic business. Mr. Maliphant laughed and 
 rubbed his hands together, and then laughed again as 
 if he were thinking of something really comic, and 
 said, " Yes, I kncAv the sergeant very weU ; a well set- 
 up man he was, and Caroline Coppin was a pretty girl." 
 At this }X)int his face clouded and his e3*es expressed 
 doubt. " There was, " he added, " something I wanted 
 to ask 3"ou, young man, something " — here he tapped 
 his forehead — '' something about 3'our father or 3'our 
 mother, or both; but I have forgotten — never mind. 
 Another time — another time." 
 
 He ran away with bayish activity and a schoolboy's 
 laugh, being arrived at that time of life when one be- 
 comes light of heart once more, knowing by experience 
 that nothing matters very much. There were none left 
 in the room but the couple who enjoyed the title. 
 
 His lordship sat in his arm-chair, apparently enjoy- 
 ing it, in meditation and repose; this, one perceives, 
 is quite the best way of enjoj'ing an hereditary title, if 
 you come to it late in life. 
 
40 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 His wife had, meanwhile, got out a little shabby 
 portfolio in black leather, and was turning over the 
 papers with impatience ; now and then she looked up to 
 see whether this late young man had finished his break- 
 fast. She fidgeted, arranged, and worried with her pa- 
 pers, so that any one whose skull was not six inches 
 thick might have seen that she wanted to be alone with 
 her husband. It was also quite clear to those who 
 thought about things, and watched this little lady, that 
 there may be meaning in certain proverbial expressions 
 touching gra}' mares. 
 
 Presently Harry Goslett finished his coffee, and, pay- 
 ing no attention to her little ladyship's signals of dis- 
 tress, began to open up conversation on general subjects 
 with the noble lord. 
 
 She could bear it no longer. Here were the precious 
 moments wasted and thrown away, every one of which 
 should be bringing them nearer to the recognition of 
 their rights. 
 
 "Young man," she cried, jumping up in her chair, 
 " if 3'ou've got nothing to do but to loll and lop around, 
 all forenoon, I guess we hev, and this is the room in 
 which we do that work." 
 
 " I beg your pardon. Lady Davenant " 
 
 " Young man — Git " 
 
 She pointed to the door. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 A VERY COMPLETE CASE. 
 
 His lordship, left alone with his wife, manifested cer- 
 tain signs of uneasiness. She laid the portfolio on the 
 table, turned over the papers, sorted some of them, 
 picked out some for reference, fetched the ink, and 
 placed the penholder in position. 
 
 " Now, my dear, " she said, '' no time to lose. Let us 
 set to work in earnest." 
 
 His lordship sighed. He was sitting with his fat 
 hands upon his knees, contented with the repose of the 
 moment. 
 
 "Clara Martha," he grumbled, "cannot I have one 
 hour of rest?" 
 
 i^ 
 
ALL SORTS AXD CONDITIONS OF MEN. 41 
 
 «•" Not one, till jou get your rights." She hovered 
 over him like a little falcon, tierce and persistent. 
 " Not one. What? You a British peer? You, who 
 ought to he sitting with a coronet on your head — you 
 to shrink from the trouble of writing out j'our case? 
 And such a case !" 
 
 He only moaned. Certainly he was a very lethargic 
 person. 
 
 " You are not the carpenter, your father. Nor even 
 the wheelwright, your grandfather, who came down of 
 his own accord. You would rise, you would soar — you 
 have the spirit of your ancestors." 
 
 He feebly flapped with his elbows, as if he really 
 would like to take a turn in the air, but made no verbal 
 response. 
 
 "Cousin Nathaniel," she went on, "gave us six 
 months at six dollars a week. That's none too generous 
 of Nathaniel, seeing we have no children, and he will 
 be the heir to the title. I guess Aurelia Tucker set him 
 against the thing. Six months, and three of them gone 
 already, and nothing done ! What would Aurelia say 
 if we went home again, beaten?" 
 
 The little woman gasped, and would have shrugged 
 her shoulders, but thej" were such a long way down — 
 shoulders so sloping could not be shrugged. 
 
 Her remonstrances moved the heavy man, who drew 
 his chair to the table with great deliberation. 
 
 " We are here, " she continued — always the exhorter 
 and the strengthener of faith — "not to claim a title, 
 but to assume it. We shall present our case to Parlia- 
 ment, or the Queen, or the House of Lords, or the Court 
 of Chancery, or whosoever is the right person, and Ave 
 shall say, 'I am Lord Davenant. ' That is all." 
 
 "Clara Martha," said her husband, "I wish that 
 were all we had to do. And, on the whole, I would as 
 soon be back in Canaan City, New Hampshire, and the 
 trouble over. The memoranda are all here," he said. 
 " Can't we get some one else to draw up the case?" 
 
 " Certainly not. You must do it. Why, 3'ou used 
 to think nothing of writing out a Fourth of July 
 speech." 
 
 He shook his head. 
 
 " And you know that you have often said, yourself, 
 
42 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 that there wasn't a book written that could teach you 
 aii3"thiiig up to quadratic equations. And self-raised, 
 too!" 
 
 '' It isn't that, Clara Martha. It isn't that. Listen !" 
 he sank his voice to a whisper. " IV s the doubt . 
 That's the point. Every time I face that doubt it's 
 like a bucket of cold water down my back." 
 
 She shivered. Yes : there was always the doubt. 
 
 " Come, my dear, " she said presently ; " we must get 
 the case drawn up, so that any one may read it. That 
 is the first thing — never think of any doubt." 
 
 He took up one of the loose papers, which was cov- 
 ered with writing. 
 
 "Timothy Clitheroe Davenant," he read with a 
 weary sigh, "died at Canaan City, New Hampshire, 
 in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred 
 and ninety-four. By trade he was a wheelwright. 
 His marriage is recorded in the church-register of July 
 1, 1773. His headstone still stands in the old church- 
 yard, and says that he was born in England in the j^ear 
 one thousand seven hundred and thirty-two — it does 
 not say where he was born — and that he was sixty-two 
 years of age at the day of his death. Also, that long 
 time he bore " 
 
 " Yes, yes, but yon needn't put that in. Go on with 
 your case. The next point is your own father. Cour- 
 age, my dear ; it is a very strong case. " 
 
 " The case is very strong." His lordship plucked up 
 courage, and took up another paper. " This is my fa- 
 ther's record. All is clear : Born in Canaan City on 
 October 10, 177 J:, the year of Independence, the eldest 
 son of the aforesaid Timothy Clitheroe Davenant, 
 wheelwright, and Dinah, his wife — here is a copy of 
 the register. Married on May 13, 1810, which was late 
 in life, because he didn't somehow get on so fast as 
 some, toSusanna Pegley, of the same parish. Described 
 as carpenter — but a poor workman, Clara Martha, and 
 fond of chopping yarns, in which he was equalled by 
 none. He died in the j^ear 1830, his tombstone still 
 standing, like his father's before him. It says that his 
 end was peace. Wal — he always wanted it. Give him 
 peace, with a chair in the veranda, and a penknife and 
 a little bit of pine, and he asked for no more. Only 
 
ALL SORTS AXD COXDITIONS OF MEN. 43 
 
 that, and his wife wouldn't let him have it. His end 
 was peace." 
 
 "You all want peace," said his wife. "The Dave- 
 nants alwajs did think that they only had to sit still 
 and the plums would drop in their mouths. As for 
 you, I believe j'ou'd be content to sit and sit in Canaan 
 City till Queen A^ictoria found you out and sent you the 
 coronet herself. But you've got a wife as well as vour 
 father." 
 
 "I hev," he said, with another sigh. "Perhaps we 
 were wrong to come over — I think I was happier in the 
 schoolroom, when the boj'S were gone hum. It was 
 very quiet there, for a sleep in the afternoon by the 
 stove. And in summer the trees looked harnsome in 
 the sunlight." 
 
 She shook her head impatiently. 
 
 "Come," she cried. "Where are the 'Recollections' 
 of your grandfather?" 
 
 He found another paper, and read it slowly. 
 
 " My grandfather died before I was born. My father, 
 however, said that he used to throw out hints about his 
 illustrious family, and that if he chose to go back to 
 England some people would be very much surprised. 
 But he never explained himself. Also he Avould some- 
 times speak of a great English estate, and once he said 
 that the freedom of a wheelwright was better than the 
 gilded chains of a British aristocrat — that was at a 
 Fourth of July meetin'." 
 
 "Men talk wild at meetin's," said his wife. "Still, 
 there may have been a meanin' behind it. Go on, Tim- 
 othy — I mean my lord." 
 
 " As for my father, it pleased him, when he could put 
 up his feet and crack with his friends, to brag of his 
 great connections in England. But he never knew 
 rightly who they were, and he was too peaceful and 
 restful a creature to take steps to find out." 
 
 "Waitin' for King George," observed his wife. 
 "Just what you would be doin', but for me." 
 
 "That's all the recollection. Here comes my own 
 declaration : 
 
 "'I, Timothy Clitheroe Davenant, make affidavit on 
 oath, if necessary — but I am not quite clear as to the 
 righteousness of swearing — that I am the son of the 
 
44 ALL SORTS AXD COXDITIOXS OF MEN. 
 
 late Timothy Clitheroe Davenant, sometime carpenter 
 of the Cit}" of Canaan, New Hampshire, U. S. A., and 
 Susanna his wife, both noAv deceased ; that I was born 
 in the year of grace one thousand eight hundred and 
 fifteen, and that I have been for forty years a teacher 
 in my native town.' That is all clean and above-board, 
 Clara Martha ; no w^eak point so far, father to son, mar- 
 riage certificates regularly found, and baptism regis- 
 ters. No one can ask more. 'Further, I, the above- 
 named Timothy, do claim to be the lawful and legiti- 
 mate heir to the ancient barony of Davenant, supposed 
 to be extinct in the \^ear 1783 by the death of the last 
 lord, without male issue.' Legally worded, I think," 
 he added with a little proud smile. 
 
 " Yes : it reads right. Now for the connection." 
 
 "Oh! the connection." His lordship's face clouded 
 over. His consort, however, awaited the explanation, 
 for the thousandth time, in confidence. Where the 
 masculine mind found doubt and uncertainty, the quick 
 woman's intellect, ready to believe and tenacious of 
 faith, had jumped to certainty. 
 
 " The connection is this." He took up another paper, 
 and read : 
 
 " ' The last Lord Davenant had one son onh% a boy 
 named Timothy Clitheroe. All the eldest sons of the 
 house were named Tiniothy Clitheroe, just as all the 
 Ashleys are named Anthony." When the boy arrived 
 at years of maturity he was sent on the Grand Tour, 
 which he made with a tutor. On returning to Eng- 
 land, it is ])elieved that he had some difference with 
 his father, the nature of which has never been ascer- 
 tained. He then embarked upon a shij) sailing for the 
 American Colonies. Nothing more was ever heard 
 about him ; no news came to his father or his friends, 
 and he was supposed to be dead.' " 
 
 '' Even the ship was never heard of, " added her lady- 
 ship, as if this was a fact which would greatly help in 
 lengthening the life of the 3'oung man. 
 
 " That, too, was never heard of again. If she had 
 not been thrown away, we might have learned what 
 became of the Honorable Timothy Clitheroe Davenant." 
 There was some confusion of ideas here, which the ex- 
 schoolmaster was not slow to perceive. 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 43 
 
 "I mean," lie tried to explain, "that if she got safe 
 to Boston, the young man would have landed there, 
 and all would be comparatively clear. Whereas, if she 
 was cast away, we must now suppose that he was saved 
 and got ashore somehow." 
 
 " Like Saint Paul, " she cried triumphantly, " on a 
 piece of wreck — what could be more simple?" 
 
 " Because," her husband continued, " there is one fact 
 which proves that he did get ashore, that he concluded 
 to stay there, that he descended so far into the social 
 scale as to become a wheelwright ; and that he lived 
 and died in the town of Canaan, New Hampshire." 
 
 "Go on, my dear. Make it clear. Put it strong. 
 This is the most interesting point of all." 
 
 " And this young man, who was supposed to be cast 
 away in the year one thousand seven hundred and fifty- 
 four, aged twenty-two, was exactly the same age as my 
 grandfather, Timothy Clitheroe Davenant, who bore 
 the same name, which is proved by the headstone and 
 the church-books." 
 
 "Could there," asked his wife, springing to her feet, 
 "could there have been two Englishmen V" 
 
 " Of the same illustrious and historic surname, both 
 in America?" replied her husband, roused into a flabby 
 enthusiasm. 
 
 " Of the same beautiful Christian name? — tAvo Timo- 
 thys?" 
 
 " Born both in the same j^ear?" 
 
 The little woman with the bright eyefi and the slop- 
 ing shoulders threw her arms about her husband's neck. 
 
 " You shall have your rights, my dear," she said ; " I 
 will live to see you sitting in the House of Lords with 
 the hereditary statesmen of England. If there is jus- 
 tice in the land of England, you shall have your riglits. 
 There is justice, I am sure, and equal law for poor and 
 rich, and encouragements for the virtuous. Yes, my 
 dear, the virtuous. Whatever your faults may be, jour 
 virtues are many, and it can't but do the House of 
 Lords good to see a little virtue among them. Not that 
 I hold with Aurelia Tucker that the English House of 
 Lords arewallowers in sin; whereas, Irene Pascoe once 
 met a knight on a missiouarj^ platform and found he'd 
 got religion. But virtue you can never have too much 
 
46 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIOXS OF MEN. 
 
 of. Courage, my lord ; forget the carpenter, and think 
 only of the nobleman, your grandfather, who conde- 
 scended to become a wheelwright." 
 
 He obediently took up the pen and began. When he 
 seemed fairly absorbed in the task of copying out and 
 stating the case, she left him. As soon as the door was 
 closed, he heaved a gentle sigh, pushed back his chair, 
 put his feet upon another chair, covered his head with 
 his red silk pocket-handkerchief — for there were flies 
 in the room — and dropped into a gentle slumber. The 
 carpenter was, for the moment, above the condescend- 
 ing wheelwright. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 ONLY A DRESSMAKER. 
 
 Harry Goslett returned to the boarding-house that 
 evening, in a mood of profound dejection; he had spent 
 a few hours with certain cousins, whose acquaintance 
 he was endeavoring to make. " Hitherto, " he said, 
 writing to Lord Jocelj'n, " the soil seems hardly worth 
 cultivating." In this he spoke hastily, because every 
 man's mind is worth cultivating as soon as you find 
 out the things best fitted to grow in it. But some 
 minds will only grow turnips, while others will produce 
 the finest strawberries. 
 
 The cousins, for their part, did not as yet take to the 
 new arrival, whom they found difficult to understand. 
 His speech was strange, his manner stranger : these pe- 
 culiarities, they thought in their ignorance, were due 
 to residence in the United States, Avhere Harry had 
 found it expedient to place most of his previous j'-ears. 
 Conversation was difficult between two rather jealou;. 
 workmen and a brother artisan, who greatly resembled 
 the typical swell — an object of profound dislike and sus- 
 picion to the working-classes. 
 
 He had now spent some three weeks among his kins- 
 folk. He brought with him some curiosity, but little 
 enthusiasm. At first he was interested and amused; 
 rapidly he became bored and disgusted ; for as yet he 
 saw only the outside of things. There was an uncle. 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 47 
 
 Mr. Benjamin Bunker, the study of whom, regarded as 
 anybody else's uncle, would have been pleasant. Con- 
 sidered as his own connection by marriage — Benjamin 
 and the late Sergeant Goslett having married sisters — 
 he was too much inclined to be ashamed of him. The 
 tAvo cousins seemed to him — as yet he knew thein very 
 little — a pair of sulky, ill-bred young men, who had 
 taken two opposite lines, neither of which was good for 
 social intercourse. The people of the boarding-house 
 continued to amuse him, partl}^ because they were in a 
 way afraid of him. As for the place — he looked about 
 him, standing at the north entrance of Stepney Green — 
 on the left hand, the Whitechapel Road ; behind him. 
 Stepney, Limehouse, St. George's in the East, Poplar 
 and Shadwell ; on the right, the Mile End Road, lead- 
 ing to Bow and Stratford ; before him. Ford, Hackney, 
 Bethnal Green. Mile upon mile of streets with houses 
 — small, mean, and monotonous houses ; the people liv- 
 ing the same mean and monotonous lives, all after the 
 same model. In his ignorance he pitied and despised 
 those people, not knowing how rich and full any life 
 may be made, whatever the surroundings, and even 
 without the gracious influences of art. Under the in- 
 liuence of this pity and contempt, when he returned in 
 the evening at half -past nine, he felt himself for the 
 first time in his life run very low down indeed. 
 
 The aspect of the room was not calculated to cheer 
 him up. It was lit with a mean two-jet gas-burner; 
 the dingy curtain wanted looping up, the furniture 
 looked more common and mean than usual. Yet, as lie 
 stood in the doorway, he became conscious of a change. 
 
 The boarders were all sitting there, just as usual, and 
 the supper cloth was removed ; Mr. Maliphant had his 
 long pi])e fixed in the corner of his mouth, but he held it 
 there with an appearance of constraint, and he had let 
 it go out. Mr. Josephus Coppin sat in the corner in 
 which he always put himself, so as to be out of every- 
 body's way; also with a pipe in his hand unlighted. 
 Daniel Fagg had his Hebrew Bible spread out before 
 him, and his dictionary, and his copy of the Authorized 
 Version — which he used, as he would carefully explain, 
 not for what schoolboys call a crib, but for purpose of 
 comparison. This was very grand ! A man who can 
 
48 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 read Hebrew at all inspires one with confidence; but 
 the fact is the more important when it is connected with 
 a discovery; and to compare versions — one's own with 
 the collected wisdom of a royal commission — is a very 
 grand thing indeed. But to-night he sat with his head 
 in his hands, and his sandy hair pushed back, looking 
 straight before him; and Mrs. Bormalack was graced 
 in her best black silk dress, and " the decanters" were 
 proudly placed upon the table with rum, gin, and brandy 
 in them, and beside them stood the tumblers, hot water, 
 cold water, lemons, and spoons, in the most genteel way. 
 Tiie representative of the Upper House, who did not 
 take spirits and water, sat calml}- dignified in his arm- 
 chair by the fireplace, and in front of him, on the other 
 side, sat his wife, with black thread mittens drawn 
 tiglitl}^ over her little hands and thin arms, bolt upright, 
 and conscious of her rank. All appeared to be silent, 
 but that was their custom, and all, which was not their 
 custom, wore an unaccustomed air of companj' manners 
 which was very beautiful to see. 
 
 Harry, looking about him, perplexed at these phe- 
 nomena, presentl}'' observed that the eyes of all, except 
 those of Daniel Fagg, were fixed in one direction ; and 
 that the reason wliy Mr. Maliphant held an unlighted 
 pipe in his mouth, and Josephus one in his hand, and that 
 DcUiiel was not reading, and that his lordship looked so 
 full of dignity, and that ardent spirits were abroad, 
 was nothing less than the presence of a young lady. 
 
 In such a house, and, in fact, all round Stepney 
 Green, the word " lady" is generally used in a broad and 
 catholic . spirit ; but in this case Harry unconsciously 
 used it in the narrow, prejudiced, one-sided sense pecu- 
 liar to Western longitudes. And it was so surprising 
 to think of a young lad}^ in connection with Borma- 
 lack's, that he gasped and caught his breath. And 
 then ]Mrs. Bormalack presented him to the new arrival 
 in her best manner. " Our youngest !" she said, as if 
 he had been a son of the house— " our youngest and last 
 — the sprightly Mr. Goslett. This is Miss Kennedy, 
 and I hope— I'm sure — that 3'ou two will get to be 
 friendh' ,with one another, not to speak of keeping com- 
 pany, which is early daj's yet for prophecies." 
 
 Harr}^ bowed in his most superior style. What on 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 49 
 
 earth, he thought again, did a young lady want at Step- 
 ney Green? 
 
 She had the carriage and the manner of a lady ; she 
 was quite simply dressed in a black cashmere; she 
 wore a red ribbon around her white throat, and had 
 white cuffs. A lady — unmistakably a lady ; also young 
 and beautiful, with great brown eyes, which met his 
 own frankly, and with a certain look of. surprise which 
 seemed an answer to his own. 
 
 " Our handsome j'oung cabinet-maker. Miss Ken- 
 nedy," went on the landlady — Harry wondered whether 
 it was worse to be described as sprightly than as hand- 
 some, and which adjective was likely to produce the 
 more unfavorable impression on a young lady — "is 
 wishful to establish himself in a genteel way of busi- 
 ness, like yourself." 
 
 " AVhen I was in the dressmaking line, " observed her 
 ladyship, " I stayed at home with mother and Aunt 
 Keziah. It was not thought right in Canaan City for 
 young women to go about setting up shops by them- 
 selves. Not that I say you are wrong, Miss Kennedy, 
 but London ways are not New Hampshire waj's." 
 
 Miss Kennedy murmured something softly, and looked 
 again at the handsome cabinet-maker, wdio was still 
 blushing with indignation and shame at Mrs. Borma- 
 lack's adjectives, and ready to blush again on recovery 
 to think that he was so absurd as to feel any shame 
 about so trifling a matter. Still, every young man likes 
 to appear in a good light in the presence of beauty. 
 
 The young lady, then, was only a dressmaker. For 
 the moment she dropped a little in his esteem, which 
 comes of our artificial and conventional education ; be- 
 cause — Why not a dressmaker? Then she rose again, 
 because — What a dressmaker ! C<iuld there be man}- 
 such in Stepney? If so, how was it that poets, novel- ' 
 ists, painters, and idle j'oung men did not flock to so 
 richly endowed a district? In this unexpected manner 
 does nature offer compensations. Harry also observed 
 with satisfaction the novel presence of a newly arrived 
 piano, which could belong to no other than the new- 
 comer; and finding that the conversation showed no 
 signs of brightening, he ventured to ask Miss Kennedy 
 if she would play to them. 
 4 
 
50 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 Now, when she began to ])lay, a certain magic of the 
 music fell upon them all, affecting every one differently. 
 Such is the power of music, and thus diverse is it in its 
 operation. As for his lordship, he sat nodding his head 
 and twinkling his eyes and smiling sweetly, bec-ause he 
 was in imagination sitting among his peers in the 
 Upper House with a crown of gold and a robe of fur, 
 and all his friends of Canaan City, brought across the 
 Atlantic at his own expense for this ver}^ purpose, were 
 watching him with envy and admiration from the gal- 
 lery. Among them was Aurelia Tucker, the scoffer 
 and thrower of cold water. And her ladyship sat beat- 
 ing time with head and hand, thinking how the family 
 estates would probably be restored, with the title, by 
 the Queen. She had great ideas on the royal preroga- 
 tive, and had indeed been accustomed to think in the 
 old days that Englishmen go about in continual terror 
 lest her Majest}', in the exercise of this prerogative, 
 should order their heads to be removed. This gracious 
 vision, due entirely to the music, showed her in a stately 
 garden entertaining Aurelia Tucker and other friends, 
 whom she, like her husband, had imported from Ca- 
 naan City for the purpose of exhibiting the new great- 
 ness. And Aurelia was green with envy, though she 
 wore her best black silk dress. 
 
 The other boarders were differently affected. The 
 melancholy Josephus leaned his head upon his hand, and 
 saw himself in imagination the head-brewer, as he might 
 have been, but for the misfortune of his early 3^outh. 
 Head-brewer to the firm of Messenger, Marsden & Com- 
 pany ! What a position ! 
 
 Daniel Fagg, for his part, was dreaming of the day 
 when his discovery was to be received by all and ade- 
 quately rewarded. He anticipated the congratulations 
 of his friends in Australia, and stood on deck in port 
 surrounded by the crowd, who shook his hand and 
 cheered him, in good Australian fashion, as Daniel the 
 Great, Daniel the Scourge of Scholars, Daniel the 
 Prophet — a second Daniel. The professor took advan- 
 tage of this general rapture or abstraction from earthly 
 things to lay the plans for a grand coup in legerde- 
 main — a new experiment, which should astonish every- 
 body. This he afterward carried through with success. 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 51 
 
 Mrs. Bormalack, for her part, filled and slowly drank 
 a large tumbler of hot brandv-and-water. When she 
 had finished it she wiped away a tear. Probably, stim- 
 ulated by the brandy, which is a sentimental spirit, she 
 was thinking of her late husband, collector for the brew- 
 er}', who was himself romantically fond of brandy-and- 
 water, and came to an early end in consequence of over- 
 rating his powers of consumption. 
 
 Mr. Maliphant winked his eyes, rolled his head, 
 rubbed his hands, and laughed joyously, but in silence. 
 Why, one knows not. When the music finished, he 
 whispered to Daniel Fagg. "No," he said, "this is the 
 third time in the year that you have asked leave to 
 bury 3'our mother. Make it your grandmother, young 
 man." Then he laughed again, and said that he had 
 been with Walker in Nicaragua. Harry heard this 
 communication, and the attempt to fill up the story 
 from these two fragments afterward gave him night- 
 mare. 
 
 Miss Kennedy played a gavotte, and then another, 
 and then a sonata. Perhaps it is the character of this 
 kind of music to call up pleasant and joyous thoughts; 
 certainly there is much music, loved greath' b}' some 
 people, which makes us sad, notably the strains sung at 
 places of popular resort. They probably become favor- 
 ites because they sadden so much. Who would not 
 shed tears oa hearing " Tommy Dodd" ? 
 
 She played without music, gracefully, easily, and 
 with expression. While she plaj'cd Harrj* sat beside 
 the piano, still wondering on the same theme. She, a 
 Stepney dressmaker I Who, in this region, could haA'e 
 taught her that touch? She '' wistful to establish her- 
 self in a genteel way of business"? Was art, then, per- 
 meating downward so rapidh'? Were the people just 
 above the masses, the seoond or third stratum of the 
 social pyramid, taught music, and in such a style? 
 Then he left off wondering, and fell to the blissful con- 
 templation of a beautiful woman placing beautiful mu- 
 sic. This is an occupation always delightful to young 
 Englishmen, and it does equal credit to their heads and 
 to their hearts that they never tire of so harmless an 
 amusement. When she finished i)laying, everybody 
 descended to earth, so to speak. 
 
53 ALL SORTS AND CONDlTIOXS OF MEN. 
 
 The noble pair remembered that their work was still 
 before them — all to do: one of them thought, with a 
 pang, about the drawing of the case, and wished he 
 had not gone to sleep in the morning. 
 
 The clerk in the brewery awoke to the recollection of 
 his thirty shillings a week, and reflected that the weather 
 was such as to necessitate a pair of boots which had 
 soles. 
 
 The learned Daniel Fagg bethought him once more 
 of his poverty and the increasing difficulty of getting 
 subscribers, and the undisguised contempt with which 
 the head of the Egyptian department had that morning 
 received him. 
 
 Mr. Maliphant left off laughing, and shook his puck- 
 ered old face with a little astonishment that he had been 
 so moved. 
 
 Said the professor, breaking the silence : 
 
 " I like the music to go on, so long as no patter is 
 wanted. They listen to music if it's livel}', and it pre- 
 vents 'em from looking round and getting suspicious. 
 You haven't got an egg upon you, Mrs. Bormalack, 
 have j^ou? Dear me, one in your lap! Actually in a 
 lady's lap! A common egg, one of our 'selected,' at 
 tenpence the dozen. Ah! In your lap, too! How 
 very injudicious! You might have dropped it, and 
 broken it. Perhaps, miss, 3'ou wouldn't mind obliging 
 once more with 'Tommy, make room for your uncle' 
 or 'Over the garden wall,' if you please." 
 
 Miss Kennedy did not know either of these airs, but 
 she laughed and said she would play something lively, 
 while the professor v/ent on with his trick. First, he 
 drew all eyes to meet his own like a fascinating con- 
 strictor, and then he began to " palm" the egg in the 
 most surprising manner. After many adventures it 
 was ultimately found in Daniel Fagg's pocket. Then 
 the professor smiled, bowed, and spread out his hands 
 as if to show the purit}^ and honesty of his con- 
 juring. 
 
 " Yon plaj' very well," said Harry to Miss Kennedy, 
 when the conjuring was over and the professor returned 
 to his chair and his nightly occupation with a pencil, 
 a piece of paper, and a book. 
 
 "Can you play?" 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 53 
 
 " I fiddle a little. If you will allow me, we will try 
 some evening a dnet together.'' 
 
 " I did not laiow " she began, but checked herself. 
 
 "I did not expect to find a violinist here." 
 
 " A good many people of my class play, " said Harry, 
 mendaciousl}', because the English workman is 'the 
 least musical of men. 
 
 _ " Few of mine," she returned, rising, and closing the 
 piano, " have the chance of learning. But 1 have had 
 opportunities." 
 
 She looked at her watch, and remarked that it was 
 nearl}' ten o'clock, and that she was going to bed. 
 
 " I have spoken to Mr. Bunker about what you want, 
 Miss Kennedy," said the landlady, " He will be here 
 to-morrow morning about ten on his rounds." 
 " Who is Mr. Bunker?" asked Angela. 
 They all seemed surprised. Had she never, in what- 
 ever part of the world she had lived, heard of Mr. 
 Bunker — Bunker the Great? 
 
 " He used to be a sort of factotum to old Mr. Messen- 
 ger," said Mrs. Bormalack. " His death was a sad blow 
 to Mr. Bunker. He's a general agent by trade, and he 
 deals in coal, and he's a house agent, and he knows 
 everybody round Stepney and up to the Mile End Road 
 as far as Bow. He's saved money, too, Miss Ken- 
 nedy, and is greatly respected." 
 
 " He ought to be, " said Harry ; " not only because he 
 was so much with Mr. Messenger, whose name is re- 
 vered for the kindred associations of beer and proj)- 
 erty, but also because he is my uncle — he ought to be 
 respected." 
 
 " Your uncle?" 
 
 " My own — so near, and yet so dear — my uncle Bunk- 
 er. To be connected with Messenger, Marsden & Com- 
 panj-, even indirectly through such an uncle, is in itself 
 a distinction. You will learn to know him, and you 
 will learn to esteem him. Miss Kennedy. You will es- 
 teem him all the more if 3'ou are interested in beer." 
 Miss Kenned}' blushed. 
 
 " Bunker is great in the company. I believe he used 
 to consider himself a kind of a pai'tner while the old 
 man lived. He knows all about the big brewery. As 
 for that, everj'body does round Stepney Green." 
 
54 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 " The company, " said Josephiis gloomily, " is noth- 
 ing but a chit of a girl." He sighed, thinking how 
 much went to her and how little came to himself. 
 
 "We are steeped in beer," Harry went on. "Our 
 conversation turns for ever on beer; we live for beer; 
 thS houses round us are filled with the company's ser- 
 vants ; we live by beer. For example, Mrs. Bormalack's 
 late husband " 
 
 " He was a collector for the company, " said the land- 
 lady, with natural pride. 
 
 " You see. Miss Kenned}^, what a responsible and 
 exalted position was held by Mr. Bormalack." (The 
 widow thought that sometimes it was hard to know 
 whether this sprightly young man was laughing at peo- 
 ple or not, but it certainly was a very high position, 
 and most respectable. " He went round the houses," 
 Harry went on. "Houses, here, mean public-houses*, 
 the company owns half the public-houses in the East 
 End. Then here is my cousin, the genial Josephus. 
 Hold up your head, Josephus. He, for his part, is a 
 clerk in the house." 
 
 Josephus groaned. "A junior clerk," he murmured. 
 
 " The professor is not allowed in the brewerj^ He 
 might conjure among the vats, and vats have never 
 been able to take a practical joke ; but he amuses the 
 brewery people. As for Mr. Maliphant, he carves fig- 
 ure-heads for the ships which carry away the brewery 
 beer; and perhaps when the brewery wants cabinets 
 made they will come to me." 
 
 " It is the biggest brewery in all England," said the 
 landlady. " I can never remember — because my mem- 
 ory is like a sieve — how much beer they brew every 
 year ; but somebody once made a calculation about it, 
 compared w^ith Niagara Falls, which even Mr. Bunker 
 said was surprising." 
 
 "Think, Miss Kennedy," said Harry, "of an Entire 
 Niagara of Messenger's Entire." 
 
 "But how can this Mr. Bunker be of use to me?" 
 asked the young lady. 
 
 " Why !" said Mrs. Bormalack. " There is not a shop 
 or a street nor any kind of place within miles Mr. 
 Bunker doesn't know, who they are that live there, how 
 they make their living, what the rent is, and every- 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 55 
 
 thing. That's what made him so useful to old Mr. 
 Messenger." 
 
 Miss Kennedy for some reason changed color. Then she 
 said that she thought she would like to see Mr. Bunker. 
 When she was gone Harry sat down beside his lord- 
 ship and proceeded to smoke tobacco in silence, refusing 
 the proffered decanters. 
 Said the professor softly : 
 
 " She'd be a fortune— a gem of the first water— upon 
 the b(xirds. As pianoforte-player between the feats of 
 magic, marvel, and mystery, or a medium under the 
 magnetic influence of the operator, or a clairvoyant, or 
 a thought-reader— or " Here he relapsed into si- 
 lence without a sigh. 
 
 "She looks inteUigent," said Daniel Fagg. "When 
 
 she hears about my discovery she will " Here he 
 
 caught the eye of Harry Goslett, who was shaking a fin- 
 ger (;f warning, which he rightly interpreted to mean 
 that dressmakers must not be asked to subscribe to 
 learned books. This abashed him. 
 
 " Considered as a figure-head," began Mr. Maliphant, 
 
 " I remember " 
 
 " As a dressmaker, now " interrupted Harry. 
 
 " Do Stepney dressmakers often play the piano like — 
 well, like Miss Kennedy? Do they wear gold watches? 
 Do they talk and move and act so much like real ladies, 
 tliat no one could tell the difference? Answer me that, 
 Mrs. Bormalack." 
 
 " Well, Mr. Goslett, all I can say is, that she seems 
 a very proper young lady to have in the house." 
 
 "Proper, ma'am? If you were to search the whole 
 of^Stepney, I don't believe you could find such another. 
 What does your ladyship say?" 
 
 " I say, Mr. Goslett, that in Canaan City the ladies 
 v.-ho are dressmakers set the fashions to the ladies who 
 are not; I was myself a dressmaker. And Aurelia 
 Tucker, though she turns up her nose at our elevation, 
 ij, I must say, a lady who would do credit to any circle, 
 even yours, Mrs. Bormalack. And such remarks about 
 real ladies and dressmakers I do not understand, and I 
 expected better manners, I must sav. Look at his lord- 
 ship's manners, Mr. Goslett, and his father was a car- 
 penter, like you." 
 
56 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 UNCLE BUNKER. 
 
 "My uncle!" ^ 
 
 It was the sprightly young cabinet-maker who sprang 
 to his feet and grasped the hand of the new-comer with 
 an effusion not returned. 
 
 "Allow me, Miss Kennedy, to present to jou my 
 uncle, my uncle Bunker, whose praise you heard us 
 sing with one consent last night. We did, indeed, re- 
 vered one! Whatever you want bought. Miss Ken- 
 nedy, from a piano to a learned pig, this is the man 
 who will do it for 3'ou. A percentage on the cost, with 
 a trifling charge for time, is all he seeks in return. He 
 is generally known as the Benevolent Bunker; he is 
 everybody's friend ; especially he is beloved by persons 
 behindhand Avith their rents, he is^ — " 
 
 Here Mr. Bunker drew out his watch, and observed 
 with severity that his time was valuable, and that he 
 came about business. 
 
 Angela observed that the sallies of his nephew were 
 received with disfavor. 
 
 " Can we not," pursued Harry, regardless of the cloud 
 upon his uncle's brow — " can we not escape from af- 
 fairs of urgency for one moment? Show us your lighter 
 side, my uncle. Let Miss Kennedy admi.re the gifts 
 and graces which you hide as well as the sterner quali- 
 ties which you exhibit." 
 
 "Business, j'oung lady," the agent repeated, with a 
 snort and a scowl. He took off his hat and rubbed his 
 bald head with a silk pocket-handkerchief until it shone 
 like polished marble. He was short of stature and of 
 round figure. His face was red and puffy as if he was 
 fond of hot brandy-and-water, and he panted, being a 
 little short of breath. His eyes were small and close 
 together, which gave him a cunning look ; his whiskers 
 were large and gra}' ; his lips were thick and firm, and 
 his upper lip was long : his nose was broad, but not 
 humorous; his head was set on firmly, and he had a 
 square chin. Evidently he was a man of determina- 
 
 \ 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 57 
 
 tion, and he was probably determined to look after his 
 own interests first. 
 
 "I want," said Angela, "to establish myself in this 
 neighborhood as a dressmaker." 
 
 "Very good," said Mr. Bunker. "That's practical. 
 It is my business to do with practical people, not snig- 
 gerers and idle giggiers." He looked at his nephew. 
 
 " I shall want a convenient house, and a staff of 
 workwomen, and — and some one acquainted with busi- 
 ness details and management." 
 
 " Go on," said Mr. Bunker. " A forewoman you will 
 want, of course." 
 
 " Then, as I do not ask you to give me your advice for 
 nothing, how are you generally paid for such services?" 
 
 "I charge," he said, "as arranged for beforehand. 
 Time for talking, arranging, and house-hunting, lialf- 
 a-crown an hour. That won't break you. And you 
 won't talk too much, knowing you have to pay for it. 
 Percentage on the rent, ten per cent, for the first year, 
 nothing afterward ; if you want furniture, I will fur- 
 nish your house from top to bottom on the same terms, 
 and find 3^ou work -girls at five shillings a head." 
 
 "Yes," said Angela. "I suppose I must engage a 
 staff. And I suppose" — ^here she looked at Harry, as 
 if for advice — " I suppose that you are the best person 
 to go to for assistance." 
 
 " There is no one else, " said Mr. Bunker. " That is 
 why my terms are so low." 
 
 His nephew whistled softly. 
 
 Mr. Bunker, after an angry growl at people who keep 
 their hands in their pockets, proceeded to develop his 
 views. Miss Kenned}- listened languidlv, aj^pearing to 
 care very little about details, and agreeing to most ex- 
 pensive things in a perfectl}' reckless manner. She was 
 afraid, for her part, that her own ignorance would be 
 exposed if she talked. The agent, however, (juickly 
 perceived how ignorant she was, from this very silence, 
 iind resolved to make the best of so promising a sub- 
 ject. She could not possibly have much money — who 
 ever heard of a Stepney dressmaker with any? — and 
 she evidently had no experience. He would get as 
 much of the money as he could, and she would be the 
 gainer in experience. A most equitable arrangement. 
 
58 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 he thought, being one of those — too few, alas! — who 
 keep before their eyes a lofty ideal, and love to act up 
 to it. 
 
 When he had quite finished and fairly embarked his 
 victim on a vast ocean of expenditure, comparatively, 
 and with reference to Stepney and Mile End customs, 
 he put up his pocketbook and remarked, with a smile, 
 that he should want references of respectabilit3^ 
 
 "That's usual," he said: "I could not work with- 
 out." 
 
 Angela changed color. To be asked for references 
 was awkward. 
 
 " You can refer to me, my uncle, " said Harry. 
 
 Mr. Bunker took no notice of this proposition. 
 
 "You see, miss," he said, "we don't know you, nor 
 where j^ou come from, nor what money you've got, nor 
 how you got it. No doubt it is all right, and I'm sure 
 you look honest. Perhaps you've got nothing to hide, 
 and very likely there's good reasons for wanting to set- 
 tle here!" 
 
 " M}' grandfather was a Whitechapel man by birth," 
 she replied. " He left me some money. If you must 
 have references, of course I could refer you to the law- 
 yers who managed my little affairs. But I would 
 rather, to save trouble, pay for everything on the spot, 
 and the rent in advance." 
 
 Mr. Bunker consented to waive his objection on pay- 
 ment of a sum of ten pounds do vn, it being understood 
 and concluded that everything bought should be paid 
 for on the spot, and a year's rent when the house was 
 fixed upon, paid in advance ; in consideration for which 
 he said the young lady might, in subsequent transac- 
 tions with strangers, refer to himself, a privilege which 
 was nothing less than the certain passport to fortune. 
 
 " As for me," he added, " my motto is, 'Think first of 
 your client.' Don't spare j'ourself for him; toil for 
 him, think for him, rise up early and lie down late for 
 him, and you reap your reward from grateful hearts. 
 Lord ! the fortunes I have made !" 
 
 " Virtuous Uncle Bunker I" cried Harry with enthu- 
 siasm. "Xoble, indeed!" 
 
 The good man for the moment forgot the existence of 
 his frivolous nephew, who had retired up the stage, so 
 
 \ 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 59 
 
 to speak. He opened his mouth as if to say something 
 in anger, but retrained, and bnorted. 
 
 " Now that we've settled that matter, Mr. Bunker," 
 the girl said without noticing the interruption, " let us 
 talk about other matters. " 
 
 " Are they business matters?" 
 
 " Not exactly ; but still " 
 
 " Time is money ; an hour is half-a-crown." He drew 
 out his watch, and made a note of the time in his pock- 
 etbook. " A quarter to eleven, miss. If I didn't charge 
 for time, what would become of my clients? Neg- 
 lected; their interests ruined; the favorable moment 
 gone. If I could tell you of a lady I established two 
 years ago in one of the brewery-houses and what she's 
 made of it, and what she says of me, you would be as- 
 tonished. A grateful heart ! and no better brandy-and- 
 water, hot, with a slice of lemon, in the Whitechapel 
 Road. But you were about to say, miss " 
 
 " She was going to begin with a hymn of praise, 
 Uncle Bunker, paid in advance, like the rest. Grati- 
 tude for favors to come. But if you like to tell about 
 the lady, do. Miss Kennedy will only charge 3'ou half- 
 a-crown an hour. I'll mark time." 
 
 "I think, young man," said Mr. Bunker, "that it is 
 time j^ou should go to 3-our work. Stepney is not the 
 place for sniggerin' peacocks; they'd better have stayed 
 in the United States." 
 
 " I am waiting till you have found me a place, too," 
 the young man replied. " I too would wish to expe- 
 rience the grateful heart. It is peculiar to White- 
 chapel." 
 
 " I was going to say," Angela went on, "that I hear 
 you were connected with old Mr. Messenger for many 
 years. " 
 
 " I was," Mr. Bunker replied, and straightened his 
 back with pride. " I was — everybody knows that I 
 was his confidential factotum and his familiar friend, 
 as David was unto Jonathan." 
 
 " Indeed ! I used to — to — hear about him formerly 
 a great deal." 
 
 " Which made his final behavior the more revolting," 
 Mr. Bunker continued, completing his sentence. 
 
 " Really ! How did he finally behave?" 
 
60 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 " It was alwaj's — ah ! for twenty years, between us, 
 Bunker, my friend,' or 'Bunker, my trusted friend,' 
 tell me this, go there, find out that. I bought his 
 houses; I let his houses; I told him who were responsi- 
 ble tenants; I warned him when shooting of moons 
 seemed likely; I found out their antecedents and told 
 him their stories. He had hundreds of houses, and he 
 know everybody that lived in them, and what their fa- 
 thers were and their mothers were, and even 'their 
 grandmothers. For he was a Whitechapel man by 
 birth, and was proud of it." 
 
 " But — the shameful behavior?" 
 
 " All the time " — he shook his head and looked posi- 
 tively terrible in his wrath — " all the time I was piling 
 up his property for him, houses here, streets there, he 
 would encourage me in his way. 'Go on. Bunker,' he 
 would say, 'go on. A man who works for duty, like 
 yourself, and to please his employers, and not out of 
 consideration for the pay, is one of a million ;' as I cer- 
 tainly was. Miss Kennedy. 'One of a millicn,' he said; 
 'and you will have your reward after I am gone.' 
 Over and over again he said this, and of course I reck- 
 oned on it, and only wondered how much it would tot 
 up to. Something. I thought, in four figures ; it couldn't 
 be less than four figures." Here he stopped and rubbed 
 his bald head again. 
 
 Angela caught the eyes of his nephew, who in his 
 seat behind was silent!}' laughing. He had caught the 
 situation which she herself now readily comprehended. 
 She pictured to herself this blatant Professor of Disin- 
 terestedness and Zeal buzzing and fluttering about her 
 grandfather, and the quiet old man egging him on to 
 more protestations. 
 
 '' Four figures, for certain it would be. Once I asked 
 his advice as to how I should invest that reward when 
 it did come. He laughed, miss. Yes, for once he 
 laughed, which I never saw him do before or after. 1 
 often think he must be sorry now to think of that time 
 he laughed. Yah ! I'.m glad of it." 
 
 So far as Angela could make it, his joy grew out of 
 a persuasion that this particular fit of laughter was 
 somehow interfering with her grandfather's present 
 comforts, but perhaps she was wrong. 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF 3IEN. 61 
 
 " He laughed, " continued Mr. Bunker, " and he said 
 that house property, in a rising neighborhood, and if it 
 could be properly looked after, was the best investment 
 for money. House property, he said, as far as the 
 money would go." 
 
 "And when he died?" asked the listener, with an- 
 other glance at Harry, the unsympathetic, whose face 
 expressed the keenest enjoyment. 
 
 •' Nothing, if you please ; not one brass farthing. 
 Hunks ! Hunks !" He grew perfectly purple, and 
 clutched his fist as if he would fain be ixmching of 
 heads. "Not one word of me in his will. All for the 
 girl : minions — millions — for her ; and for me who done 
 his work — nothing." 
 
 "You have the glow of virtue," said his nephew. 
 
 "It seems hard," said Angela quickly, for the man 
 looked^ dangerous, and seemed capable of transferring 
 his wrath to his nephew ; " it seems hard to get nothing 
 if anything was promised." 
 
 "It seems a pity," Harry chimed in, "that so much 
 protesting was in vain. Perhaps Mr. Messenger took 
 him at his word. AVhat a dreadful thing to be be- 
 lieved !'^ 
 
 " A Hunks," replied Mr. Bunker; " a miserly Hunks." 
 
 " Let me write a letter for you," said Harry, " to the 
 heiress; we might forward it with a deputation of 
 grateful hearts from Stepney." 
 
 "Mind your own business," growled his uncle. 
 " Well, miss. 3-ou wanted to hear about Mr. Messenger, 
 and you have heard. What next?" 
 
 " I should very much like, if it were possible," Angela 
 replied, " to see this great brewery, of which one hears 
 so much. Could you, for instance, take me over, Mr. 
 Bunker?" 
 
 "At a percentage," whispered his nephew, loud 
 enough for both to hear. 
 
 "Messenger's brewery," he replied, "is as familiar 
 to me as my own fireside. I've grown up beside it. I 
 know all the people in it. They all know me. Perhaps 
 they respect me. For it was well known that a hand- 
 some legacy was promised and expected. And nothing, 
 after all. As for taking you over, of course I can. We 
 will go at once. It will take time; and time is money." 
 
62 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 " May I go too?" asked Harry. 
 
 " No, sir ; you may not. It shall not be said in the 
 Mile End Road that an industrious man like myself, 
 a Avorker for clients, Avas seen in working-time with 
 an idler." 
 
 The walk from Stepney Green to Messenger & 
 Marsden's Brewery is not far. You turn to the left if 
 your house is on one side, and to the right if it is on 
 the other ; then you pass a little waj'' down one street, 
 and a little way, turning again to the left, up another — 
 a direction which will guide you quite clearly. You 
 then find A'ourself before a great gateway, the portals of 
 which are closed; beside it is a smaller door, at wdiich, 
 in a little lodge, sits one who guards the entrance. 
 
 Mr. Bunker nodded to the porter and entered unchal- 
 lenged. He led the way across a court to a sort of 
 outer office. 
 
 " Here," he said, " is the book for the visitors' names. 
 We have them from all countries; great lords and 
 ladies; foreign princes; and all the brewers from Ger- 
 many and America, who come to get a wrinkle. Write 
 your name in it, too. Something, let me tell j'ou, to 
 have 3'our name in sucli noble company." 
 
 She took a pen and wrote hurriedly. 
 
 Mr. Bunker looked over her shoulder. 
 
 " Ho ! ho !" he said, *' that is a good one ! See what 
 you've written." 
 
 In fact, she had written her own name — Angela Mars- 
 den Messenger. 
 
 She blushed violently. 
 
 " How stupid of me ! I was thinking of the heiress 
 — the}" said it was her name." 
 
 She carefullv effaced the name, and wrote under it, 
 "A.M.Kennedy." 
 
 "That's better. And now come along. A good 
 joke, too ! Fancy their astonishment if they had come 
 to read it !" 
 
 " Does she often come — the heiress?" 
 
 " Never once been anigh the place ; never seen it ; 
 never asks after it ; never makes an inquiry about it. 
 Draws the money and despises it." 
 
 " I wonder she has not got more curiosity." 
 
 "Ah I It's a shame for such a propertj- to come to a 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 63 
 
 girl — a girl of twenty-one. Thirteen acres it covers — 
 think of that! Seven hundred people it emplo3's, most 
 of them married. Why, if it was only to see her own 
 vats, you'd think she'd got off of her luxurious pillows 
 for once, and come here." 
 
 Tiiey entered a great hall remarkable at first for a 
 curious smell, not offensive, but strong and rather 
 pungent. In it stood half-a-dozen enormous A^ats, closed 
 b}^ wooden slides, like shutters, fitting tightly. A man 
 standing by opened one of these, and presently Angela 
 was able to make out, through the volumes of steam, 
 something bright going round, and a brown mess go- 
 ing with it. 
 
 " That is hops. Hops for the biggest brewery, the 
 richest, in all England. And all belonging to a girl 
 who, likely enough, doesn't drink more than a pint and 
 a half a day." 
 
 " I dare say not, " said Angela ; " it must be a dread- 
 ful thing indeed to have so much beer, and to be able to 
 drink so little." 
 
 He led the way upstairs into another great hall, 
 where there was the grinding of machinery and another 
 smell, sweet and heavy. 
 
 " This is where we crush the malt, " said Mr. Bunker — • 
 — " see !" He stooped, and picked out of a great box a 
 handful of the newly-crushed malt. " I suppose you 
 thought it was roasted. Roasting, young lady," he 
 added with severity, " is for stout, not for ale ! " 
 
 Then he took her to another place and showed her 
 where the liquor stood to ferment ; how it was cooled, 
 how it was passed from one vat to another, how it was 
 stored and kept in vats, dwelling perpetuallj" on the 
 magnitude of the business, and the irony of fortune in 
 conferring this great gift upon a girl. 
 
 "I know now," she interrupted, "what the place 
 smells like. It is fusel oil." They were standing on a 
 floor of open iron bars, above a row cf long covered 
 vats, within which the liquor was working and fer- 
 menting. Every now and then there would be a heav- 
 ing of the surface, and a quantity of the malt would 
 then move suddenly over. 
 
 "We are famous," said Mr. Bunker; "I say^rf, hav- 
 ing been the confidential friend and adviser of the late 
 
64 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 Mr. Messenger, deceased; we are famous for our Stout; 
 also for our Mild ; and we are now reviving our Bitter, 
 which we had partiallj^ neglected. We use the arte- 
 sian well, which is four hundred feet deep, for our 
 Stout, but the company's water for our ales; and our 
 water rate is two thousand pounds a year. The arte- 
 sian well gives the ale a gray color, which people don't 
 like. Come into this room, now " — it was another great 
 hall covered with sacks. " Hops again. Miss Kennedy; 
 now, that little lot is worth ten thousand pounds — ten — 
 thousand — think of that; and it is all spoiled b}" the 
 rain, and has to be thrown away. We think nothing 
 of losing ten thousand pounds here, nothing at all !" — 
 he snapped his fingers — " it is a mere trifle to the girl 
 who sits at home and takes the profits!" 
 
 He spoke as if he felt a personal animosity to the girl. 
 Angela told him so. 
 
 " No wonder, " he said ; " she took all the legacy that 
 ought to have been mine : no man can forgive that. 
 You are young, Miss Kennedy, and are only beginning 
 business ; mark my words, one of these days you will 
 feel how hard it is to put a little b}" — work as hard as 
 3'ou may — while here is this one having it put away for 
 her, thousands a day, and doing for it — nothing at all." 
 
 Then they went into more great halls, and up more 
 stairs, and on to the roof, and saw more piles of sacks, 
 more malt, and more hops. When they smelt the 
 hops, it seemed as if their throats were tightened; 
 when they smelt the fermentation, it seemed as if they 
 were smelling fusel oil; when they sinelt the plain 
 crushed malt, it seemed as if the}^ were getting swiftly 
 but sleepily drunk. Everywhere and always the steam 
 rolled backward and forward, and the grinding of the 
 machiner}- went on, and the roaring of the furnaces; 
 and the men went about to and fro at their work. They 
 did not seem hard worked, nor were thej' pressed ; their 
 movements were leisurely, as if beer was not a thing to 
 hurry; they were all rather pale of cheek, but fat and 
 jolly, as if the beer was good and agreed with them. 
 Some w^ore brown paper caps, for it was a pretty 
 draughty place ; some went bareheaded, some wore the 
 little round hat in fashion. And they went to another 
 part, where men were rolling barrels about, as if thej'' 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 65 
 
 had been skittles, and here they saw vats holding three 
 thousand barrels ; and one thought of giant armies — say 
 two hundred and fifty thousand thirsty Germans — begin- 
 ning the loot of London with one of these royal vats. 
 And they went through the stables, where hmidreds of 
 horses wers stalled at night, each as big as an elephant, 
 and much more useful. 
 
 In one great room, where there was the biggest vat 
 of all, a man brought them beer to taste ; it was Mes- 
 senger's Stout. Angela took her glass and put it to her 
 lips with a strange emotion — she felt as if she should 
 like a quiet place to sit down in and cry. The great 
 place was hers — all hers ; and this was the beer with 
 which her mighty fortune had been made. 
 
 "Is it," she asked, looking at the heavy foam of the 
 frothing stout, " is this Messenger's Entire?" 
 
 Bunker sat down and drank off his glass before re- 
 plying. Then he laid his hands upon his stick and 
 made answer, slowly, remembering that he was en- 
 gaged at half-a-crown an hour, which is one halfpenny 
 a minute. 
 
 " This is not Entire," he said. " You see. Miss Ken- 
 nedy, there's fashions in beer, same as in clothes ; once 
 it was all Cooper, now you never hear of Cooper. Then 
 was it all Half-an-arf — j'ou never hear of anj' one order- 
 ing Half-an-arf now. Then it was Stout. Nothing 
 would go down but Stout, which I recommend my- 
 self, and find it nourishing, Next Bitter came in, and 
 honest Stout was despised; now, we're all for Mild. 
 As for Entire, why — bless my soul ! — Entire went out 
 before I was born. Why, it was Entire which made 
 the fortune of the first Messenger that was — a poor lit- 
 tle brewery he had, more than a hundred years ago, in 
 this very place, because it was cheap for rent. In those 
 days they used to brew Strong ale. Old and Strong ; 
 Stout, same as now ; and Twopenny, which was small 
 beer. And becaiise the Old ale was too strong, and the 
 Stout too dear, and the Twopenny too weak, the people 
 used to mix them all three together, and the}" called 
 them 'Three Threads;' and you may fancy the trouble 
 it was for the pot-boys to go to one cask after another, 
 all day long, because thej^ had no beer engines then. 
 Well, what did Mr. Messenger do? He brewed a beer 
 5 
 
66 ALL SOBTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 as strong as the Three Threads, and he called it Mes- 
 senger's Entire Three Threads, meaning that here you 
 had 'em all in one, and that's what made his fortune ; 
 and now, young lady, you've seen all I've got to show 
 you, and we will go." 
 
 "I make bold, young woman," he said, as they went 
 away, " to give you a warning about my nephew. He's 
 a good-looking chap, for all he's worthless, though it's 
 a touch-and-go style that's not my idea of good looks. 
 Still, no doubt some would think him handsome. Well, 
 I warn you." 
 
 " That is very good of you, Mr. Bunker. Why do 
 you warn me?" 
 
 " Why, anj'body can see already that he's taken with 
 your good looks. Don't encourage him. Don't keep 
 company with him. He's been awaj^ a good many 
 years — in America — and I fear he's been in bad com- 
 pany. " 
 
 " I am sorry to hear that. " 
 
 "You saw his sniggerin', sneerin' way with me, 
 his uncle. That doesn't look the right sort of man to 
 take up with, I think. And as for work, he seems not 
 to want any. Says he can afford to wait a bit. Talks 
 about opening a cabinet-makin' shop. Well, he will 
 have none of my money. I tell him that beforehand. 
 A young jackanapes ! A painted peacock ! I believe, 
 Miss Kennedy, that he drinks. Don't have nothing to 
 say to him. As for what he did in the States, and why 
 he left the country, I don't know; and if I were you, I 
 wouldn't ask." 
 
 With this warning he left her, and Angela went 
 home trying to realize her own great possessions. Hun- 
 dreds of houses ; rows of streets ; this enormous brew- 
 ery, working day after day for her profit and advan- 
 tage; and these invested moneys, these rows of figures 
 which represented her personal property. All hers! 
 All her own ! All the property of a girl ! Surely, she 
 thought, this was a heavy burden to be laid upon one 
 frail back. 
 
ALL SOETS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 67 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE CARES OF WEALTH. 
 
 It is, perhaps, a survival of feudal customs that in 
 English minds a kind of proj^rietorship is assmned 
 over one's dependents, those who labor for a man and 
 ate paid by him. It was this feeling of responsibility 
 which had entered into the mind of Angela, and was 
 now firmly fixed there. All these men, this army of 
 seven hundred brewers, drivers, clerks, accountants, 
 and the rest, seemed to belong to her. Not only did she 
 pay them the wages and salaries which gave them their 
 daity bread, but they lived in her o-wn houses among 
 the streets which lie to the right and to the left of the 
 Mile End Road. The very chapels where they wor- 
 shipped, being mostl}- of some ISToncomformist sect, stood 
 on her own ground — everything was hers. 
 
 The richest heiress in England ! She repeated this to 
 herself over and over again, in order to accustom her- 
 self to the responsibilities of her position, not to the 
 pride of it. If she dwelt too long ui^on the subject her 
 brain reeled. What was she to do with all her money? 
 A man — like her grandfather — often feels joy in the 
 mere amassing of wealth ; to see it grow is enough 
 pleasure ; other men in their old age sigh over bygone 
 3^ears, which seem to have failed in labor or effort. 
 Then men sigh over bj^gone days in which more might 
 have been saved. But girls cannot be expected to reach 
 these heights. Angela only weakly thought what an 
 immense sum of money she had, and asked herself what 
 she could do, and how she should spend her wealth to 
 the best advantage. 
 
 The most pitiable circumstance attending the posses- 
 sion of wealth is that no one sympathizes with the pos- 
 sessor. Yet his or her sufferings are sometimes very 
 great. They begin at school, where a boy or girl, who 
 is going to be very rich, feels already set apart. He 
 loses the greatest spur to action. It is Avhen they grow 
 up, however, that the real trouble begins. ^ For a girl 
 with large possessions is always suspicious lest a man 
 
68 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 should pretend to love her for the sake of her money ; 
 she has to suspect all kinds of people Avho want her to 
 give, lend, advance, or promise them money; she is the 
 mere butt of every society, hospital, and institution; 
 her table is crowded every morning with letters from 
 decayed gentlewomen and necessitous clergymen, and 
 recommenders of " cases ;" she longs to do good to her 
 generation, but does not know how ; she is expected to 
 buy quantities of things which she does not want, and 
 to pay exorbitant prices for everything ; she has to be a 
 patron of art: she is invited to supply every woman 
 throughout the country who wants a mangle, w^ith that 
 useful article; she is told that it is her duty to build 
 new churches over the length and breadth of the land: 
 she is earnestl}'^ urged to endow new Colonial bishoprics 
 over all the surface of the habitable globe. Then she 
 has to live in a great house and have troops of idle ser- 
 vants. And, whether she likes it or not, she has to go 
 a great deal in society. 
 
 All this, without the least sj^mpathy or pity from 
 those who ought to feel for her, who are in the happy 
 position of having no money. Nobod}^ pities an heir- 
 ess; to express pity would seem like an exaggerated 
 affectation of virtue, the merest pedantry of superior- 
 ity; it would not be believed. Therefore, while all the 
 world is agreed in envying her, she is bemoaning her 
 sad fate. Fortunately, she is rare. 
 
 As yet, Angela was only just at the commencement 
 of her troubles. The girls at Newnham had not spoiled 
 her by flattery or envy ; some of them even pitied her 
 sad burden of money ; she had as yet only realized part 
 of the terrible isolation of wealth ; she had not grown 
 jealous, or suspicious, or arrogant, as in advancing 
 years often happens with the very rich; she had not yet 
 learned to regard the whole world as composed entirely 
 of money-grabbers. All she had felt hitherto was that 
 she went in constant danger from interested wooers, 
 and tbat youth, combined with money-bags, is an irre- 
 sistible attraction to men of all ages. Now, however, 
 for the first time she understood the magnitude of her 
 possessions, and felt the real weight of her responsibil- 
 ities. She saw, for the first time, the hundreds of men 
 working for her ; she saw the houses whose tenants paid 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 69 
 
 rent to her; she visited her great brewery, and she 
 asked herself the question, which Dives no doubt fre- 
 quently asked— What she had done to be specially set 
 apart and selected from humanity as an exception to 
 the rule of labor? Even Bunker's complaint about 
 the difficulty of putting by a little, and his indignation' 
 because she herself could put by so much, seemed 
 pathetic. 
 
 She walked about the sad and monotonous streets of 
 East London, reflecting upon these subjects. She did 
 not know where she was, nor the name of any street; in 
 a general way she knew that most of the street probably 
 belonged to herself, and that it was an inexpressibly 
 dreary street. When she was tired she asked her way 
 back again. No one insulted her; no one troubled her- 
 no one turned aside to look at her. When she went 
 home she sat silently, for the most part, in the common 
 sitting-room. The boarding-house was inexpressibly 
 stupid except when the sprightlv young mechanic was 
 present, and she was even angrv with herself for find- 
 ing his society pleasant. What could there be, she 
 asked, m common between herself and this workman? 
 Then she wondered, remembering that so far she had 
 found nothing in her own mind that was not also in his. 
 Could it be that two years of Newnham had elevated 
 her mentally no higher than the level of a cabinet- 
 maker? 
 
 Her meditation brought her, in the course of a few 
 days, to the point of action. She would do something 
 She therefore wrote a letter instructing her solicitors to 
 get her, immediately, two reports, carefully drawn up 
 
 -birst, she would have a report on the brewery its 
 average profits for the last ten years, with a list of all 
 the emi^loyees, the number of years' service, the pay 
 they received, and, as regards the juniors, the charac- 
 ters they bore. 
 
 Next she wanted a-report on her property at the East 
 End, with a list of her tenants, their occupations and 
 trades, and a map showing the position of her houses. 
 
 When she had got these reports she would be, she 
 relt, m a position to w-ork upon them. 
 
 Meantime, Mr. Bunker not having yet succeeded in 
 finding a house suitable for her dressmaking business, 
 
70 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 she had nothing to do but to go on walking about and 
 to make herself acquainted with the place. Once or 
 twice she was joined b}^ the idle apprentice, who, to do 
 him justice, was always ready to devote his unprofitable 
 time to these excursions, which his sprightliness en- 
 livened. 
 
 There is a good deal to see in and about Stepney, 
 though it can hardly be called a beautiful suburb. 
 Formerly it was a very big place, so big that, though 
 Bethnal Green was once chopped off at one end and 
 Limehpuse at the other, not to speak of Shad well, Wap- 
 ping, Stratford, and other great cantles, there still re- 
 mains a parish as big as St. Pancras. Yet, though it is 
 big, it is not proud. Great men have not been born there 
 or lived there ; there are no associations. Stepney Green 
 has not even got its Polly, like Paddington Green and 
 Wapping Old Stairs ; the streets are all mean, and the 
 people for the most part stand upon that level where re- 
 spectability — beautiful qualit}' ! — begins. 
 
 "Do you know the West End V " Angela asked her 
 companion when they were gazing together upon an un- 
 lovel}' avenue of small houses which formed a street. 
 She was thinking how monotonous must be the daily 
 life in these dreary streets. 
 
 " Yes, I know the West End. What is it you regret 
 in your comparison?" 
 
 Angela hesitated. 
 
 '• There are no carriages here, " said the workman ; 
 " no footmen in powder or coachmen in wigs ; there are 
 no ladies on horseback, no great squares with big 
 houses, no clubs, no opera-houses, no picture-galleries. 
 All the rest of life is here." 
 
 "But these things make life," said the heiress. 
 "Without society and art, what is life?" 
 
 " Perhaps these people find other pleasures ; perhaps 
 the monotony gets relieved by hope and anxiety, and 
 love, and death, and such things." The young man 
 forgot how the weight of this monotony had fallen upon 
 his own brain ; he remembered, now, that his compan- 
 ion would probably have to face this dreariness all her 
 life, and he tried in a kindly spirit to divert her mind 
 from the thought of it. " You forget that each life is 
 individual, and has its own separate interests ; and these 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 71 
 
 are apart from the conditions which surround it. Do 
 you laiov/ my cousin, Tom Coppin?" 
 
 "No: what is he?" 
 
 " He is a printer by trade. Of late years he has been 
 engaged in setting up atheistic pubhcations. Of course, 
 this occupation has had the effect of making him an 
 earnest Christian. Now he is a captain of the Salva- 
 tion Army." 
 
 "But I 'thought " 
 
 "Don't think, Miss Kennedy; look about and see for 
 yourself. He lives on tive-and-tvventy shillings a week, 
 in one room, in just such a street as this. I laughed at 
 him at first; now I laugh no longer. You can't laugh 
 at a man who spends his whole life preaching and sing- 
 ing hj'mns among the Whitechapel roughs, taking as a 
 part of the daj^'s work all the rotten eggs, brickbats, 
 and kicks that come in his way. Do you think his life 
 would be less monotonous if he lived in Belgrave 
 Square?" 
 
 " But all are not preachers and captains in the Salva- 
 tion Arm3\" 
 
 " No : there is my cousin Dick. We are, very prop- 
 erly, Tom, Dick, and Harry. Dick is, like myself, a 
 cabinet-maker. He is also a politician, and you may 
 hear him at his club denouncing the House of Lords, 
 and the Church, and monarchical institutions, and he- 
 reditary everything, till you wonder the people do not 
 rise and tear all down. Thej^ don't, jou see, because 
 they are quite accustomed to big talk, and it never 
 means anything, and they are not really touched hj the 
 dreadful wickedness of the peers." 
 
 " I should like to know j^our cousins. " 
 
 " You shall. They don't like me, because I have been 
 brought up in a somewhat different school. But that 
 does not greatly matter." 
 
 "Will they like me?" It was a very innocent ques- 
 tion, put in perfect inaocence, and yet the young man 
 blushed. 
 
 "Ev^erybody," he said, "is bound to like 5'ou." 
 
 She changed color and became silent, for a while. 
 
 He went on presentlj*. 
 
 " We are all as happy as we deserve to be, I suppose. 
 If these people knew what to do in order to make them- 
 
72 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS 01 MEN. 
 
 selves happier, they would go and do that thing. Mean- 
 time, there is always love for everybody, and success, 
 and presently the end — is not life everywhere monoto- 
 nous?" 
 
 " No," she replied stoutly; "mine is not." 
 
 He was thinking at the moment that of all lives a 
 dressmaker's must be one of the most monotonous. She 
 remembered that she was a dressmaker, and explained : 
 
 "There are the changes of fashion, you see." 
 
 "Yes, but you are young," he replied, from his van- 
 tage-ground of twenty -three years, being two years her 
 superior. '* Mine is monotonous when I come to think 
 of it. Only, j'ou see, one does not think of it oftener 
 than one can help. Besides, as far as I have got I like 
 the monotony." 
 
 " Do you like work?" 
 
 " Not much, I own. Do you?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 " Yet you are going to settle down at Stepney. " 
 
 "And you, too?" 
 
 "As for me, I don't know." The young man colored 
 slightly. " I may go away again soon and find work 
 elsewhere." 
 
 "I was walking yesterday," she went on, "in the 
 great, great church-yard of Stepney Church. Do you 
 know it?" 
 
 " Yes — that is, I have net been inside the walls. I 
 am not fond of church-3^ards." 
 
 " There they lie — acres of graves. Thousands upon 
 thousands of dead people, and not one of the whole host 
 remembered. All have lived, worked, hoped much, 
 got a little, I suppose, and died. And the world none 
 the better." 
 
 "Nay, that \o\\ cannot tell." 
 
 "Not one of all remembered," she repeated. "There 
 is an epitaph in the church-yard which might do for 
 every one : 
 
 " ' Here lies the body of Daniel Saul — 
 Spitalfields weaver ; and that is all. ' 
 
 That is all." 
 
 "What more did the fellow deserve?" asked her com- 
 panion. " No doubt he was a very good weaver. Why, 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 73 
 
 he has got a great posthumous reputation. You have 
 quoted him." 
 
 He did not quite follow her line of thought. She was 
 thinking in some vague way of the waste of material. 
 
 " They had very little power of raising the world, to 
 be sure. They were quite poor, ill-educated, and with- 
 out resource." 
 
 "It seems to me," replied her companion, "that no- 
 body has any power of raising the world. Look at the 
 preachers and the writers and the teachers. By their 
 united efforts they contrive to shore up the world and 
 keep it from falling lower. Every now and then down 
 we go, flop — a foot or two of civilization lost. Then 
 we lose a hundred years or so until we can get shoved 
 up again." 
 
 " Should not rich men try to shove up, as you call it?" 
 
 " Some of them do try, I believe," he replied ; " I don't 
 know how they succeed." 
 
 " Suppose, for instance, this young lady, this Miss 
 Messenger, who owns all this property, were to use it 
 for the benefit of the people, how would she begin, do 
 you suppose?" 
 
 " Most likely she would bestow a quantity of money 
 to a hospital, which would pauperize the doctors, or she 
 would give away quantities of blankets, bread, and 
 beef in the winter, which would pauperize the people. " 
 
 Angela sighed. 
 
 " That is not very encouraging. " 
 
 " What you could do by yourself, if you pleased, 
 among the working-girls of the place, would be, I sup- 
 pose, worth ten times what she could do with all her 
 giving. I'm not much in the charity line myself, Miss 
 Kennedy, but I should say, from three weeks' observa- 
 tion of the place and conversation with the respectable 
 Bunker, that Miss Messenger's money is best kept out 
 of the parish, which gets on very well without it." 
 
 " Her money ! Yes, I see. Yet she herself " She 
 
 paused. 
 
 " We working men and women " 
 
 "You are not a working-man, Mr. Goslett." She 
 faced him with her steady, honest eyes, as if she would 
 read the truth in his. " Whatever else you are, you are 
 not a working-man." 
 
74 ALL SORTS AXD CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 He replied without the least change of color : 
 
 " Indeed, I am the son of Sergeant Goslett, of the 
 — th Regiment, who fell in the Indian Mutiny. I am 
 the nephew of good old Benjamin Bunker, the virtuous 
 and the disinterested. I was educated in rather a bet- 
 ter way than most of my class, that is all." 
 
 " Is it true that j^ou have lived in America?" 
 
 " Quite true." He did not say how long he had lived 
 there. 
 
 Angela, with her own guilty secret, was suspicious 
 that perhaps this j'oung man might also have his. 
 
 " Men of your class," she said, " do not as a rule talk 
 like you." 
 
 " Matter of education — that is all. " 
 
 "And you are really a cabinet-maker?" 
 
 " If you will look into my room and see my lathe, I 
 will show you specimens of my work, O thou unbe- 
 liever! Did you think that I might have 'done some- 
 thing, ' and so be fain to hide my head?" 
 
 It was a cruel thing to suspect him in this way, yet 
 the thought had crossed her mind that he might be a 
 fugitive from the law and society, protected for some 
 reason by Bunker. 
 
 Harry returned to the subject of the place. 
 
 "What we want here," he said, "as it seems to me, 
 is a little more of the pleasure and graces of life. To 
 begin with, we are not poor and in misery, but for the 
 most part fairly well off. We have great works here 
 — half a dozen breweries, though none so big as Mes- 
 senger's; chemical works, sugar refineries, though these 
 are a little depressed at present, I believe ; here are all 
 the docks; then we have silk-weavers, rope-makers, 
 sail-makers, match-makers, cigar-makers; we build 
 ships; we tackle jute, though what jute is, and what 
 to do with it, I know not; we cut corks; w^e make 
 soap, and we mak-e fireworks ; we build boats. When 
 all our works are in full blast, we make quantities of 
 money. See us on Sundays, we are not a bad-looking 
 lot ; healthy, well-dressed, and tolerably rosy. But we 
 have no pleasures." 
 
 " There must be some. " 
 
 " A theatre and a music-hall in Whitechapel Road. 
 That has to serve for two millions of people. Now, if 
 
ALL SORTS A'ND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 75 
 
 this young heiress wanted to do any good, she should 
 builcl a Palace of Pleasure here." 
 
 " A Palace of Pleasure ! " she repeated. " It sounds 
 well. Should it be a kind of a Crystal Palace?" 
 
 " Well !" It was quite a new idea, but he replied as 
 if he had been considering the subject for years. " Not 
 quite — with modifications. " 
 
 " Let us talk over your Palace of Pleasure," she said, 
 " at another time. It sounds well. What else should 
 she do?" 
 
 " That is such a gigantic thing that it seems enough 
 for one person to attempt. However, we can find some- 
 thing else for her — why, take schools. There is not a 
 public school for the whole two millions of East Lon- 
 don. Not one place in which boys — to say nothing of 
 girls, can be brought up in generous ideas. She must 
 establish at least half a dozen public schools for boys 
 and as many for girls." 
 
 "That is a very good idea. Will you write and tell 
 her so?" 
 
 " Then there are libraries, reading-rooms, clubs, but 
 all these would form part of the Palace of Pleasure." 
 
 " Of course. I would rather call it a Palace of De- 
 light. Pleasure seems to touch a lower note. We 
 could have music-rooms for concerts as well." 
 
 "And a school for music." The young man became 
 animated as the scheme unfolded itself. 
 
 " And a school for dancing." 
 
 "Miss Kennedy," he said with enthusiasm, "you 
 ought to have the spending of all this money ! And — • 
 why, you would hardly believe it — but there is not in 
 the whole of this parish of Stepney a single dance given 
 
 in the year. Think of that! But perhaps " He 
 
 stopped again. 
 
 "You mean that dressmakers do not, as a rule, 
 dance? However, I do, and so there must be a school 
 for dancing. There must be a great college to teach all 
 these accomplishments." 
 
 " Happy Stepney ! " cried the 5'oung man, carried out 
 of himself." "Thrice happy Stepney! Glorified 
 Whitechapel ! Beautiful Bow! What things await 
 ye in the fortunate future!" 
 
76 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 He left her at the door of Bormalack's, and went off 
 on some voyage of discoveiy of his own. 
 
 The girl retreated to her own room. She had now 
 hired a sitting-room all to herself, and paid three 
 months in advance, and sat down to think. Then she 
 took paper and pen and began to write. 
 
 She was writing down, while it was hot in her head, 
 the three-fold scheme which this remarkable young 
 workman had put into her head. 
 
 "We women are weak creatures," she said with a 
 sigh. " We long to be up and doing, but we cannot 
 carve out our work for ourselves. A man must be with 
 us to suggest or direct it. The College of Art — yes, we 
 will call it the College of Art ; the Palace of Delight ; 
 the public schools. I should think that between the 
 three a good deal of money might be got through. And 
 oh ! to think of converting this dismal suburb into a 
 home for refined and cultivated people !" 
 
 In blissful revery she saw already the mean houses 
 turned into red brick Queen Anne terraces and villas ; the 
 dingy streets were planted with avenues of trees ; art 
 flourished in the house as well as out of it ; life was 
 rendered gracious, sweet, and lovely. 
 
 And to think that this result was due to the sugges- 
 tion of a common working-man ! 
 
 But then, he had lived in the States. Doubtless in 
 the States all the working-men But was that pos- 
 sible? 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 A FIRST STEP. 
 
 With this great programme before her, the responsi- 
 bilities of wealth were no longer so oppressive. When 
 power can be used for beneficent purposes, who would 
 not be powerful? And beside the mighty shadow of 
 this scheme, the smaller project for which Bunker was 
 finding a house looked small indeed. Yet was it not 
 small, but great, and destined continually to grow 
 greater? 
 
 Bunker came to see her from day to day, reporting 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 77 
 
 progress. He heard of a house here or a house there, 
 and went to see it. But it was too large; and of an- 
 other, but it was too small ; and of a third, but it was 
 not convenient for her purpose ; and so on. Each house 
 took up a whole day in examination, and Bunker's bill 
 was getting on with great freedom. 
 
 The delay, howev^er, gave Angela time to work out 
 her new ideas on paper. She invoked the assistance of 
 her friend the cabinet-maker with ideas ; and, under the 
 guise of amusing themselves, they drew up a long and 
 business-like prospectus of the proposed new institu- 
 tions. First, there were the High Schools, of which 
 she would found six — three for boys and three for girls. 
 The great feature of these schools was to be that they 
 should give a liberal education for a very small fee, and 
 that in their play-grounds, their discipline, and, as far 
 as possible, their hours, they were to resemble the great 
 public schools. 
 
 " They must be endowed for their masters' and mis- 
 tresses' salaries, and with scholarships; and — and — I 
 think the boys and girls ought to have dinner in the 
 school, so as not to go home all day ; and — and — there 
 will be many things to provide for each school." 
 
 She looked as earnest over this amusement, Harry 
 said, as if she were herself in possession of the fortune 
 which they were thus administering. They agreed that 
 when the schools were built, an endowment of £ 70,000 
 each, which would yield £ 2,000 a year, ought to be 
 enough, with the school fees, to provide for the educa- 
 tion of five hundred in each school. Then they pro- 
 ceeded with the splendid plan of the new college. It 
 was agreed that learning, properl}' so called, should be 
 entirely kept out of the programme. No political econ- 
 omy, said the Newnham student, should be taught 
 there. Nor any of the usual things — Latin, Greek, 
 mathematics, and so forth — said the young man from 
 the United States. What, then, remained? 
 
 Everj^thing. The difficulty in making such a selec- 
 tion of studies is to know what to omit. 
 
 " We are to have, " said Harr}', now almost as enthu- 
 siastic as Angela herself, "a thing never before at- 
 tempted. We are to have a College of Art. What a 
 grand idea! It was yours, Miss Kennedy." 
 
78 ALL SORTS AND CONDTTIOXS OF MEN. 
 
 "No," she replied, "it was yours. If it comes to 
 anything, we shall always remember that it was yours." 
 
 An amiable contest was tinished b}" their recollecting 
 that it was only a play, and the}^ laughed and went on, 
 half ashamed, and yet both full of enthusiasm. 
 
 " The College of Art !" he repeated ; " why, there are 
 a hundred kinds of art; let us include accomplish- 
 ments." 
 
 They would ; they did. 
 
 They finally resolved that there should be professors, 
 lecturers, or teachers, with convenient class-rooms, the- 
 atres and lecture-halls in the following accomplishments 
 and graces : Dancing, but there must be the old as well 
 as the new kinds of dancing. The waltz was not to 
 exclude the minuet, the reel, the country dance, or the 
 old square dances; the pupils would also have such 
 dances as the bolero and the tarcoi fella, and other na- 
 tional jumpories. Singing, which was to be a great 
 feature, as anybody could sing, said Angela, if tliey 
 were taught. " Except my Uncle Bunker !" said Harry. 
 Then there were to be musical instruments of all kinds. 
 Skating, bicj'cling, la%vn tennis, racquets, fives, and 
 all kinds of games; rowing, billiards, archery, rifle- 
 shooting. Then there Avas to be acting, with reading 
 and recitation ; there were to be classes on gardening, 
 on cookery, and on the laws of beauty in costume. 
 
 " The East End shall be independent of the rest of the 
 world in fashion, " said Angela ; " we will dress accord- 
 ing to the rules of Art!" 
 
 " You shall, " cried Harry, " and your own girls shall be 
 the new dressmakers to the whole of glorified Stepney." 
 
 Then there were to be lectures, not in literature, but 
 in letter-writing, especiall}^ in love-letter writing, versi- 
 fying, novel-writing, and essay -writing ; that is to say, 
 on the more delightful forms of literature — so that poets 
 and novelists should arise, and the East End, hitherto 
 a barren desert, should blossom with flowers. Then 
 there was to be a Professor of Grace, because a graceful 
 carriage of the body is so generally neglected; and 
 Harry, who had a slim figure and long legs, began to 
 indicate how the professor would probably carry himself. 
 Next there were to be Professors of Painting, Drawing, 
 Sculpture and Design ; and lectures on Furniture, Color, 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 79 
 
 and Architecture. The arts of photography, china paint- 
 ing, and so forth were to be cultivated; and there wore 
 to be classes for the encouragement of leather-work, 
 crewel-work, fret-work, brass-work, wood and ivory 
 carving, and so forth. 
 
 "There shall be no house in the East End," cried the 
 girl, "that shall not have its panels painted by one 
 member of the family; its woodwork carved by an- 
 other, its furniture designed by a third, its windows 
 planted with flowers by another." 
 Her eyes glowed, her lips trembled. 
 '^' You ought to have' had the millions," said Harry. - 
 "Nay, you, for you devised it all," she replied. She 
 was so glowing, so rosy red, so soft and sweet to look 
 upon; her eyes were so full of possible love — though of 
 love she was not thinking— that almost the young man 
 fell upon his knees to worship this Venus. 
 
 "And all these beautiful things," she went on, breath- 
 less, " are only designed for the sake of the Palace of 
 Delight. 
 
 " It shall stand somewhere near the central place, this 
 Stepney Green, so that all the East can get to it. It 
 shall have many halls," she went on. "One of them 
 shall be for concerts, and there shall be an organ ; one 
 of them shall be for a theatre, and there will be a stage 
 and everything; one shall be a dancing-hall, one\ 
 skating rink, one a hall for lectures, readings and reci- 
 tations ; one a picture gallery, one a permanent exhibi- 
 tion of our small arts. We will have our concerts per- 
 formed from our School of Music ; our plavs shall be 
 played by our amateurs taught at our School of Acting; 
 our exhibitions shall bo supplied by our own people ; the 
 things will be sold, and they will soon be sold off and 
 replaced, because they will be cheap. Oh ! oh ! oh !" 
 She clasped her hands, and fell back in her chair, over- 
 powered with the thought. 
 
 "It will cost much money," said Harry weakly, as 
 if money was any object — in dreams. 
 
 "The college must be endowed witn £30,000 a 
 year, which is a million of money," xVngela replied, 
 making a little calculation. "That money must be 
 found. As for the palace, it will require nothing but 
 the building, and a small annual income to pay for re- 
 
80 ALL SQRTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 pairs and servants. It will be governed by a board of 
 directors, elected by the people themselves, to whom 
 the Palace will belong. And no one shall pay or be 
 paid for an}^ performance. And the only condition of 
 admission w'ill be good behavior, with exclusion as a 
 penalty." 
 
 The thing which she contemplated was a deed the 
 like of which makes to tingle the ears of those who hear 
 it. To few, indeed, is it given to commniiicate to a 
 whole nation this strange and not unpleasant sen- 
 sation. 
 
 One need not disguise the fact that the possession of 
 this power, and the knowledge of her own benevolent 
 intentions, gave Angela a better opinion of herself than 
 she had ever known before. Herein, my friends, lies, 
 if you wdll rightly regard it, the true reason of the fein- 
 inino love for powder illustrated by Chaucer. For the 
 few who have from time to time wielded authority have 
 ever been persuaded that they Avi elded it wisely, benev- 
 olently, religiously, and have of course congratulated 
 themselves on the possession of so much virtue. What 
 mischiefs, thought Elizabeth of England, Catharine of 
 Russia, Semiramis of Babylon, and Angela of White- 
 chapel, might have follow^ed had a less wise and virtu- 
 ous person been on the throne ! 
 
 It was not unnatural, considering how much she w^as 
 with Harry at this time, and how^ long were their talks 
 with each other, that she should have him a great deal 
 in her mind. For these ideas were certainly his, not 
 hers. Newnham, she reflected humbled, had not taught 
 her to originate. She knew^ that he was but a cabinet- 
 maker by trade. Yet, when she involuntarily compared 
 him, his talk, his manners, his bearing, wath the men 
 whom she had met, the young Dons and the undergrad- 
 uates of Cambridge, the clever j-^oung fellows in society 
 who were reported to write for the Saturday., and 
 the Berties and the Algies of daily life, she owned to 
 herself that in no single point did this cabinet-maker 
 fellow compare unfavorably with any of them. He 
 seemed as w'ell taught as the last-made Fellow^ of Trin- 
 ity who came to lecture on Literature and Poetrj^ at 
 Newmham ; as cultivated as the mediseval Fellow who 
 took Philosophy and Psychology, and was supposed to 
 
ALL SORTS AND COXDITTOXS OF MEN. 81 
 
 entertain ideas on religion so original as to amount to 
 a Fifth Gospel : as quick as the most thorough-going 
 society man who has access to studios, literary circles, 
 musical people, and aesthetes; and as careless as any 
 Bertie or Algie of the whole set. This it was which 
 made her blusii, because if he had been a common man, a 
 mere Banker, he might, with his knowledge of his class, 
 have proved so useful a servant to her ; so admirable a 
 vizier. Now, unfortunately, she felt that she could only 
 make him useful in this way after she had confided in 
 him ; and that to confide in him might raise dangerous 
 thoughts in the young man's head. No: she must not 
 confide in him. 
 
 It shows Avhat a thoughtful young person Angela was, 
 that she would blusli all by herself only to think of 
 danger to Harrj'^ Goslett, 
 
 She passed all that night and the whole of the next 
 day and night in a dream over the Palace of Delight 
 and the college for educating people in the sweet and 
 pleasant things — the College of Art. 
 
 On the next morning a cold chill fell upon her, caused 
 I know not how; not by the weather, which was the 
 bright and hot weather of last Jul}' ; not by any ail- 
 ment of her own, because Angela owned the most per- 
 fect mechanism ever constructed by Nature ; nor by any 
 unpleasantness in the house, because, now that she had 
 her own room, she generallj' breakfasted alone ; nor by 
 anything in the daily papers — which frequently, by 
 their evil telegrams and terrifj'ing forebodings, do poison 
 the spring and the fountain-head of the day; nor by 
 any letter, because the only one she had was from Con- 
 stance Woodcote at Newnham, and it told the welcome 
 news that she was appointed Mathematical Lecturer 
 with so much a head for fees, and imploring Angela to 
 remember her promise that she would endow Newnham 
 with a scholarship. Endow Newnham ! Why, she 
 was going to have a brand-new college of her own, to 
 say nothing of the high schools for bo^'S and girls. 
 Perhaps the cause of her depression was the appearance 
 of Bunker, who came to tell her that he had at last 
 found the house which would suit her. No other house 
 in the neighborhood was in any way to compare with 
 it ; the house stood close by, at the southwest corner of 
 6 
 
82 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 Stepney Green. It was ready for occupation, the situ- 
 ation was as desirable as that of Tirzah the Beautiful ; 
 the rent was extremely low, considering the many ad- 
 vantages ; all the nobility and gentry of the place, he 
 declared, would flock around a dressmaker situated in 
 Stepney Green itself ; there were rooms for show-rooms, 
 with plenty of other rooms and everything which would 
 be required ; finall)^ as if this were an additional recom- 
 mendation, the house belonged to himself. 
 
 "I am ready," he said, with a winning smile, "to 
 make a sacrifice of my own interests in order to oblige 
 a young lady, and I will take a lower rent from you 
 than I would from anybody else.*' 
 
 She went with him to " view" the house. One looks 
 at a picture, a horse, an estate, a book, but one " views " 
 a house. Subtle and beautiful distinction, which shows 
 the poetry latent in the heart of every house agent ! It 
 was Bunker's own. Surely that was not the reason 
 why it was let at double the rent of the next house, 
 Avhich belonged to Angela herself, nor why the tenant 
 had to undertake all the repairs, paper, and painting, 
 external and internal, nor why the rent began from that 
 very da}^ instead of the half-quarter or the next quarter- 
 day. Bunker himself assured Miss Kennedy that he 
 had searched the wdiole neighborhood for a suitable 
 place, but could find none so good as his own house. 
 As for the houses of the Messenger propertj^, they were 
 liable, he said, to the demands of a lawyer's firm, which 
 had no mercy on a tenant, while, as for himself, he was 
 full of compassion, and alwaj^s ready to listen to reason. 
 He wanted no other recommendation than a year's rent 
 paid in advance, and would undertake to execute, at the 
 tenant's cost, the whole of the j^ainting, papering, white- 
 washing, roofing, pipes, chimneys, and general work 
 himself; " whereas, young lady," he added, " if you had 
 taken one of those Messenger houses, you cannot tell in 
 what hands you would have found yourself, nor what 
 charges you would have had to pay." 
 
 He shook his fat head, and rattled his keys in hiig 
 pocket. So strong is the tendency of the human mind 
 to believe what is said, in spite of all exj^erience to the 
 contrary, that his victim smiled and thanked him, 
 knowing very well that the next minute she would be 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 83 
 
 angry with herself for so easily becoming a dupe to a 
 clumsy rogue. 
 
 She thanked him for his consideration, she said, yet 
 she was uneasilj^ conscious that he was overreaching 
 her in some way, and she hesitated. 
 
 " On the Green, " he said. " What a position ! Look- 
 ing out on the garden I With such rooms! And so 
 cheap !" 
 
 "I don't know," she replied; "I must consult some 
 one. " 
 
 "As to that," he said, "there may be another tenant; 
 I can't keep offers open. Take it, miss, or leave it. 
 There!" 
 
 While she still hesitated, he added one more recom- 
 mendation. 
 
 " An old house it is, but solid, and will stand forever. 
 Wh}", old Mr. Messenger was born here." 
 
 " Was he ?" she cried, '"' was my — was Mr. Messenger 
 actually born here?" 
 
 She hesitated no longer. She took the house at his 
 own price; she accepted his terms, extortionate and 
 grasping as they were. 
 
 \Vhen the bargain was completed — when she had 
 promised to sign the agreement for a twelvemonth, pay 
 a year in advance, and api^oint the disinterested one her 
 executor of repairs, she returned to Bormalack's. In 
 the doorway, a cigarette in his mouth, lounged the idle 
 apprentice. 
 
 '' I saw you," he said, "with the benevolent Bunker. 
 You have fallen a prey to my uncle?" 
 
 "I have taken a house from him." 
 
 " The two phrases are convertible. Those who take 
 his houses are his victims. I hope no great mischief is 
 done." 
 
 "Not much, I think." 
 
 The young man threw away his cigarette. 
 
 "Seriously, Miss Kenned}'," he said, "my good uncle 
 will possess himself of all the money he can get out of 
 you. Have a care." 
 
 " He can do me no harm, thank you all the same. I 
 wanted a house soon, and he has found me one. What 
 does it matter if I pay a little more than I ought?" 
 
 "What does it matter?" Harry was not versed in 
 
84 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 details of trade, but he knew enough to feel that this 
 kind of talk was unpractical. " Wliat does it matter? 
 My dear young lady, if you go into business, you must 
 look after the sixpences." 
 
 Miss Kennedy looked embarrassed. She had betrayed 
 herself, she thought. " I know — I know. But he 
 talked me over." 
 
 "I have heard," said the practical man, looking pro- 
 foundly wise, " that he who would save money must 
 even consider that there is a difference between a guinea 
 and a sovereign; and that he shouldn't pay a cabman 
 more than twice his fare, and that it is wrong to pay 
 half-a-guinea for Heidsieck Monopole when he can get 
 Pommery and Greno at seven-and-sixpence." 
 
 Then he, too, paused abruptly, because he felt as if 
 he had betrayed himself. What have cabinet-makers 
 to do with Pommery and Greno? Fortunately, Angela 
 did not hear the latter part of the speech. She was re- 
 flecting on the ease with which a crafty man — say 
 Bunker — may compass his ends with the simple — say 
 herself. 
 
 " I do not pretend," he said, "to know all the ropes, 
 but I should not have allowed you to be taken in quite 
 
 so readily by this good uncle. Do you know " His 
 
 eyes, when they were serious, which was not often, 
 were really good. Angela perceived they were serious 
 now : " Do you know that the name of the uncle who 
 was indirectly, so to speak, connected with the Robin 
 Redbreasts was originally Bunker? He changed it 
 after the children Avere dead, and he came into the prop- 
 erty." 
 
 "I wish you had been with me," she said simply. 
 " But I suppose I must take my chance, as other girls do. " 
 
 " Most other girls have got men to advise them. 
 Have you no one?" 
 
 " I might have " — she was thinking of her lawyers, 
 who were paid to advise her if required. " But I will 
 find out things for mj^self." 
 
 " And at what a price ! Are your pockets lined with 
 gold, Miss Kennedy?" They certainly were, but he did 
 not know it. 
 
 " I will try to be careful. Thank you." 
 
 " As regards going with you, I am always at your 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN 85 
 
 command. I will be your servant, if you will accept 
 me as such." 
 
 This was going a step further than seemed altogether 
 safe. Angela was hardly prepared to receive a cabinet- 
 maker, however polite and refined he might seem, as a 
 lover. 
 
 " I believe, " she said, " that in our class of life it is 
 customary for young people to 'keep company,' is it 
 not?" 
 
 " It is not uncommon," he replied, with, much earn- 
 estness. " The custom has even been imitated by the 
 higher classes." 
 
 " What I mean is this, that I am not going to keep 
 company with any one ; but, if you please to help me, 
 if I ask 3"our advice, I shall be grateful." 
 
 " Your gratitude, " he said with a smile, " ought to 
 make any man happj' !" 
 
 "Your compliments," she retorted, "will certainly 
 kill my gratitude; and now, Mr. Goslett, don't you 
 really think that you should try to do some work? Is 
 it right to lounge away the days among the streets? 
 Are your pockets, I may ask, lined with gold?" 
 
 " I am looking for work. I am hunting every^vhere 
 for work. My uncle is going to find me a workshop. 
 Then I shall request the patronage of the nobility and 
 gentry of Stepney, Whitechapel, and the Mile End 
 Road. H. G. respectfully solicits a trial." He laughed 
 as if there could be no doubt at all about the future, and 
 as if a few 5'ears of looking around were of no impor- 
 tance. Theii he bowed to Angela in the character of the 
 Complete Cabinet-maker. " Orders, madame, orders 
 executed with neatness and despatch. The highest 
 price given for second-hand furniture." 
 
 She had got her house, however, though she was go- 
 ing to pay far too much for it. That was a great thing, 
 and, as the more important schemes could not be all com- 
 menced at a moment's notice, she would begin with the 
 lesser — her dressmaker's shop. 
 
 Here Mr. Goslett could not help her. She applied, 
 therefore, again to Mr. Bunker, who had a registry 
 office for situations wanted. "My terms," he said, 
 " are five shillings on application and five shillings for 
 each person engaged." 
 
86 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 He did not say that he took half a crown from each 
 person who wanted a place and five shillings on her 
 getting the place. His ways were ways of pleasant- 
 ness, and on principle he never spoke of things which 
 might cause unj)leasant remarks. Besides, no one knew 
 the trouble he had to take in suiting people. 
 
 "I knew," he said, "that you would come back to 
 me. People will only find out my worth when I am 
 gone." 
 
 " I hope you will be worth a great deal, Mr. Bunker," 
 said Angela. 
 
 "Pretty well, young lady. Pretty well. Ah! my 
 nephews will be the gainers. But not what I mig-ht 
 have been if it had not been for the meanness, the — 
 the — Hunxincss of that wicked old man." 
 
 " Do you think you can find me what I want, Mr. 
 Bunker?" 
 
 " Can I?" He turned over the leaves of a great book. 
 " Look at this long list ; all ready to better themselves. 
 Apprentices anxious to get through their articles, and 
 improvers to be dressmakers, and dressmakers to be 
 forewomen, and forewomen to be mistresses. That is 
 the way of the world, young lady. Sweet contentment, 
 where art thou?" The pastoral simplicity of his words 
 and attitude were inexpressibly comic. 
 
 " And how are you going to begin. Miss Kennedy?" 
 
 "Quietly at first." 
 
 "Then you'll want a matter of one or two dress- 
 makers, and half a dozen improvers. The apprentices 
 will come later." 
 
 " What are the general wages in this part of London?" 
 
 " The dressmakers get sixteen shillings a week ; the 
 improvers six. They bring their own dinners, and you 
 give them their tea. But, of course, you know all 
 that." 
 
 " Of course, " said Angela, making a note of the fact, 
 notwithstanding. 
 
 " As for one of your dressmakers, I can recommend 
 you Rebekah Hermitage, daughter of the Rev. Fercival 
 Hermitage. She cannot get a situation, because of her 
 father's religious opinions." 
 
 " That seems strange. What are they?" 
 
 " Why, he's minister of the Seventh-Day Indepen- 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 87 
 
 dents. They've got a chapel in Redman's Row; they 
 have their services on Saturday because, they say — and 
 it seems true — that the Fourth Commandment has never 
 been abolished any more than the rest of them. I won- 
 der the bishops don't take it up. Well, there it is. On 
 Saturda3"s she won't work, and on Sundays she don't 
 like to, because the other people don't." 
 
 "Has she any religious objection," asked Angela, 
 "to working on Monday and Tuesday?" 
 
 "No; and I'll send her over, Miss Kenned}*, this 
 evening, if you will see her. You'll get her cheap, be- 
 cause no one else will have her. Very good. Then 
 there is Nelly Sorensen. I know she would like to go 
 out, but her father is particular. Not that he's any 
 right to be, being a pauper. If a man like me or the 
 late Mr. Messenger, my friend, chooses to be particular, 
 it's nothing but right. As for Captain Sorensen — why, 
 it's the pride after the fall, instead of before it. Which 
 makes it, to a substantial man, sickenin'." 
 
 "Who is Captain Sorensen?" 
 
 "He lives in the asylum along the Whitechapel 
 Road, only ten minutes or so from here. Nelly Soren- 
 sen is as clever a work- woman as you will get. If I 
 were you. Miss Kennedy, I would go and find her at 
 home. Then j^ou can see her work and talk to her. 
 As for her father, keep him in his right place. Pride 
 in an almshouse ! Why, you'd hardly believe it ; but I 
 wanted to put his girl in a shop where they employ fifty 
 hands, and he wouldn't have it, because he didn't like 
 the character of the proprietor. Said he was a grinder 
 and an oppressor. My answer to such is, and always 
 will be, "Take it or leave it.' If they won't take it, 
 there's heaps that must. As old Mr. Messenger used to 
 say, 'Bunker, my friend,' or 'Bunker, my only friend,' 
 sometimes, 'Your remarks is true wisdom.' Yes, Miss 
 Kennedy, I will go with you to show you the way.' " 
 He looked at his watch. " Half-past four. I dare say 
 it will take half an hour there and back, which with the 
 last quarter of an hour's talk, we shall charge as an 
 hour's time, which is half a crown. Thank you. An 
 hour," he added, with great feeling; "an hour, like 
 a pint of beer, cannot be divided. And on these easy 
 terms, Miss Kennedy, you will find me always ready 
 
88 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 to work for you from sunrise to sunset, thinking of your 
 interests, even at meals, so as not to split an hour or 
 waste it, and to save trouble in reckoning up." 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 TKE TRINITY ALMSHOUSE. 
 
 From Stepney Green to the Trinity Almshouse is not 
 a long way ; you have, in fact, little more than to pass 
 through a short street and to cross the road. But the 
 road itself is noteworthy ; for, of all the roads which 
 lead into London or out of it, this of Whitechapel is the 
 broadest and the noblest by nature. . Man, it is true, 
 has done little to embellish it. There are no avenues of 
 green and spreading lime and plane trees, as, one day, 
 there shall be ; there ai-e no stately buildings, towers, 
 spires, miracles of architecture— but only houses and 
 shops, which, whether small or big, are all alike mean, 
 unlovely, and depressing. Yet, in spite of all, a noble 
 road. 
 
 This road, which is the promenade, breathing-place, 
 place of resort, place of gossip, place of amusement, and 
 place of business for the greater part of East London, 
 stretches all the way from Aldgate to Stratford, teing 
 called first Whitechapel Road, and then the Mile End 
 Road, and then the Stratford Road. Under the first 
 name the road has acquired a reputation of the class 
 called, by moralists, unenviable. The history of police 
 courts records, under the general heading of White- 
 chapel Road, shows so many free fights, brave robber- 
 ies, gallant murders, dauntless kickings, cudgellings, 
 pummellings, pocket-pickings, shop-liftings, watch- 
 snatchings, and assaults on constables, with such a 
 brave display of disorderly drunks, that the road has 
 come to be regarded with admiration as one of those 
 Alsatian retreats, growing every day rarer, which are 
 beyond and above the law. It is thought to be a place 
 where manhood and personal bravery reign supreme. 
 Yet the road is not worthy this reputation ; it has of 
 late years become orderlj" ; its present condition is dull 
 and law-abiding, brilliant as the past has been, and what- 
 
ALL SORTS A:\D COXDITIOXS OF MEN. 89 
 
 ever greatness may be in store for the future. Once 
 out of Whitechapel, and within the respectable regions 
 of Mile End, the road has always been eminently re- 
 spectable ; and as regards dangers, quite safe, ever since 
 they built the bridge over the river Lea, which used now 
 and again to have freshets, and at such times tried to 
 drown harmless people in its ford. Since that bridge 
 Avas built, in the time of Edward I., it matters not for 
 the freshets. There is not much in the Bow Road when 
 the stranger gets there, in his journey along this great 
 thoroughfare, for him to visit, except its almshouses, 
 which are many ; and the beautiful old church of Bow, 
 standing in the middle of the road, crumbling slowly 
 away in the East End fog, with its narrow strips of 
 crowded church-yard. One hopes that before it has quite 
 crumbled away some one will go and make a picture of 
 it — an etching would be the best. At Stratford the 
 road divides, so that you may turn to the right and get 
 to Barking, or to the left and get to Epping Forest. 
 And all the way, for four miles, a broad and noble road, 
 which must have been carved originally out of No Man's 
 Land, in so generous a spirit is it laid out. Angela is 
 now planting it with trees; beneath the trees she will 
 set seats for those who wish to rest. Here and there 
 she will erect drinking-fountains. Whitechapel Road, 
 since her improvements begun, has been transformed ; 
 even the bacon shops are beginning to look a little less 
 rusty ; and the grocers are trying to live up to the green 
 avenues. 
 
 Angela's imagination was fired by this road from the 
 ver}'- first, when the idle apprentice took her into it as 
 into a new and strange country. Here, for the first 
 times she realized the meaning of the universal curse, 
 from which only herself and a few others are unnatu- 
 rally exempted ; and this only under heavy penalties 
 and the necessity of finding out their own work for 
 themselves, or it will be the worse for them. People 
 think it better to choose their own work. That is a 
 great mistake. You might just as well want to choose 
 your own disease. In the West End, a good manj- folk 
 do work — and work prett}' hard, some of them — who 
 need not, unless they please ; and a good man}- others 
 work who must, whether they please or no : but some- 
 
90 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 how the forced labor is pushed into the background. 
 We do not perceive its presence : people drive about in 
 carriages, as if there were nothing to do ; people lounge ; 
 people have leisure; people do not look pressed or in 
 a hurry, or task-mastered, or told to make bricks with- 
 out straw. 
 
 Here, in the East End, on the other hand, there are 
 no strollers. All da}^ long the place is full of passen- 
 gers, hasting to and fro, pushing each other aside, with 
 set and anxious faces, each driven by the invisible 
 scourge of necessity Avhich makes slaves of all mankind. 
 Do you know that famous picture of the Israelites in 
 Eg.ypt? Upon the great block of stone, which the poor 
 wretches are painfully dragging, while the cruel lash 
 goads the weak and terrifies the strong, there sits one 
 in authorit}^. He regards the herd of slaves with eyes 
 terrible from their stony gaze. What is it to him 
 whether the feeble suffer and perish, so that the Pha- 
 raoh's will be done? The people of the East reminded 
 Angela, who was an on-looker, and had no work to do, 
 of these builders of p3'ramids: they worked under a 
 taskmaster as relentless as that stony-hearted captain 
 or foreman of works. If the Israelites desisted, they 
 were flogged back to work with cats of many tails ; if 
 our workmen desist, they are flogged back by starva- 
 tion. 
 
 "Let us hope, "said Harry, to whom Angela imparted 
 a portion of the above reflection and comparison — " let 
 us hope the Pharaoh Iiimself means well and is pitiful." 
 He spoke without his usual flippancy, so that perhaj^s 
 his remark had some meaning for himself. 
 
 All day long and all the year round there is a constant 
 fair going on in Whitechapel Road. It is held upon 
 the broad pavement, which was benevolently intended, 
 no doubt, for this purpose. Here are displayed all 
 kinds of things : bits of second-hand furniture, such as 
 the head of a wooden bed, whose griminess is perhaps 
 exaggerated, in order that a purchaser maj' expect some- 
 thing extraordinarilj^ cheap. Here are lids of pots and 
 saucepans laid out, to show that in the warehouse, of 
 which these things are specimens, will be found the 
 principal parts of the utensils for sale; here are unex- 
 pected things, such as rows of skates, sold cheap in 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 91 
 
 summer; light clothing in winter; workmen's tools of 
 every kind, including, perhaps, the burglarious jimmy ; 
 second-hand books — a miscellaneous collection, estab- 
 lishing the fact that the readers of books in Whitechapel 
 — a feeble and scanty folk — read nothing at all except 
 sermons and meditations among the tombs; second- 
 hand boots and shoes ; cutlerj- ; hats and caps ; rat-traps 
 and mouse-traps and bird-cages; flowers and seeds; 
 skittles; and frames for photographs. Cheap-jacks 
 have their carts beside the pavement, and with strident 
 voice proclaim the goodness of their wares, which in- 
 clude in this district bloaters and dried haddocks, as 
 well as crockery. And one is amazed, seeing how 
 the open-air fair goes on, why the shops are kept open 
 at all. 
 
 And alwa^'S the same. It saddens one, I know not 
 why, to sit beside a river and see the water flowing 
 down with never a pause. It saddens one still more to 
 watch the current of human life in this great thorough- 
 fare and feel that, as it is now, so it was a generation 
 ago, and so it will be a generation hence. The bees in 
 the hive die, and are replaced by others exactly like 
 them, and the honey-making goes on merrily still. So, 
 in a great street, the wagons always go up and down ; 
 the passengers never cease ; the shopboy is always be- 
 hind the counter; the work-girl is always sewing; the 
 workman is always carrying his tools as he goes to his 
 work ; there are always those who stay for half a pint, 
 and alwaj's those who hurry on. In this endless drama, 
 which repeats itself like a musical box, the jeune p re- 
 in ier of to-day becomes to-morrow the lean and slip- 
 pered pantaloon. The da}" after to-morrow he will 
 have disappeared, gone to join the silent ones in the 
 grim, unlovely cemeter}' belonging to the Tower Ham- 
 lets, which lies beyond Stepney, and is the reason why 
 on Sundays the " frequent funeral blackens all the road. 
 
 '■ One can moralize, " said Harry one da3% after they 
 had been exchanging sentiments of enjoyable sadness, 
 "at this rate forever. But it has all been done before." 
 
 "Everything, I suppose," replied Angela, "has been 
 done before. If it has not been done by me, it is new 
 — to me. It does not make it any better for a man whe 
 has to work all the days of his life, and gets no enjoy- 
 
93 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 ment out of it, and lives ignobly and dies obscurely, that 
 the same thing happens to most people." 
 
 "We cannot help ourselves." This time it was the 
 cabinet-maker who spoke to the dressmaker. " We be- 
 long to the crowd, and we must live with the crowd. 
 You can't make much glory out of a mercenary lathe nor 
 out of a dressmaker's shop, can you. Miss Kennedy?" 
 
 It was by such reminders, one to the other, that con- 
 versations of the most delightful kind, full of specula- 
 tions and comparisons, were generall}' brought up short. 
 When Angela remembered that she was talking to an 
 artisan, she froze. When Harry reflected that it was 
 a dressmaker to whom he was communicating bits of 
 his inner soul, he checked himself. When, which hap- 
 pened every day, they forgot their disguises for a while, 
 they talked quite freel}^ and very prettily communicated 
 all sorts of thoughts, fancies, and opinions to each other; 
 insomuch that once or twice a disagreeable feeling 
 would cross the girl's mind that the}' were perhaps get- 
 ting too near the line at which " keeping company" be- 
 gins ; but he was a young workman of good taste, and 
 he never presumed. 
 
 She was walking beside her guide, Mr. Bunker, and 
 pondering over these things as she gazed down the broad 
 road, and recollected the talk she had held in it ; and 
 now her heart was warm within her, because of the 
 things she thought and had tried to say. 
 
 "Here we are, miss," said Mr. Bunker, stopping. 
 "Here's the Trinity Almshouse." 
 
 She awoke from her dream. It is very odd to con- 
 sider the strange thoughts which flash upon one in 
 walking. Angela suddenly discovered that Mr. Bunker 
 possessed a remarkable resemblance to a bear. His 
 walk was something like one, with a swing of the 
 shoulders, and his hands were big and his expression 
 was hungry. Yes, he was exactly' like a bear. 
 
 She observed that she was standing at a v/icket-gate, 
 and that over the gate was the efRgj' of a ship in full sail 
 done in stone. Mr. Bunker opened the door, and led the 
 way to the court within. 
 
 Then a great stillness fell upon the girl's spirit. 
 
 Outside the wagons, carts, and omnibuses thundered 
 and rolled. You could hear them plainly enough ; j'ou 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 93 
 
 could hear the tramp of a thousand feet. But the noise 
 outside was only a contrast to the quiet within. A wall 
 of brick with iron railings separated the tumult from 
 the calm. It seemed as if, within that court, there was 
 no noise at all, so sharp and sudden was the contrast. 
 
 She stood in an oblong court, separated from the road 
 by the wall above named. On either hand was a row 
 of small houses containing, apparentlj^, four rooms each. 
 They were built of red brick, and were bright and clean. 
 Every house had an iron tank in front for water; there 
 was a pavement of flags along this row, and a grass 
 laAvn occupied the middle of the court. Upon the grass 
 stood the statue of a benefactor, and at the end of the 
 court was a chapel. It was a very little chapel, but 
 was approached by a most enormous and disproportion- 
 ate flight of stone steps, which might have been orig- 
 inally cut for a portal of St. Paul's Cathedral. The 
 steps were surmounted by a great doorway, which oc- 
 cupied the whole west front of the chapel. No one was 
 moving about the place except an old lady, who was 
 drawing water from her tank. 
 
 " Pretty place, ain'o it?" asked Mr. Bunker. 
 
 " It seems peaceful and quiet," said the girl. 
 
 "Place where you'd expect pride, ain't it?" he went 
 on scornfully. " Oh yes ! Paupers and pride go to- 
 gether, as is well known. Lowliness is for them who've 
 got a bank and money in it. Oh, yes, of course. Gar ! 
 The pride of an inmate !" 
 
 He led the way, making a most impertinent echo with 
 the heels of his boots. Angela observed, immediately, 
 that there was another court beyond the first. In fact, 
 it was larger : the houses were of stone, and of greater 
 size; and it was if anything more solemnly quiet. It 
 was possessed of silence. 
 
 Here there is another statue erected to the memory of 
 the founder, who, it is stated on the pedestal, died, be- 
 ing then " Comander of a Shipp " in the East Indies, in 
 the year 168G. The gallant captain is represented in 
 the costume of the period. He wears a coat of many 
 buttons, large cuffs, and full skirts; the coat is but- 
 toned a good way below the waist, showing the fair 
 doublet within, also provided with many buttons. He 
 wears shoes v.ith buckles, has a soft silk wrapper round 
 
94 ALL SOfiTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 his neck, and a sash to carry his sword. On his head 
 there is an enormous wig, well adapted to serve the 
 purpose for which solar toupees were afterward invented. 
 In his right hand he carries a sextant, many sizes big- 
 ger than those in modern use, and at his feet dolphins 
 sport. A grass lawn covers this court, as well as the 
 other, and no voice or sound ever comes from any of the 
 houses, whose occupants might well be all dead. 
 
 Mr. Bunker turned to the right, and presently rapped 
 with his knuckles at a door. Then, without waiting 
 for a reply, he turned the handle, and with a nod in- 
 vited his companion to follow him. 
 
 It was a small but well-proportioned room with low 
 ceiling, furnished sufficiently. There were clean white 
 curtains with rose-colored ribbons. The window was 
 open, and in it stood a i)ot of mignonette, now at its 
 best. At the window sat, on one side, an old gentle- 
 man with silvery white hair and spectacles, who was 
 reading, and on the other side a girl with work on ber 
 lap, sewing. 
 
 "Now, Cap'n Sorensen," said Mr. Bunker, without 
 the formality of greetijig, " I've got you another chance. 
 Take it or leave it, since j'ou can afford to be particular. 
 I can't; I'm not rich enough. Ha!" He snorted and 
 looked about him with the contempt which a man who 
 has a banker naturally feels for one who hasn't, and 
 lives in an almshouse. 
 
 "What is the chance?" asked the inmate meekly, 
 looking up. When he saw Angela in the doorway he 
 rose and bowed, offering her a chair. Angela observed 
 that he was a very tall old man, and that he had blue 
 eyes and a rosy face — quite a j^oung face it looked — and 
 was gentle of speech and courteous in demeanor. 
 
 " Is the chance connected with this young lady, Mr. 
 Bunker?" 
 
 " It is," said the great man. " Miss Kennedy, this is 
 the young woman I told you of. This young lady" — he 
 indicated Angela — " is setting herself up, in a genteel 
 waj^ in the dressmaking line. She's taken one of my 
 houses on the Green, and she wants hands to begin 
 with. She comes here, Cap'n Sorensen, on my recom- 
 mendation." 
 
 "We are obliged to you, Mr. Bunker." 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 95 
 
 The girl was standing, her work in her hands, look- 
 ing at Angela, and a little terrified by the sight of so 
 grand a person. The dressmakers of her experience 
 were not young and beautiful ; mostly they were pinched 
 with years, troubles, and anxieties. When Angela be- 
 gan to notice her, she saw that the young work-girl, 
 who seemed about nineteen years of age, was tall, rather 
 too thin, and pretty. She did not look strong, but her 
 cheeks were flushed with a delicate bloom; her eyes, 
 like her father's, were blue; her hair was light and 
 feathery, though she brushed it as straight as it would 
 go. She was dressed, like most girls of her class, in a 
 frock of sober black. 
 
 Angela took her by the hand. " I am sure," she said 
 kindlj^, "that we shall be friends." 
 
 "Friends!" cried Mr. Bunker, aghast. "Why, she's 
 to be one of your girls! You can't be friends with 
 your own girls." 
 
 "Perhaps," said the girl, blushing and abashed, "you 
 would like to see some of my work." She spread out 
 her work on the table. 
 
 "Fine weather here, cap'n," Mr. Bunker went on, 
 striking an attitude of patronage, as if the sun was 
 good indeed to shine on an almshouse. " Fine weather 
 should make grateful hearts, especially in them as is pro- 
 vided for — having been improvident in their youth— 
 with comfortable roofs to shelter them." 
 
 "Grateful hearts, indeed, Mr. Bunker," said the cap- 
 tain quietly. 
 
 " Mr. Bunker" — Angela turned upon him with an air 
 of command, and pointed to the door — " you may go 
 now. You have done all I wanted." 
 
 Mr. Bunker turned very red. " He could go !" Was 
 he to be ordered about by every little dressmaker? " He 
 could go !" 
 
 " If the lady engages my daughter, Mr. Bunker," said 
 Captain Sorensen, " I will try to find the five shillings 
 next week." 
 
 _ " Five shillings !" cried Angela. " Why, I have just 
 given him five shillings for his recommendation." 
 
 Mr. Bunker did not explain that his practice was to 
 get five shillings from both sides, but he retreated with 
 as much dignity as could be expected. 
 
96 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 He asked, outside, with shame, how it was that he 
 allowed himself thus to be sat upon and ordered out of 
 the house by a mere girl. Why had he not stood upon 
 his dignity? To be told he might go, and before an 
 inmate — a common pauper ! 
 
 There is one consolation always open, thank Heaven, 
 for the meanest among us poor worms of earth. We 
 are gifted with imaginations ; we can make the impos- 
 sible an actual fact, and can with the eye of the mind 
 make the unreal stand before us in the flesh. There- 
 fore, when we are down-trodden, we may proceed, 
 without the trouble and danger of turning (which has 
 been known to bring total extinction upon a worm) , to 
 take revenge upon our enemy in imagination. Mr. 
 Bunker, who was at this moment uncertain whether he 
 hated Miss Kennedy more than he hated his nephew, 
 went home glowing with the thought that but a few 
 short months would elapse before he should be able to 
 set his foot upon the former and crush her. Because, 
 at the rate she was going on, she would not last more 
 than that time. Then would he send in his bills, sue 
 her, sell her up, and drive her out of the place stripped 
 of the last farthing. " He might go !" He, Bunker, 
 Was told that he might go ! And in the presence of an 
 inmate. Then he thought of his nephew, and while he 
 smote the pavement with the iron end of his umbrella, 
 a cold dew appeared upon his nose, the place where in- 
 ward agitation is frequently betraj^ed in this way, and 
 he shivered, looking about him suddenly as if he was 
 frightened. Yet what harm was Harry Goslett likely 
 to do him? 
 
 " What is your name, my dear?" asked Angela softl}^, 
 and without any inspection of the work on the table. 
 She was wondering how this pretty, fragile flower 
 should be found in Whitechapel. O ignorance of 
 Newnham ! For she might have reflected that the rar- 
 est and most beautiful plants are found in the most sav- 
 age places — there is beautiful botanizing, one is told, in 
 the Ural Mountains; and that the sun shines every- 
 where, even, as Mr. Bunker remarked, in an almshouse; 
 and that she herself had gathered in the ugliest ditches 
 round Cambridge the sweetest flowering mosses, the 
 tenderest campion, the lowliest little herb-robert. 
 
I ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 97 
 
 "M3' name is Ellen," replied the girl. 
 
 "I call her Nell}'," her father answered, "and she is 
 a good girl. Will you sit down. Miss Kenned}'?" 
 
 Angela sat down and proceeded to business. She 
 said, addressing the old man, but looking at the child, 
 that she was setting up a dressmaker's shop; that she 
 had hopes of support, even from the West End, where 
 she had friends ; that she was prepared to pay the proper 
 wages, with certain other advantages, of which more 
 would be said later on; and that, if Captain Sorensen 
 approved, she would engage his daughter from that day. 
 
 " I have only been out as an improver as ,yet, " said 
 Nelly. " But if you will really try me as a dressmaker 
 — O father, it is sixteen shillings a week !" 
 
 Angela's heart smote her. A poor sixteen shillings 
 a week! And this girl was delighted at the chance of 
 getting so much. 
 
 " What do 3'ousay, Captain Sorensen? Do you want 
 references, as Mr. Bunker did? I am the grand- 
 daughter of a man who was born here and made — a lit- 
 tle — money here, which he left to me. Will you let her 
 come to me?" 
 
 "You are the first person," said Captain Sorensen, 
 " who ever, in this place, where work is not so plentiful 
 as hands, offered work as if taking it was a favor to 
 you." 
 
 "I want good girls — and nice girls," said Angela. 
 " I want a house where we shall all be friends. " 
 
 The old sailor shook his head. 
 
 "There is no such house here," he said sadly. "It 
 is 'take it or leave it' — if you won't take it, others will. 
 Make the poor girls your friends. Miss Kennedy? You 
 look and talk like a lady born and bred, and I fear 3'ou 
 will be put upon. Make friends of your servants? 
 Wli}', Mr. Bunker will tell you that Whitechapel does 
 not carry on business that way. But it is good of you 
 to tr}', and I am sure you will not scold and drive like 
 the rest." 
 
 " You offended jMr. Bunker, I learn, by refusing a 
 place which he offered," said Angela. 
 
 " Yes : God knows if I did right. We are desper- 
 ately poor, else we should not be here. That you may 
 see for yourself. Yet my blood boiled when I heard 
 7 
 
98 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 the character of the man whom mj^ Nelly was to serve. 
 I could not let her go. She is all I have, Miss Ken- 
 nedy" — the old man drew the girl toward him and held 
 her, his arm round her waist. '' If 3'ou will take her and 
 treat her kindly, you will have — it isn't worth any- 
 thing, perhaps — the gratitude of one old man in this 
 world — soon in the next." 
 
 " Trust your daughter with me. Captain Sorensen," 
 Angela replied, with tears in her eyes. 
 
 " Everybody round here is poor," he went on, " Tliat 
 makes people hard-hearted ; there are too many people 
 in trade, and that makes them mean ; they are all try- 
 ing to undersell each other, and that makes them full 
 of tricks and cheating. They treat the work-girls worst 
 because they cannot stand up for themselves. The long 
 hours, and the bad food, and the poisonous air — think 
 a little of your girls, Miss Kennedy. But you will — 
 you will." 
 
 "I will, Captain Sorensen," 
 
 " It seems worse to us old sailors," he went on. " We 
 have had a hardish life, but it has been in open air. 
 Old sailors haven't had to cheat and lie for a living. 
 And we haven't been brought up to think of girls turn- 
 ing night into day, and working sixteen hours on end 
 at twopence an hour. It is hard to think of my poor 
 
 girl " He stopped and clinched his fist. " Better to 
 
 starve than to drive such a mill !" He was thinking of 
 the place Avhich he had refused. 
 
 " Let us try each other, Nelly," she said, kissing her 
 on the forehead. 
 
 The captain took his hat to escort her as far as the 
 gate. 
 
 "A quiet place," he said, looking round the little 
 court, " and a happy place for the last days of improvi- 
 dent old men like me. Yet some of us grumble. For- 
 give my plain speech about the work." 
 
 " There is nothing to forgive, indeed. Captain Soren- 
 sen. Will you let me call upon you sometimes?" 
 
 She gave him her hand. He bowed over it with the 
 courtesy of a captain on his own quarter-deck. When 
 she turned away she saw that a tear was standing in 
 his eyes. 
 
 " Father !" cried Nelly, rushing into his arms, " did 
 
ALL SORTS AXD COXDITIOXS OF MEN. 99 
 
 you ever see an 3'body like her? Oh! oh! do you think 
 I really shall do for her?" 
 
 " You will do your best, m}' dear. It is a long time, 
 I think, since I have seen and spoken with any one like 
 that. In the old days I have had passengers to Calcutta 
 like her ; but none more so, iSTelly — no, never one more 
 so." 
 
 "You couldn't, father." His daughter wanted no 
 explanation of this mysterious qualification. "You 
 couldn't. She is a lady, father;" she looked up and 
 laughed. 
 
 " It's a funny thing for a real lady to open a dress- 
 maker's shop on Stepney Green, isn't it?"' 
 
 Remark, if you please, that this girl had never once 
 before, in all her life, conversed with a lad}^ ; using the 
 word in the prejudiced and narrow sense peculiar to the 
 West End. Yet she discovered instantly the truth. 
 Whence this instinct? It is a world full of strange and 
 wonderful things ; the more questions we ask, the more 
 we may; and the more things we consider, the more 
 incomprehensible does the sum of things appear. In- 
 quiring reader, I do not know how Nelly divined that 
 her visitor was a lady. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 WHAT HE GOT BY IT. 
 
 A dressmaker's shop, without a dressmaker to man- 
 age it, would be, Angela considered, in some perplex- 
 ity, like a ship without a steersman. She therefore 
 waited with some impatience the promised visit of Re- 
 bekah Hermitage, whom she was to " get cheap, " ac- 
 cording to Mr. Bunker, on account of her Sabbatarian 
 views. 
 
 She came in the evening, while Angela was walking 
 on the Green with the sprightly cabinet-maker. It was 
 sunset, and Angela had been remarking to her compan- 
 ion, with a sort of irrational surprise, that the phenom- 
 ena coincident with the close of the day are just as bril- 
 liantly colored and lavishly displayed for the squalid 
 East as for the luxurious West. Perhaps, indeed, there 
 are not many places in London where sunset does pro* 
 
100 ALL SORTS AND COyDITlVyS OF MEN. 
 
 diice such good effects as at Stepney Green. The na,r- 
 row strip, so called, in shape resembles too nearly a 
 closed umbrella or a thickish walking-stick ; but there 
 are trees in it, and beds of tiowers, and seats for those 
 who wish to sit, and walks for those who wish to walk. 
 And the better houses of the Green — Bormalack's was 
 on the west, or ding}- side — are on the east, and face the 
 setting sun. They are of a good age, at least a hundred 
 and lift}' years old ; they are built of a warm red brick, 
 and some have doors ornamented with the old-fashioned 
 shell, and all have an appearance of solid resj^ectability, 
 which makes the rest of Stepney proud of them. Here, 
 in former days, dwelt the aristocracy of the parish ; and 
 on this side was the house taken by Angela for her 
 dressmaking institution, the house in which her grand- 
 father was born. The reason why the sunsets are more 
 splendid and the sunrises brighter at Stepney than at 
 the opposite end of London, is, that the sun sets behind 
 the great bank of cloud which forever lies over London 
 town. This lends his departure to the happy dwellers 
 of the East strange and wonderful effects. Now, when 
 he rises, it is naturally in the East, where there is no 
 cloud of smoke to hide the brightness of his face. 
 
 The Green this evening was crowded : it is not so 
 fashionable a promenade as Whitechapel Road, but, on 
 the other hand, it possesses the charm of comparative 
 quiet. There is no noise of vehicles, but only the 
 shouting of children, the loud laughter of some gaillard 
 'prentice, the coy giggle of the young lady to whom he 
 has imparted his last merry jape, the loud whispers of 
 ladies who are exchanging confidences about their com- 
 plaints and the complaints of their friends, and the 
 musical laugh of girls. The old people had all crept 
 home ; the mothers were at home putting their children 
 to bed ; the fathers were mostly engaged with the even- 
 ing pipe, which demands a chair within four walls and 
 a glass of something ; the Green was given up to youth ; 
 and youth was principall}^ given up to love-making. 
 
 "In Arcadia," said Harry, "every nymph is wooed, 
 and every swain " 
 
 He was interrupted by the arrival of his uncle, who 
 pushed his way through the crowd with his usual im- 
 portant bustle, followed by a "young person." 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 101 
 
 "I looked for you at Mrs. Bormalack's," he said to 
 Angela reproachfully, "and here you are — with this 
 young man, as usual. As if my time was no object to 
 you!" 
 
 " Why not with this young man, Mr. Bunker?" asked 
 Angela. 
 
 He did not explain his reasons for objecting to her 
 companion, but proceeded to introduce his companion. 
 
 " Here she is, Miss Kennedy," he said. " This is Re- 
 bekah Hermitage; I've brought her with me to prevent 
 mistakes. You may take her on my recommendation. 
 Nobody in the neighborhood of Stepney wants a better 
 recommendation than mine. One of Bunker's, they 
 say, and they ask no more." 
 
 " What a beautiful, what an enviable reputation !" 
 murmured his nephew, " Oh, that I were one of 
 Bunker's !" 
 
 Mr. Bunker glared at him, but answered not ; never, 
 within his present experience, had he found himself at a 
 loss to give indignation words. On occasion, he had 
 been known to swear " into shudders" the immortal 
 gods who heard him. To swear at this nephew, how- 
 ever, this careless, sniggering youth, who looked and 
 talked like a "swell," would, he felt, be more than use- 
 less. The boy w^ould only snigger more. He would 
 have liked knocking him down, but there were obvious 
 reasons why this was not to be seriously contemplated. 
 
 He turned to the girl who had come with him. 
 
 "Rebekah," he said with condescension, "you may 
 speak up ; I told your father I would stand by you, and 
 I win." 
 
 " Do not, at least," said Angela, in her stateliest man- 
 ner, "begin by making Miss Hermitage suppose she 
 will want your support." 
 
 She saw before her a girl about two- or three-and- 
 twenty years of age. She was short of stature and 
 sturdy. Her complexion \wis dark, with black hair and 
 dark eyes, and these were bright. A firm mouth and 
 square chin gave her a pugnacious appearance. In fact, 
 she had been fighting all her life, more desperately even 
 than the other girls about her, because she was heavily 
 handicapped b}' the awkwardness of her religion. 
 
 "Mr. Bunker," said this young person, who certainly 
 
10:J ALL SORTS AND CONDITIOXS OF MEN. 
 
 did not look as if she wanted any backing up, " tells me 
 yon want a forewoman," 
 
 " You want a forewoman, " echoed the agent, as if in- 
 terpreting for her. 
 
 "Yes, I do," Angela replied. "I know, to begin 
 with, all about your religious opinions." 
 
 "She knows," said the agent, standing between the 
 two parties, as if retained for the interests of both — 
 "she knows, already, your religious opinions." 
 
 " Very well, miss. " Rebekah looked disappointed at 
 losing a chance of expounding them. " Then, I can 
 only say, I can never give way in the matter of truth." 
 
 "In truth," said the agent, "she's as obstinate as a 
 pig." 
 
 " I do not expect it," replied Angela, feeling that the 
 half-a-crown-an-hour man was really a stupendous nui- 
 sance. 
 
 "She does not expect it," echoed Mr. Bunker, turning 
 to Rebekah. "What did I tell j^ou? Now you see the 
 effect of my recommendations." 
 
 "Take it off the wages," said Rebekah, with an ob- 
 vious effort, which showed how vital was the impor- 
 tance of the pay. " Take it off the wages, if you like ; 
 and, of course, I can't expect to labor for five days and 
 be paid for six ; but on the Saturday, which is the Sab- 
 bath-day, I do no work therein, neither I, nor my man- 
 servant, nor my maid-servant, nor my ox, nor my ass." 
 
 " Neither her man-servant, nor her maid-servant, nor 
 her ox, nor her ass," repeated the agent solemnly. 
 
 "There is the Sunday, however," said Angela. 
 
 "What have you got to say about Sunday now?" 
 asked Mr. Bunker, with a change of front. 
 
 "Of all the days that's in the week," interpolated the 
 sprightl}- one, " I dearly love but one day — and that's 
 the day " 
 
 Rebekah, impatient of this frivolity, stopped it at 
 once. • 
 
 "I do as little as I can," she said, "on Sunday, be- 
 cause of the weaker brethren. The Sunday we keep as 
 a holiday." 
 
 " Well " Angela began rather to envy this j^oung 
 
 woman, who was a clear gainer of a whole day by her 
 religion ; " well. Miss Hermitage, will you come to me 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 103 
 
 on trial? Thank you; we can settle about deductions 
 afterward, if 3'ou please. And if you will come to- 
 morrow — that is right. Now, if j-ou please to take a 
 turn with me, we will talk things over together ; good- 
 night, Mr. Bunker." 
 
 She took the girl's arm and led her away, being anx- 
 ious to get Bunker out of sight. The aspect of this 
 agent anno3^ed and irritated her almost beyond endur- 
 ance ; so she left him with his nephew. 
 
 " One of Bunker's !" Harrj^ repeated softly. 
 
 "You here!" growled the uncle, "dangling after a 
 girl when you ought to be at work ! How long, I should 
 like to know, are we hard-working Stepney folk to be 
 troubled with an idle, good-for-nothing vagabond ? Eh, 
 sir? How long? And don't suppose that I mean to do 
 anything for you when your money is all gone. Do 
 you hear, sir? do you hear?" 
 
 "I hear, my uncle!" As usual, the young man 
 laughed ; he sat upon the arm of a garden-seat, with 
 his hands in his pockets, and laughed an insolent, ex- 
 asperating laugh. Now, Mr. Bunker in all his life had 
 never seen the least necessity or occasion for laughing 
 at auj'thing at all, far less at himself. Nor, hitherto, 
 had any one dared to laugh at him. 
 
 " Sniggerin' peacock !" added Mr. Bunker fiercely, 
 rattling a bunch of keys in his pocket. 
 
 Harry laughed again, with .more abandon. This 
 uncle of his, who regarded him with so much dislike, 
 seemed a very humorous person. 
 
 "Connection by marriage," he said. "There is one 
 question I have very much wished to put to j'ou. 
 When you traded me away, now three-and-twenty j^ears 
 ago, or thereabouts — you remember the circumstances, 
 I dare say, better than I can be expected to do — trhat 
 did you get for me?" 
 
 Then Bunker's color changed, his cheeks became 
 quite white. Harry thought it was the efifect of wrath, 
 and went on. 
 
 " Half a crown an hour, of course, during the nego- 
 tiations, which I dare say took a week — that we under- 
 stand; but what else? Come, my uncle, what else did 
 you get?" 
 
 It was too dark for the 3'oung man to perceive the 
 
104 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 full effect of this question — the sudden change of color 
 escaped his notice ; but he observed a strange and angry 
 light in his uncle's eyes, and he saw that he opened his 
 mouth once or twice as if to speak, but shut his lips 
 again without saying a word ; and Harry was greatly 
 surprised to see his uncle presently turn on his heel and 
 walk straight away. 
 
 " That question seems to be a facer ; it must be re- 
 peated whenever the good old man becomes offensive. 
 I wonder what he did get for me?" 
 
 As for Mr. Bunker, he retired to his own house in 
 Beaumont Square, walking with quick steps and hang- 
 ing head. He let himself in with his latch-key, and 
 turned into his office, which, of course, was the first 
 room of the ground-fioor. 
 
 It was quite dark now, save for the faint light from 
 the street-gas, but Mr. Bunker did not want any light. 
 
 He sat down and rested his face on his hands, with 
 a heavy sigh. The house was empty, because his 
 housekeeper and only servant was out. 
 
 He sat without moving for half an hour or so; then 
 he lifted his head and looked about him — he had for- 
 gotten where he was and why he came there — and he 
 shuddered. 
 
 Then he hastily lit a candle, and went upstairs to his 
 own bedroom. The room had one piece of furniture, 
 not always found in bedrooms ; it was a good-sized fire- 
 proof safe, which stood in the corner. Mr. Bunker 
 placed his candle on the safe, and stooping down began 
 to grope about with his keys for the lock. It took some 
 time to find the keyhole; when the safe was opened, it 
 took longer to find the papers which he wanted, for 
 these were at the very ba,ck of all. Presently, how- 
 ever, he lifted his head with a bundle in his hand. 
 
 Now, if we are obliged to account for everything, 
 which ought not to be expected, and is more than one 
 asks of scientific men, I should account for what fol- 
 lowed by remarking that the blood is apt to get into the 
 brains of people, especially elderly people, and, above 
 all, stout, elderly people, when they stoop for an}^ length 
 of time; and that history records many remarkable 
 manifestations of the spirit world which have followed 
 a posture of stooping too prolonged. It produces, in 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 105 
 
 fact, a condition of brain beloved b}- ghosts. There is 
 the leading case of the man at Cambridge, who, after 
 stooping for a book, saw the ghost of his own bed- 
 maker at a time when he knew her to be in the bosom 
 of her family eating up his bread-and-butter and drink- 
 ing his tea. Rats have been seen b}' others — troops of 
 rats — as many rats as followed the piper, where there 
 were no rats ; and there is even the recorded case of a 
 man who saw the ghost of himself, which prognos- 
 ticated dissolution, and, in fact, killed him exactly 
 fifty-two 3'ears after the event. So that, realh", there 
 is nothing at all unusual in the fact that Mr. Bunker 
 saw something when he lifted his head. The remark- 
 able thing is that he saw the very person of whom he 
 had been thinking ever since his nephew's question — no 
 other than his deceased wife's sister; he had never 
 loved her at all, or in the least desired to marry her, 
 which makes the case more remarkable still; and she 
 stood before him just as if she was alive, and gazed 
 upon him with reproachful eyes. 
 
 He behaved with great coolness and presence of 
 mind. Few men would have shown more braverj'. 
 He just dropped the candle out of one hand and the 
 papers out of the other, and fell back upon the bed with 
 a white face and quivering lips. Some men would have 
 run — 'he did not; in fact, he could not. His knees in- 
 stinctively knew that it is useless to run from a ghost, 
 and refused to aid him. 
 
 "' Caroline !" he groaned. 
 
 As he spoke the figure vanished, making no sign 
 and saying no word. After a while, seeing that the 
 ghost came no more, Mr. Bunker pulled himself to- 
 gether. He picked up the papers and the candle and 
 went slowly downstairs again, turning every moment 
 to see if his sister-in-law came too. But she did not, 
 and he went to the bright gas-lit back parlor, where his 
 supper was spread. 
 
 After supper he mixed a glass of brandy-and-water, 
 stiff. After drinking this he mixed another, and be- 
 gan to smoke a pipe while he turned over tlie papers. 
 
 ''He can't have meant anything," he said. "AVhat 
 should the l)oy know? What did the gentleman know? 
 Nothing. What does anybody know? Nothing. There 
 
106 ALL SORTS AXD CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 is nobody left. The will Avas witnessed by Mr. Mes- 
 senger and Bob Coppin. Well, one of them is dead, 
 
 and as for the other " [he paused and winced] — " as 
 
 for the other, it is five-and-twenty years since he was 
 heard of, so he's dead, too; of course, he's dead." 
 
 TJien he remembered the spectre and he trembled. 
 For suppose Caroline meant coming often ; this would 
 be particularly disagreeable. He remembered a certain 
 scene where, three-and-twenty years before, he had 
 stood at a bedside while a dying woman spoke to him ; 
 the words she said were few, and he remembered them 
 quite well, even after so long a time, which showed his 
 real goodness of heart. 
 
 " You are a hard man, Bunker, and you think too 
 much of money ; and you were not kind to your wife. 
 But I'm going too, and there is nobody left to trust my 
 boy to, except j'ou. Be good to him, Bunker, for your 
 dead wife's sake." 
 
 He remembered, too, how he had promised to be good 
 to the boy, not meaning much by the words, perhaps, 
 but softened by the presence of death. 
 
 " It is not as if the boy was penniless," she said ; " his 
 houses w^ill pay you for his keep, and to spare. You 
 will lose nothing by him. Promise me again." 
 
 He remembered that he had promised a second time 
 that he would be good to the boy ; and he remembered, 
 too, how the promise seemed then to involve great ex- 
 pense in canes. 
 
 "If you break the solemn promise," she said, with 
 feminine prescience, " I warn j^ou that he shall do you 
 an injury when he grows up. Remember that." 
 
 He did remember it now, though he had quite for- 
 gotten this detail a long while ago. The boy had re- 
 turned ; he was grown up ; he could do him an injurj^, 
 if lie kneiv how. Because he only had to ask his uncle 
 for an account of those houses. Fortunately, he did 
 not know. Happily, there was no one to tell him. 
 With his third tumbler Mr. Bunker became quite confi- 
 dent and reassured ; with his fourth he felt inclined to 
 be merry, and to slap himself on the back for wide- 
 awakedness of the rarest kind. With his fifth, he re- 
 solved to go upstairs and tell Caroline that unless she 
 went and told her son, no one would. He carried part 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 107 
 
 of this resolution into effect; that is to say, he went to 
 liis^ bedroom, and his housekeeper, unobserved herself 
 liad the pleasure of seeing her master ascending the 
 stairs on his hands and feet— a method which offers 
 great advantages to a gentleman who has had five tum- 
 blers ot brandy-and-water. 
 
 When he got there, and had quite succeeded in shut- 
 ting the door— not always so easy a thing as it looks- 
 Caroline was no longer visible. He could not find her 
 anywhere, though he went all round the room twice 
 on all-tours, in search of her. ' 
 
 The really remarkable part of this story is, that she 
 has never paid a visit to her son at all. 
 
 Meantime, the strollers on the green were grown 
 few. Most of them had gone home ; but the air was 
 warm, and there were still some who lingered. Among 
 them were Angela and the girl who was to be her fore- 
 woman. 
 
 When Rebekah found that her employer was not 
 apparently of those who try to cheat, or bully or cajole 
 her subordinates, she lost her combative air, and con- 
 sented to talk about things. She gave Angela a great 
 deal of information about the prospects of her venture 
 which were gloomy, as she thought, as the competition 
 was so severe. She also gave her an insight into details 
 of a practical nature concerning the conduct of a dress- 
 makery, into which we need not follow her. 
 
 Angela discovered before they parted that she had 
 two sides to her character: on one side she was a prac- 
 tical and practised woman of work and business; on the 
 other she was a religious fanatic. 
 
 "We wait," she said, "for the world to come round 
 to us. Oh ! I know we are but a little body and a poor 
 tolk Father is almost alone ; but what a thing it is to 
 be the appointed keepers of the truth ! Come and hear 
 us Miss Kennedy. Father always converts any one 
 who will Hsten to him. Oh, do listen !" 
 ^ Then she, too, went away, and Angela was left alone 
 m the quiet place. Presently she became aware that 
 ilarry was standing beside her. 
 
 _ "Don't let us go home yet," he said; "Bormalack's 
 IS desperately dull— you can picture it all to yourself. 
 
108 ALL SORTS AXD CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 The professor has got a new trick; Daniel Fagg is 
 looking as if he had met with more disappointment; 
 her ladyship is short of temper, because the case is get- 
 ting on so slowly ; and Josephus is sighing over a long 
 pipe ; and Mr. Maliphant is chuckling to himself in the 
 corner. On the whole, it is better here. Shall we re- 
 main a little longer in the open air, Miss Kennedy?" 
 
 He looked dangerous. Angela, who had been dis- 
 posed to be expansive, froze. 
 
 " We will have one more turn, if you please, Mr. 
 Goslett." She added stiffly, "Only remember — so long 
 as you don't think of 'keeping company.' " 
 
 "I understand perfectly. Miss Kennedy. 'Society' 
 is a better word than 'company;' let us keep that, and 
 make a new departure for Stepney Green." 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE DAY BEFORE THE FIRST. 
 
 Mr. Bunker, en hon cliretien, dissembled his wrath, 
 and continued his good work of furnishing and ar- 
 ranging the house for Angela, insomuch that before 
 many days the place was completely ready for opening. 
 
 In the mean time. Miss Kennedy was away — she went 
 away on business — and Bormalack's was dull without 
 her. Harry found some consolation in superintending 
 some of the work for her house, and in working at a 
 grand cabinet which he designed for her : it was to be 
 a miracle of wood-carving; he would throw into the 
 work all the resources of his art and all his genius. 
 When she came back, after the absence of a week, she 
 looked full of business and of care. Harr}^ thought it 
 must be money worries, and began to curse Bunker's 
 long bill ; but she was gracious to him in her queenly 
 way. Moreover, she assured him that all was going on 
 well with her, better than she could have hoped. The 
 evening before the " Stepney Dressmakers' Association" 
 was to open its doors, they all gathered together in the 
 newly furnished house for a final inspection — Angela, 
 her two aids Rebekah and Nelly, and the young man 
 against whose companionship Mr. Bunker had warned 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIOXS OF MEN. 109 
 
 her in vain. The house was large, with rooms on either 
 side the door. These were showrooms and work- 
 rooms. The first floor Angela reserved for her own 
 purposes, and she was mysterious about them. At the 
 back of the house stretched a long and ample garden. 
 Angela had the whole of it covered with asphalt ; the 
 beds of flowers or lawns were all covered over. At the 
 end she had caused to be built a large room of glass, 
 the object of which she had not yet disclosed. 
 
 As regards the appointments of the house, she had 
 taken one precaution — Rebekah superintended them. 
 Mr. Bunker, therefore, was fain to restrict his enthusi- 
 asm, and could not charge more than twentj^ or thirt}^ 
 per cent, above the market value of the things. But 
 Eebekah, though she carried out her instructions, could 
 not but feel disappointed at the lavish scale in which 
 things were ordered and paid for. The show-rooms 
 were as fine as if the place were Regent Street ; the 
 workrooms were looked after with as much eare for 
 ventilation as if, Mr. Bunker said, work-girls were 
 countesses. 
 
 "It is too good," Rebekah expostulated, "much too 
 good for us. It will only make other girls discontented . " 
 
 "' I want to make them discontented," Angela replied. 
 "Unless they are discontented, there will be no improve- 
 ment. Think, Rebekah, what it is that lifts men out 
 of the level of the beasts. We find out that there are 
 better things, and we are fighting our way upward. 
 That is the mystery of discontent — and perhaps pain, 
 as well." 
 
 "Ah!" Rebekah saw that this was not a practical 
 answer. " But you don't know yet the competition of 
 the East End, and the straits we are put to. It is not 
 as at the West End." 
 
 The golden West is ever the Land of Promise. No 
 need to undeceive ; let her go on in the belief that the 
 three thousand girls who wait and work about Regent 
 Street and the great shops are everywhere treated gen- 
 erously, and paid above the market- value of their ser- 
 vices. I make no doubt, myself, that many a great 
 mercer sits down, when Christmas warms his heart, in 
 his mansion at Finchley, Campden Hill, Fitz John's 
 Avenue, or Stoke Xewington, and writes great checks 
 
110 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 as gifts to the uncomplaining girls who build up liis 
 income. 
 
 " She would learn soon, " said Rebekah, hoping that 
 the money would last out till the ship was fairly 
 launched. 
 
 She was not suspicious, but there was something 
 "funny," as Nelly said, in a girl of Miss Kennedy's 
 stamp coming among them. Why did she choose 
 Stepney Green? Surely, Bond Street or Regent Street 
 would be better fitted for a lady of her manners. How 
 would customers be received and orders be taken? By 
 herself, or by this young lady, who would certainly 
 treat the ladies of Stepney with little of that deferential 
 courtesy which they expected of these dressmakers? 
 For, as you may have remarked, the lower you descend, 
 as well as the higher you climb, the more deference do 
 the ladies receive at the hands of their trades-folk. No 
 duchess sweeps into a milliner's showroom with more 
 dignity than her humble sister at Clare Market on a 
 Saturday evening displa3's when she accepts the invi- 
 tation of the butcher to " Rally up, ladies," and selects her 
 Sunday piece of beef. The ladies of Stepney and the 
 Mile End Road, thought Rebekah, looked for attentions. 
 Would Miss Kennedy give it to them? If Miss Ken- 
 nedy herself did not attend to the showroom, what 
 would she do? 
 
 On this evening, after they had walked over the 
 whole house, visited the asphalted garden, and looked 
 into the great glass-room, Angela unfolded her plans. 
 
 It was in the workroom. She stood at the head of 
 the table, looking about her with an air of pride and 
 anxiety. It was her own design — her own scheme; 
 small as it was, compared with that other vast project, 
 she was anxious about it. It had to succeed ; it must 
 succeed. 
 
 All its success, she thought, depended upon that sturdy 
 little fanatical seventh-day young person. It was she 
 who was to rule the place and be the practical dress- 
 maker. And now she was to be told. 
 
 " Now," said Angela, with some hesitation, " the time 
 has come for an explanation of the way we shall work. 
 First of all, will you, Rebekah, undertake the manage- 
 ment and control of the business?" 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. HI 
 
 "I, Mu.s Kennedy? But what is 3'our department?" 
 
 " I will undertake the management of the girls— she 
 stopped and blushed—*' out of their work-time.'' 
 
 At this extraordinary announcement the two girls 
 looked blankly at their employer. 
 
 "You do not quite understand," Angela went on. 
 " Wait a little. Do you consent, Rebekah? " 
 
 The girl's eyes flashed and her cheeks became aflame. 
 Then she thought of the sudden promotion of Joseph, 
 and she took confidence. Perhaps she really was equal 
 to the place ; perhaps she had actually merited the dis- 
 tinction. 
 
 "Very well, then," Miss Kennedy went on, as if it 
 was the most natural thing in the world that a humble 
 workwoman should be suddenly raised to the proud 
 post of manager. "Very well; that is settled. You, 
 Nelly, will try to take care of the workroom when Re- 
 bekah is not there. As regards the accounts '' 
 
 "I can keep them, too," said Rebekah. "I shall 
 work — on Sundays," she added with a blush. 
 
 Miss Kennedy then proceeded to expound her views 
 as regards the management of her establishment. 
 
 " The girls will be here at nine," she said. 
 
 Rebekah nodded. There could be no objection to 
 that. 
 
 "They will work from nine till eleven," Rebekah 
 started. " Yes, I know what I mean. The long hours 
 of sitting and bending the back over the work are just 
 as bad a thing for girls of fifteen or so as could be in- 
 vented. At eleven, therefore, we shall have, all of us, 
 half an hour's exercise." 
 
 Exercise? Exercise in a dressmaker's shop? Was 
 Miss Kennedy in her senses? 
 
 "You see that asphalt. Surely some of you can 
 guess what it is for?" She looked at Harry. 
 
 " Skittles?" he suggested frivolously. 
 
 "No. Lawn tennis. Well! why not?" 
 
 "What is lawn tennis?" asked Nelly. 
 
 "A game, my dear; and 3'ou shall learn it." 
 
 "I never play games," said Rebekah. "A serious 
 person has no room in her life for games." 
 
 " Then call it exercise, and you will be able to play 
 it without wounding your conscience." This was 
 
112 ALL SORTS AXD COXDITIOXS OF MEN. 
 
 Harry's remark. "AVhy not, indeed, Miss Kennedy? 
 The game of lawn tennis, Nelly," he went on to ex- 
 plain, " is greatl}'^ in vogue among the bloated aristoc- 
 racy, as my cousin Dick will tell you. That it should 
 descend to j'ou and me and the likes of us is nothing 
 less than a social revolution." 
 
 Nell}" smiled, but she only half understood this kind of 
 language. A man who laughed at things, and talked of 
 things as if they were meant to be laughed over, was a 
 creature she had never before met with. My jpriends, 
 lay this to heart, and ponder. It is not until a certain 
 standard of cultivation is reached that people do laugh 
 at things. They only began in the last century, and 
 then only in a few salons. When all the world laughs, 
 the perfection of humanity will have been reached, and 
 the comedy will have been plaj'ed out. 
 
 " It is a beaiitiful game," said Angela — meaning lawn 
 tennis, not the comedy of humanity. " It re(iuires a 
 great deal of skill and exercises a vast quantity of mus- 
 cles; and it costs nothing. Asphalt makes a perfect 
 court, as I know very well." She blushed, because she 
 was thinking of the Newnham courts. " We shall be 
 able to play there whenever it does not rain. When 
 it does, there is the glass-house." 
 
 "What are you going to do in the glass-house?" 
 asked Harry ; " throw stones at other people's windows? 
 That is said to be very good exercise." 
 
 " I am going to set up a gymnasium for the girls." 
 
 Rebekah stared, but said nothing. This was revo- 
 lutionary indeed. 
 
 '■ If they please, the girls can bring their friends ; we 
 will have a course of gymnastics as well as a school for 
 lawn tennis. You see, Mr. Goslett, that I have not 
 forgotten what you said once." 
 
 "What was that. Miss Kennedy? It is very good 
 of you to remember anything that I have said. Do 
 you mean that I once, accidentally, said a thing worth 
 hearing?" 
 
 " Yes : you said that money was not wanted here so 
 much as work. That is what I remembered. If you 
 can afford it, you may work with us, for there is a 
 great deal to do." 
 
 " I can afford it for a time." 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 113 
 
 " We shall work again from half -past eleven until one. 
 Then we shall stop for dinner." 
 
 " The}" bring their own dinner," said Rebekah. "It 
 takes them five minutes to eat it. You will have to 
 give them tea." 
 
 ''No: I shall give them dinner too. And because 
 growing girls are dainty and sometimes cannot fancy 
 things, I think a good way will be for each of them, 
 even the youngest, to take turns in ordering the dinner 
 and seeing it prepared," 
 
 Rebekah groaned. What profits could stand up 
 against such lavish expenditure as this? 
 
 " After an hour for dinner we shall go to work again. 
 I have thought a good deal about the afternoon, which 
 is the most tedious part of the day, and I think the 
 best thing will be to have reading aloud." 
 
 " Who is to read?" cried Rebekah. 
 
 " We shall find somebody or other. Tea at five, and 
 work from six to seven. That is my programme." 
 
 "Then, Miss Kennedy," cried her forewoman, "you 
 will be a ruined woman in a year." 
 
 " No — she shook her head with hor gracious smile — 
 " no, I hope not. And I think you will find that we 
 shall be verv far from ruined. Have a little faith. 
 What do yoii think, Nelly?" 
 
 " Oh, I think it beautiful !" she replied, with a gaze 
 of soft worship in her limpid eyes. " It is so beautiful 
 that it must be a dream, and cannot last." 
 
 " What do you say, Mr. Goslett?" 
 
 " I say that cabinet-making ought to be conducted 
 in the same liberal spirit. But I'm afraid it won't 
 pay." 
 
 Then Miss Kennedy took them to the room on the 
 first floor. The room at the back was fitted as a dining- 
 room, quite simply, with a dozen chairs and a long 
 table. Plates, cups, and things were ranged upon 
 shelves as if in a kitchen. 
 
 She led them to the front room. When her hand 
 was on the lock she turned and smiled, and held up 
 her finger as if to prepare them for a surprise. 
 
 The floor was painted and bare of carpet ; the win- 
 dows were dressed with pretty curtains. There were 
 sconces on the walls for candles ; in the recess stood her 
 « 
 
114 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 piano ; and for chairs there were two or three rout-seats 
 ranojed along- the walL 
 
 "\Vhat is^this*?" asked Rebekah. 
 
 " My dear, girls want plaj'- as well as work. The 
 more innocent play they get, the better for them. This 
 is a room where we shall play all sorts of things: 
 sometimes we shall dance; sometimes we shall act; 
 sometimes we shall sing; sometimes we shall read 
 poetry or tales; sometimes we shall romp; the girls 
 shall bring their friends here as well as to the gym- 
 nasium and the lawn tennis, if they please." 
 
 " And who is to pay for all thisV" asked Rebekah. 
 
 "My friends," said Angela, coloring, because this 
 was a crisis, and to be suspected at such a point would 
 have been fatal — " my friends, I have to make a con- 
 fession to 3'ou. I have worked out the design by my- 
 self. I saw how the girls in our workshops toil for 
 long hours and little pay. The great shops, whose 
 partners are very rich men, treat them no better than 
 do the poor traders whose living has to be got by scrap- 
 ing it oif their wages. Now, I thought that if we were 
 to start a shop in which there was to be no mistress, 
 but to be self-governed, and to share the proceeds 
 among all in due order and with regard to skill and 
 industry, we might adjust our own hours for the gen- 
 eral good. This kind of shop has been tried by men, 
 but I think it has never succeeded, because they wanted 
 the capital to start with. What could we three girls 
 have done with nothing but our own hands to help us? 
 So I wrote to a young lady who has much money. 
 Yes, Mr. Goslett, I wrote to that Miss Messenger of 
 whom we have so often talked." 
 
 " Miss Messenger !" Rebekah gasped ; " she who owns 
 the great brewery?" 
 
 " The same. She has taken up our cause. It is she 
 who finds the funds to start us, just as well as if we 
 had capital. She gives us the reat for a year, the fur- 
 niture, the glass-house — everything, even this piano. 
 I have a letter from her in my pocket." She took it out 
 and read it. " Miss Messenger begs to thank j\Iiss 
 Kennedy for her report of the progress made in her 
 scheme. She quite approves of the engagements made, 
 particularly those of Rebekah Hermitage and N^^\v 
 
ALL SORTS AND COXDITIOSS OF 2IEX. 115 
 
 Sorensen. She hopes, hefore long, to visit the house 
 herself and make their acquaintance. Meanwhile she 
 will employ the house for all such things as she requires, 
 and begs Miss Kennedy to convey to Miss Hermitage 
 the first order for the workshop." This gracious letter 
 was accompanied by a long list of things, at sight of 
 which the forewoman's eyes glittered with joy. 
 
 " Uh, it is a splendid order !" she said. " May we tell 
 everybody about this Miss Messenger?" 
 
 " I think," Angela replied, considering carefulh^ 
 " that it would be better not. Let people only know 
 that we have started ; that we are a body of work- 
 women governing ourselves, and working for our- 
 selves. The rest is for our private information." 
 
 "While you are about it," said Harry, "you might 
 persuade Miss Messenger to start the Palace of Delight 
 and the College of Art." 
 
 "Do 5'ou think she would?" asked Angela. "Do 
 you really think it would be of any use at all?" 
 
 " Did she haggle about vour Co-operative Associ- 
 ation?" 
 
 " ISTo, not at all. She quite agreed with me from the 
 beginning." 
 
 " Tlien, try her for the palace. See, Miss Kennedy — " 
 the young man had become quite earnest and eager 
 over the palace — "it is only a question of money. If 
 Miss Messenger pants to do a thing unparalleled among 
 the deeds of rich men, let her build the Palace of De- 
 light. If I were she, I should tremble for fear some 
 other person with money got to hear of the idea, and 
 should step in before her. Of course, the grand thing 
 in these cases is to be the first." 
 
 " What is a Palace of Delight?" asked Xelly. 
 
 "Truly wonderful it is," said Harry, "to think how 
 monotonous are the gifts and bequests of rich men. 
 Schools, churches, almshouses, hospitals — that is all; 
 that is their monotonous round. Now and again, a 
 man like Peabody remembers that men want houses to 
 live in, not hovels ; or a good woman remembers that 
 they want sound and wholesome food, and builds a 
 market; but, as a rule, schools, churches, almshouses, 
 hospitals. Look at the lack of originality. Miss Ken- 
 nedy, go and see this rich person ; ask her if she wants 
 
116 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 to do the grandest thing ever done for men ; ask her if 
 she will, as a new and startling point of departure, 
 remember that men want joy. If she will ask me, I 
 will deliver a lecture on the necessity of pleasure, the 
 desirableness of pleasure, the beauty of pleasure." 
 
 "A Palace of Delight!" Rebekah shook her head. 
 " Do you know that half the people never go to church?" 
 
 "When we have got the palace," said Harry, "they 
 will go to church, because religion is a plant that flour- 
 ishes best where life is happiest. It will spring up 
 among us, then, as luxuriantly as the wild honey- 
 suckle. Who are the most religious people in the 
 world. Miss Hermitage?" 
 
 " They are the worshippers in Red Man's Lane, and 
 they are called the Seventh-Day Independents." 
 
 The worst of the Socratic method of argument is 
 that, when the wrong answer is given, the whole thing 
 comes to grief. Now, Harry wanted her to say that 
 the people who go most to church are the wealthy 
 classes. Rebekah did not say so, because she knew 
 nothing of the wealthy classes ; and in her own circle 
 of sectarian enthusiasts, nobody had any money at all. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE GREAT DAVENANT CASE. 
 
 " Oh ! you obstinate old man ! Oh ! you lazy old man !" 
 
 It was the high-pitched voice of her ladyship in reed- 
 iest tones, and the time was eleven o'clock in the fore- 
 noon, when, as a rule, she was engaged in some needle- 
 work for herself, or assisting Mrs. Bormalack with the 
 pudding, in a friendly way, while her husband con- 
 tinued the statement of the case, left alone in the en- 
 joyment of the sitting-room — and his title. 
 
 " You lazy old man !" 
 
 The words were overheard by Harry Goslett. He 
 had been working at his miraculous cabinet, and was 
 now, following the example of Miss Kennedy's work- 
 girls, " knocking off" for half an hour, and thinking of 
 some excuse for passing the rest of the morning with 
 that young lady. He stood in the doorway, looking across 
 
ALL SORTS AXD COXDITIOXS OF MEN. 117 
 
 the green to the sacred windows of the Dressmakers' 
 Association. Behind them at this moment were sit- 
 ting, he knew, the Queen of the Mystery, with that 
 most beauteous nymph, the matchless Nelly, fair and 
 lovely to look upon; and with her, too, Rebekah the 
 downright, herself a mystery, and half a dozen more, ' 
 some of them, perhaps, beautiful. Alas! in working- 
 hours these doors were closed. Perhaps, he thought, 
 when the cabinet was finished he might make some 
 play by carrying it backward and forward, measuring, 
 fitting, altering. 
 
 " You laz3% sinful, sleepy old man 1" 
 
 A voice was heard feebly remonstrating. 
 
 " Oh ! oh ! oh !" she cried again in accents that rose 
 higher and higher, " we have come all the w-ay from 
 America to prove our case. There's four months gone 
 out of six— oh! oh!— and you with your feet upon a 
 chair— oh ! oh !— do you think you are back in Canaan 
 City?" 
 
 "Clara Martha," replied his lordship, in clear and 
 distinct tones — the window was wide open, so that the 
 words floated out upon the summer air and struck 
 gently upon Harry's ear—" Clara Martha, I wish I was; 
 it is now holiday time, and the boys are out in the 
 
 woods. And the schoolroom " [he stopped, sighed 
 
 deeply, and yawned]—" it was very peaceful." 
 
 She groaned in sheer despair. 
 
 "He is but a carpenter," she said; "he grovels in 
 the shavings ; he wallows in the sawdust. Fie upon 
 him ! This man a British peer? Oh ! shame— shame !" 
 Harry pictured the quivering shoulders and the finger 
 of reproach. " Oh ! oh ! He is not worthv to wear a 
 coronet. Give him a chunk of wood to whittle, and a 
 knife, and a chair in the shade, and somethin' to rest 
 h^is feet upon. That's all he wants, though Queen 
 Victoria and all the angels was callin' for him across 
 the ocean to take his seat in the House of Lords. 
 Shame on him ! Shame upon him !" 
 
 These taunts, apparently, had no effect. His lord- 
 ship was understood by the listener to say something 
 disrespectful of the Upper House, and to express regret 
 at having exchanged his humble but contented position 
 of a school-teacher and his breakfast, where a man 
 
118 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 could look around him and see hot rolls and muffins and 
 huckleberry pies, for the splendor of a title, with the 
 meagre fare of London and the hard work of drawing 
 up a case. 
 
 "I ivill rouse him!" she cried, as she executed some 
 movement, the nature of which could only be guessed 
 by the young man outside. The windows, it is true, 
 were open; but one's eyes cannot go outside to look 
 in without the rest of the head and body going too. 
 Whatever it was that she did, his lordship apparently 
 sprang into the air with a loud cry, and, if sounds mean 
 anything, ran hastily round the table, followed by his 
 illustrious consort. 
 
 The listener says and always maintains — "Hairpin." 
 Those who consider her ladyship incapable of behavior 
 which might appear undignified reject that interpre- 
 tation. Moral, not physical, were, according to these 
 thinkers, the means of awakening adopted by Lady 
 Davenant. Even the officers of the Salvation Army, 
 they say, do not use hairpins. 
 
 *' In the name of common humanity," said Harry to 
 himself, "one must interfere." He knocked at the 
 door, and allowed time for the restoration of dignity 
 and the smoothing of ruffled plumes. 
 
 He found his lordship seated, it is true, but in the 
 IV rang chair, and his whole frame was trembling with 
 excitement, terror, or some other strong emotion, while 
 the effort he was making to appear calm and composed 
 caused his head to nod and his cheeks to shake. Never 
 was a member of the Ui3per House placed in a more 
 uncomfortable position. As for her ladyship, she was 
 standing bolt upright at the other side of the room at 
 the window. There was a gleam in her eye and a 
 quivering of her lip which betokened wrath. 
 
 " Pardon me. Lady Davenant, " said Harrj^, smiling 
 sweetly. " May I interrupt j^ou for a few moments?" 
 
 "You may," replied her husband, speaking for her. 
 "Go on, Mr. Goslett. Do not hurry yourself, pray. 
 We are glad to see you" — he cleared his throat — " very 
 glad, indeed." 
 
 " I came to say, " he Avent on, still addressing the 
 lady, "that I am a comparatively idle man; that is, for 
 the moment I have no work, and am undecided about 
 
ALL SORT^ ASD COXDITJONS OF MEN. 119 
 
 my movements, and that, if I can be of any help in the 
 preparation of the case, you may command my ser- 
 vices. Of course, Lady Davenant, everybody knows 
 the importance of your labors and of his lordship's, and 
 the necessity of a clear statement of your case." 
 
 Lad}- Davenant replied with a cry like a sea-gull. 
 " Oh ! his lordship's labors, indeed ! Yes, Mr. Goslett, 
 pretty labors! Day after day goes on — I don't care, 
 Timothy — I don't care who knows it — day after day 
 goes on, and we get no farther. Four months and two 
 weeks gone of the time, and the case not even written 
 out vet." 
 
 " What time?" asked Harry. 
 
 " The time that nephew Nathaniel gave us to prove 
 our claim. He found the mone}- for our passage; he 
 promised us six dollars a week for six months. In six 
 months, he said, we should find whether our claim was 
 allowed or not. There it was, and we were welcome 
 for six months. Only six weeks left, and he goes to 
 sleep!" 
 
 '' But, Lady Davenant — only six weeks ! It is impos- 
 sible — you cannot send in a claim and get it acknowl- 
 edged in six weeks. Why, si;ch claims may drag on 
 for years before a committee of the House of Lords." 
 
 " He wastes all the time ; he has got no ambition : he 
 goes to sleep when he ought to be waking. If we have 
 to go home again, with nothing done, it will be be- 
 cause he is so lazy. Shame upon you, obstinate old 
 man ! Oh ! lazy and sleejiy old man !" She shook her 
 finger at him in so terrifying a manner that he was 
 fain to clutch at the arms of the chair, and his teeth 
 chattered. 
 
 " Aurelia Tucker," her ladyship went on, warming to 
 her work as she thought of her wrongs — " Aurelia 
 Tucker always said that, lord or no lord, my husband 
 was too lazy to stand up for his rights. Everybody in 
 Canaan City knew that he was too lazy. She said that 
 if she was me, and trying to get the familv title, she 
 wouldn't go across the water to ask for ft, but she 
 would make the American Minister in London tell the 
 British (xovernment that they would just have to grant 
 it, wht'lher they liked it or not, and that a plain Ameri- 
 can citizen was to take his place in their House of 
 
1-20 ALL SORTS AXD CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 Lords. Otherwise, she said, let the Minister tell that Mr. 
 Gladstone that Canada would be annexed. That's fine 
 talkin', but as for me I want things done friendly, an' 
 I don't want to see my husband walkin' into his proper 
 place in Westminster with Stars and Stripes fly in' over 
 his head and a volunteer fire brigade band playin' 
 'Hail, Columbia,' before him. No. I said that justice 
 was to be got in the old country, and we only had to 
 cross over and ask for it. Then nephew Nathaniel said 
 that he didn't expect much more justice was to be ex- 
 pected in England than in New Hampshire. And that 
 what you can't always get in a free country isn't al- 
 ways got where there's lords and bishops and a queen. 
 But we might try if we liked for six months, and he 
 would find the dollars for that time. Now there's only 
 six weeks left, and we haven't even begun to ask for 
 that justice." 
 
 "Clara Martha," said his lordship, "I've been think- 
 ing the matter over, and I've come to the conclusion 
 that Aurelia Tucker is a sensible woman. Let us go 
 home again, and send the case to the Minister. Let 
 us frighten them." 
 
 "It does not seem bad advice," said Harrj". "Hold 
 a meeting in Canaan City, and promise the British Lion 
 that he shall be whipped into a cocked hat unless you 
 get 3'our rights. Make a national thing of it." 
 
 " No !" She stamped her foot, and became really ter- 
 rible. " We are here, and we will demand our rights 
 on the spot. If the Minister likes to take up the case, 
 he may; if not, we will fight our own battles. But oh! 
 Mr. Goslett, it's a dreadful hard thing for a woman and 
 a stranger to do all the fightin' while her husband goes 
 to sleep." 
 
 "Can't you keep awake till you have stated your 
 case?" asked Harry. "Come, old boy, you can take it 
 out in slumber afterward ; and if you go on sleeping 
 till the case is decided, I expect you wiU have a good 
 long refreshing rest." 
 
 "It was a beautiful morning, Clara Martha," his 
 lordship explained in apology, " quite a warm morning. 
 I didn't know people ever had such warm weather in 
 England. And somehow it reminded me of Canaan 
 City in July. When I think of Canaan, my dear, I al- 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 121 
 
 ways feel sleepy. There was a garden, Mr. Goslett, 
 and trees and tiowers, at the back of the schoolhouse! 
 And a bee came in. I didn't know there were bees in 
 England. While I listened to that bee, bummin' 
 around most the same as if he was in a free republic 
 I began to think of home, Clara Martha. That is all.'' 
 "Was it the bee," she asked with asperity, "that 
 drew your handkerchief over your head?" 
 ^^ "Clara Martha," he replied with a little hesitation, 
 the bee was a stranger to me. He wjis not like one of 
 our New Hampshire bees. He had never seen me be- 
 fore. Bees sting strangers." 
 
 Harry interrupted what promised to be the beginning 
 of another lovers' quarrel, to judge by the twitchings 
 of those thm shoulders and the frowning of those bead- 
 like eyes. 
 
 " Lady Davenant," he said, " let us not waste the time 
 m recrmimation ; accept my services. Let me help you 
 to draw up the statement of your case." 
 
 This was something to the purpose : with a last re- 
 proachful glance upon her husband, her ladyship col- 
 lected the papers and put them into the hands of her 
 new assistant. 
 
 "I'm sure," she said, "it's more 'n kind of you, Mr. 
 Goslett. Here are all the papers. Mind, there isn't 
 the least doubt about it, not the shadow of a doubt; 
 there never was a claim so strong and clear. Timothy 
 Chtheroe Davenant is as much Lord Davenant by right 
 of lawful descent, as— as— you are 3-our father's son." 
 
 Harry spent the morning with the papers spread be- 
 fore hmi, arranging the case. Lord Davenant, now 
 undisturbed, slept quietly in his arm-chair. Her lady- 
 ship left them alone. 
 
 About half-past twelve the sleeping claimant awoke 
 and rubbed his eyes. " I have had a most refreshing 
 slumber, Mr. Goslett," he yawned ; " a man who is mar 
 ried wants it. Sometimes it is what we shall do when 
 we get the title confirmed; sometimes it's why we 
 haven't made out our case yet; sometimes it's why I 
 don t go and see the Queen myself; sometimes it is how 
 we shall crow over Aurelia Tucker when we are estab- 
 hshed m our rights. . . . but, whatever it is, it is never 
 a quiet night. I think, Mr. Goslett, that if she'd only 
 
12a ALL SORTS AXD CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 hold her tongue and go to sleep, I might make headway 
 with that case in the morning." 
 
 " It seems straightforward enough, " said Harry. " I 
 can draw up the thing for you without any trouble. 
 And then 3"ou must find out the best way to bring your 
 claim before the House of Lords. " 
 
 "Put it into the post-office, addressed to the Queen," 
 suggested the claimant. 
 
 " No — not quite that, I think," said Harry. " There's 
 only one weak point in the case." 
 
 " I knew you'd find out the weak point. She won't 
 allow there's any weak point at all. Says it's clear 
 from beginning to end. " 
 
 " So it is, if you make an admission." 
 
 "Well, sir, what is that admission? Let us make it 
 at once, and go on. Nothing can be fairer; we are 
 quite prepared to meet you half-way with that admis- 
 sion." 
 
 His lordship spoke as if conferring an immense ad- 
 vantage upon an imaginary opponent. 
 
 " I do not mind," he said, '"anybody else finding out 
 the weak point, because then I can tackle him. What 
 vexes me, Mr. Goslett, is to find out that weak point 
 myself. Because then there is nobody to argue it out 
 with, and it is like cold water running down the back, 
 and it keeps a man awake." 
 
 " As for your admission " said Harry, laughing. 
 
 "Well, sir, what is it?" 
 
 " Why, of course, you have to admit, unless yovi can 
 prove it, that this Timothy Clitheroe Davenant, wheel- 
 wright, was the Honorable Timothy Clitheroe Dave- 
 nant, only son of Lord Davenant." 
 
 His lordship was silent for a while. 
 
 " Do you think sir, that the Queen will see this weak 
 point?" 
 
 " I am quite sure that her advisers will." 
 
 " And do you think — hush, Mr. Goslett, let us whis- 
 per. Do 3'ou think that the Queen will refuse to give 
 us the title because of this weak point? Hush! she 
 may be outside." He meant his wife, not Her Maj- 
 esty. 
 
 " A committee of the House of Lords most undoubt- 
 edly may refuse to consider your claim proved." 
 
ALL SOIiT.S AND COXDITIoys OF MEX. 123 
 
 His lordship nodded his head in consideration of this 
 possibility. Then he laughed gently and rubbed his 
 hands. 
 
 " It would be rough at first. That is so, for certain, 
 sure. There would be sleepless nights. And Aurelia 
 
 Tucker would laugh. Clara Martha would " he 
 
 shuddered. " Wal, if we hev to go home without our 
 title, I should be resigned. When a man is sixty years 
 of age, sir, and, though born to greatness, not brought 
 up accordin' to his birth, he can't always feel like set- 
 tin' in a row with a crown upon his head ; and though 
 I wouldn't own up before Clara Martha, I doubt whether 
 the British peers would consider my company quite an 
 honor to the Upper House. Though a plain citizen of 
 the United States, sir, is as good as any lord that 
 lives." 
 
 " Better," said Harry. " He is much better." 
 
 " He is, Mr. Goslett, he is. In the land where the 
 Bird of Freedom " 
 
 " Hush, my lord. " You forget that you are a Brit- 
 ish peer. No spread-eagle for 3'ou." 
 
 Lord Davenant sighed. 
 
 " It is difficr " he said, " and I suppose there's no 
 more loyal citizens than us of Canaan City." 
 
 " Well, how are we to connect the wheelwright Tim- 
 othy with the Honorable Timothy who was supposed to 
 be drowned?" 
 
 " There is his age, and there is his name. You've 
 got those, Mr. Goslett. And then, as we agreed be- 
 fore, we will agree to that little admission." 
 
 '' But if everybody does not agree?" 
 
 " There is also the fact that we were always supposed 
 to be heirs to something in the old countr}-. " 
 
 " I am afraid that is not enough. There is this great 
 difficulty : Why should a j^oung Englishman, the heir 
 to a title and a great property, settle down in America 
 and practise a handicraft?" 
 
 " Wal, sir, I can't rightly say. My grandfather car- 
 ried that secret with him. And if von '11 oblige me, 
 sir, you'll tell her ladyship that we're agreed upon that 
 little admission which makes the connection complete. 
 It will be time enough to undeceive her when the 
 trouble begins. As for Aurelia Tucker, why " 
 
134 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF 3IEN. 
 
 here he smiled sweetly. " If I know Clara Martha 
 aright, she is quite able to tackle Aurelia by herself." 
 
 This was the way in which the conduct of the Great 
 Davenant Case fell into the hands of a mere working- 
 man. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 THE FIRST DAY. 
 
 Angela's genteel place of business, destined as it 
 was to greatness, came into the world with little pomp 
 and no pretence. On the day appointed, the work-girls 
 came at nine, and found a brass plate on the door and 
 a wire blind in the windows, bearing the announce- 
 ment that this was the "Dressmakers' Association." 
 This information gave them no curiosity, and produced 
 no excitement in their minds. To them it seemed noth- 
 ing but another artifice to attract the attention of a pub' 
 lie ver}' hard to move. They were quite used to these 
 crafty announcements ; they were cynically incredulous 
 of low prices ; they knew the real truth as to fabrics of 
 freshness unlasting and stuffs wdiich would never wear 
 out; and as regards forced sales, fabulous prices, and 
 incredible bargains, they merely lifted the eyelid of the 
 scoffer and w^ent into the workroom. Whatever was 
 written or printed on bills in the window, no difference 
 was ever made to them. Nor did the rise and fall of 
 markets alter their wages one penny. This lack of in- 
 terest in the success of their work is certainly a draw- 
 back to this metier, as to many others. Would it not 
 be well if workmen of all kinds were directly interested 
 in the enterprise for which they hire out their labor? 
 
 If you have the curiosity to listen to the talk of work- 
 girls in the evenings wdien they v/alk home, or as they 
 journey homeward slowly in the crawling omnibus, j^ou 
 will be struck by a very remarkable phenomenon. It is 
 not that they talk without stopping, because that is com- 
 mon to 5'outhful woman in every rank. It is that in 
 the evening they are always exasperated. They snap 
 their lips, they breathe quick, they flash their eyes, 
 they clinch their fingers, and their talk is a narrative 
 of indignation full of "sezee," "sezzi," and "seshee" — ■ 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 125 
 
 mostly the last, because what " she" said is generally 
 the cause of all this wrath. A philosopher, who once 
 investigated the subject, was fortunate enough to dis- 
 cover why work-girls are always angry at eventide. 
 He maintains that it means nothing in the world but 
 nagging ; . they all, he says, sit together— forewomen, 
 dressmakers, improvers, and apprentices — in one room. 
 The room, whether large or small, is always close, the 
 hours are long ; as they sit at their M'ork, head bent, 
 back bent, feet still, they gradually get the fidgets. 
 This is a real disease while it lasts. In the workroom 
 it has got to last until the time to knock off. First it 
 seizes the limbs, so that the younger ones want to get 
 up and jump and dance, while tlie other ones would 
 like to kick. If not relieved, the patient next gets the 
 fidgets in her nerves, so that she wriggles in her chair, 
 gets spasmodic twitchings, shakes her head violently, 
 and bites her thread with viciousness. The next step is 
 extreme irritability; this is followed by a disposition 
 on the part of the forewoman to find fault, and by a 
 determination on the part of the work-girls not to be 
 put upon, with an intention of speaking up should the 
 occasion arise. Then comes nagging, which is, in 
 fact, nothing but fidgets translated into English prose. 
 Some forewomen are excellent translators. And the 
 end is general exasperation, with fines, notices to leave, 
 warnings, cheekiness, retorts, accusations, charges, de- 
 nials, tears, fault-findings, sneers, angry words, bitter 
 things, personal reflections, innuendos, disrespect, bul- 
 lying, and every element of a row-royal. Conse- 
 quently, when the girls go home they are exasperated. 
 ^ We know how Angela proposed to prevent the out- 
 break of this contagious disorder by ventilation, exer- 
 cise, and frequent rests. 
 
 She took her place among the girls, and worked with 
 them, sitting beside Nelly Sorensen, who was to have 
 charge of the workroom. Rebekah, with Miss Mes- 
 senger's magnificent order on her mind, sat in the 
 showroom waiting for visitors. But none came except 
 Mrs. Bormalack, accompanied by her ladyship, who 
 stepped over to offer their congratulations and best 
 wishes, and to see what Miss Messenger was going to 
 have. 
 
126 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF 2IEN. 
 
 At eleven o'clock, when the first two hours' pull is 
 beginning to be felt by the j^ounger hands, Angela in- 
 vited everybody to rest for hall an hour. They obeyed 
 with some surprise, and followed her with considerable 
 suspicion, as if some mean advantage was going to be 
 taken of them, some trick " sprung" upon them. 
 
 She took them into a kind of court, which had been 
 the back garden, paved with asphalt and provided with 
 nets, rackets, and all the gear for lawn tennis. She 
 invited them to play for half an hour. It was a fine 
 morning in early September, with a warm sun, a bright 
 sky, and a cool breeze — the \qvj day for lawn tennis. 
 The girls, however, looked at the machinery and then 
 at each other, and showed no inclination for the game. 
 Then Angela led the way into the great glass-room, 
 where she pointed out the various bars, ropes, and posts 
 which she had provided for their gymnastic exercises. 
 They looked at each other again, and showed a disposi- 
 tion to giggle. 
 
 They were seven girls in all, not counting Rebekah, 
 who remained in the showroom ; and Nelly, who was 
 a little older than the rest, stood rather apart. The 
 girls were not unhealthy-looking, being all quite young, 
 and therefore not as j^et ruined as to the complexion by 
 gas and bad air. But they looked dejected, as if their 
 work had no charms for them — indeed, one can hardly 
 imagine that it had — they were only 'surprised, not 
 elated, at the half -hour's recreation; they expected that 
 it would be deducted from their wages, and were re- 
 sentful. 
 
 Then Angela made them a speech. She said, hand- 
 ling a racket to give herself confidence, that it was 
 highly necessary to take plenty of exercise in the open 
 air ; that she was sure Avork would be better done and 
 more quickly done if the fingers did not get too tired ; 
 therefore, that she had had this tennis-court prepared 
 for them and the gjmmasium fitted up, so that they 
 might play in it every day. And then selecting Nelly 
 and two others, who seemed active young creatures, 
 she gave them their first lesson in lawn tennis. 
 
 The next day she gave a lesson to another set. In a 
 few days tennis became a passion with the girls. The 
 fashion spread. Lawn tennis is not an expensive 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 127 
 
 game ; shortly there will bo no bit of s(}iiare garden or 
 vacant space in Stepney but will be marked out into its 
 lawn-tennis courts. 
 
 The gymnasium took longer to become ])opular. 
 Girls do not like feats of strength; nor was it until the 
 spell of wet weather last October, when outdoor games 
 became impossible, that the gymnasium began to at- 
 tract at all. Then a spirit of emulation was set up, and 
 bodily exercises became popular. After becoming quite 
 sure that no deduction was made on account of the rest- 
 ing time, the girls ceased to bo suspicious, and accepted 
 the gift with something like enthusiasm. Yet, Miss 
 Kennedy was their employer ; therefore, a natural ene- 
 my; therefore, gifts from her continued, for some time, 
 to be received with dovibt and suspicion. This does 
 not seem, on the whole, a healthy outcome of our social 
 system ; yet such an attitude is unfortunately common 
 among work-girls. 
 
 At half-past eleven they all resumed work. 
 
 At one o'clock another astonishment awaited them. 
 
 Miss Kennedy informed them that one of the reforms 
 introduced by her was the providing of dinner every 
 day, without deducting anA'thing from their wages. 
 Those to whom dinner was, on most days, the mockery 
 of a piece of bread and butter, or a bun, or some such 
 figment and pretence of a meal, simply gasped, and the 
 stoutest held her breath for a while, wondering what 
 these things might mean. 
 
 Yes, there was dinner laid for them upstairs on a 
 fair white cloth; for every girl a plentiful dish of beef 
 with potatoes and other good things, and a glass of Mes- 
 senger's Family Ale — that at eight-and-six the nine- 
 gallon cask — and bread a discretion. Angela would 
 have added pudding, but was dissuaded by her fore- 
 woman, on the ground that not only would pudding 
 swallow up too much of the profits, but that it would 
 demoralize the girls. As it was, one of them, at the 
 mere aspect and first contemplation of- the beef, fell a- 
 weeping. She Avas lame, and she was the most dejected 
 among them all. Why she wept, and how Angela fol- 
 lowed her home, and what that home was like, and why 
 she and her mother and her sisters do now continually 
 praise and pray for Angela, belong to another story. 
 
128 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 concerned with the wretchedness and misery which are 
 found at Whitechapel and Stepne}^, as well as in Soho 
 and Marylebone and the back of Regent Street. I shall 
 not write man}' chapters of that story, for my own part. 
 
 Truly a most wonderful workshop. Was ever such 
 an association of dressmakers? 
 
 After dinner they frolicked and romped, though as 
 yet in an untaught way, until two, when they began 
 work again. 
 
 Miss Kennedy then made them another speech. 
 
 She told them that the success of their enterprise de- 
 pended in great measure upon their own industry, skill, 
 and energy; that they were all interested in it, because 
 they were to receive, besides their wages, a share in the 
 profits ; this they only partly understood . Nor did they 
 comprehend her scheme much more when she went on 
 to exi)lain that tliey had the house and all the prelimi- 
 nary furniture found for them, so that there would be 
 nothing, at first, to pay for rent. They had never con- 
 sidered the question of rent, and the thing did not go 
 home to them. But they saw in some vague way that 
 here was an employer of a kind ver}^ much unlike any 
 they had ever before experienced, and they were aston- 
 ished and excited. 
 
 Later on, when the}' might be getting tired again, 
 they had a visitor. It was no other than Captain So- 
 rensen. He said that by permission of Miss Kennedy 
 he would read to them for an hour, and that, if she per- 
 mitted and they liked, as he was an old man with noth- 
 ing to do, he would come and read to them often. 
 
 So this astonishing day passed on. 
 
 They had tea at five, with another half-hour's rest. 
 As the evening was so fine, it was served in the garden. 
 
 At seven they found that it was time to strike work — 
 an hour at least earlier than at any other house. What 
 could these things mean? 
 
 And then fresh marvels. For when the work was 
 put away. Miss Kenned}^ invited them all to follow her 
 upstairs. There she formally presented them with a 
 room for their own use in the evening if they pleased. 
 There was a piano in it; but, unfortunately, nobody 
 could play. The floor was polished for dancing, but 
 then no one could dance; and there was a table with 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIO XS OF MEN. 139 
 
 games upon it, and magazines and illustrated papers. 
 In this room, Miss Kenned}' told them, they could sing, 
 dance, play, read, talk, sit, or do anything else in rea- 
 son, and within the limits of modest recreation. They 
 might also, on Saturday evenings, bring their friends, 
 brothers, and so forth, who would also be expected to 
 behave within the limits of modesty and good breeding. 
 In short, the place was to be a drawing-room, and An- 
 gela proposed to train the girls by example and precept 
 into a proper feeling as regards the use of a drawing- 
 room. There was to be no giggling, no whispering in 
 corners, nor was there to be any horseplay. Good man- 
 ners lie between horseplay on the one hand and gig- 
 gling on the other. 
 
 The kind of evening proposed by their wonderful 
 mistress struck the girls at first with a kind of stupe- 
 faction. Outside, the windows being open, they could 
 hear the steps of those who walked, talked, and laughed 
 on Stepney Green. They would have preferred to be 
 among that throng of idle promenaders; it seemed to 
 them a more beautiful thing to walk up and dovv n the 
 paths than to sit about in a room and be told to plav. 
 There were no young men. There was the continual 
 presence of their employer. They were afraid of her; 
 there was also Miss Hermitage, of whom also they were 
 afraid; there was, in addition, Miss Sorensen, of 'whom 
 they might learn to be afraid. As for Miss Kennedy, 
 they were the more afraid of her because not only did 
 she walk, talk, and look like a person out of another 
 w^orld, but, oh, wonderful! she knew nothing — evi- 
 dently nothing — of their little tricks. Naturally one is 
 afraid of a person who knows nothing of one's wicked 
 ways. This is the awkwardness in entertaining angels. 
 They naturally assume that their entertainers stand on 
 the same elevated level as themselves ; this causes em- 
 barrassment. Most of us, like Angela's shop-girls, 
 would, under the circumstances, betray a tendency to 
 giggle. 
 
 Then she tried to relieve them from their awkward- 
 ness by sitting down to the piano and playing a lively 
 galop. 
 
 "Dance, girls," she cried. 
 
 In their early childhood, before they went to school 
 9 
 
130 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 or workshop, the girls had been accustomed to a good 
 deal of dancing. Their ballroom was the street; their 
 floor was the curbstone ; their partners had been other 
 little girls; their music the organ-grinder's. They 
 danced with no step but such as came by nature, but their 
 little feet struck true and kept good time. Now they 
 were out of practice; they were grown big, too; they 
 could no longer seize each other by the waist and caper 
 round and round. Yet the music was inspiriting; eyes 
 brightened, their heels became as light as air. Yet, 
 alas ! they did not know the steps. 
 
 Angela stopped playing and looked round her. The 
 girls were crowded together. 
 
 Rebekah Hermitage sat apart at the table. There 
 was that in her face which betokened disapproval, min- 
 gled with curiosity, for she had never seen a dance, 
 and never, except on a barrel-organ, heard dance mus'C. 
 Nelly Sorensen stood beside the piano watching the 
 player with the devotion which belongs to the disciple 
 who loves the most. Whatever Miss Kennedy did was 
 right and sweet and beautiful. Also, whatever she did 
 filled poor Nelly with a sense of humiliation, because 
 she herself felt so ignorant. 
 
 "Rebekah! Nelly!" cried Angela. "Can you not 
 help me?" 
 
 Both shook their heads. 
 
 "I cannot dance," said Rebekah, trjnng to show a 
 little scorn, or, at least, some disapprobation. " In our 
 Connection we never dance." 
 
 " You never dance?" Angela forgot for the moment 
 that she was in Stepney, and among a class of girls 
 who do not dance. " Do you sing?" 
 
 " If any is merry, " replied Rebekah, " let him sing 
 hymns. " 
 
 " Nelly, can you help me?" 
 
 She, too, shook her head. But, she said, "her father 
 could play the fiddle. Might he come?" 
 
 Angela begged her to invite him immediately, and 
 on her way to ask Mr. Goslett, at Mrs. Bormalack's, 
 to bring his fiddle too. Between them they would teach 
 the girls to dance. 
 
 Then she sat down and began to sing. First she 
 sang, " By the Banks of Allen Water," and then " The 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 131 
 
 Bailiff's Dangliter of Islington," and next, " Drink to me 
 only with thine eyes" — sweet and simple ditties all. 
 Then came Captain Sorensen, bearing his fiddle, and 
 happy to help, and while he plaj'ed, Angela stood all the 
 girls in a row before her, headed by Nelly, and gave 
 them their first lesson in the giddy dance. 
 
 Then came Harrj' Goslett, and at the sight of his 
 cheerful countenance and at the mere beholding how he 
 bowed to Miss Kennedy, and asked to be allowed, and 
 put his arm round her waist and whirled her round in 
 a galop, their hearts were lifted up, and thej' longed no 
 more for Stepney Green. Then he changed Miss Ken- 
 nedy for Nelly ; and though she was awkward at first, 
 she soon fell into the step, while Miss Kennedy danced 
 with another; and then Mr. Goslett with another, and 
 so on till all had had a practical lesson. Then they 
 ceased altogether to long for the jest of the gallant 
 'prentice; for what were jests to this manly, masterful 
 seizure by the waist, this lifting almost off the feet, this 
 whirl round and round to the music of the fiddle which 
 the brave old captain plaj^ed as merrily as any bo's'n's 
 mate or quartermaster on an East Indiaman? In half 
 an hour the feet of all but one — the one who, poor girl, 
 was lame — felt that noble sj'mpathy with the music so 
 readily caught by those intelligent organs, and — they 
 could dance. Perhaps for the first time in the annals 
 of Stepney, her daughters had learned to dance. 
 
 The rest would be easy. They tried a quadrille, then 
 another galop. Harry endeavored to do his duty, but 
 there were some who remarked that he danced twice, 
 that second galop, with Nelly Sorensen, and they wei-e 
 jealous. Yet it was only an unconscious tribute paid 
 to beauty. The young fellow was among a bevy of 
 dressmakers ; an uncommon position for a man of his 
 bringing-up. One of them, somehow, was, to all ap- 
 pearance, and to any but perhaps the most practised 
 eye, a real genuine lad}" — not a copy at all; the other 
 was so graceful and sweet that she seemed to want l)Ut 
 a touch to effect the transformation. As for the other 
 girls, they were simple 3'oung persons of the workroom 
 and counter — a common type. So common, alas I that 
 we are apt to forget the individuality of each, her per- 
 sonal hopes, and her infinite possibilities. Yet, how- 
 
132 ALL SORTS AND COyDITIOXS OF MEN. 
 
 ever insignificant is the crowd, the individual is so 
 important. 
 
 Then he was interested in the dark-eyed girl who sat 
 hj herself at the table, looking on, anxiously, at an 
 amusement she had always heard of as " soul-destroy- 
 ing." She was wondering why her ears were pleased 
 with the playing, and why her brain was filled with 
 strange images, and wh}' it was so pleasant to watch 
 the girls dancing, their eyes aglow and their cheeks 
 flushed. 
 
 "Do not tempt me," she said, when Harry ventured 
 to invite her, too, to join the giddy throng. " Do not 
 tempt me — no — go away !" 
 
 Her very brusqueness showed how strong was the 
 temptation. Was she, already, giving way to the first 
 temptation ':* 
 
 Presently the evening was over, the girls had all 
 trooped noisil}' out of the house, and Angela, Captain 
 Sorensen, Nelly, and the young workman were walk- 
 ing across the green in the direction of the Almshouse. 
 
 When Angela got home to the boarding-house the 
 dreariness of the evening was in full blast. The board- 
 ers were sitting in silence, each wrapped in his own 
 thoughts. The professor lifted his head as she entered 
 the room, and regarded her with thoughtful eyes, as if 
 appraising her worth as a cluinoyante. Dcivid Fagg 
 scowled horribly. His lordship opened his mouth as if 
 to speak, but said nothing. Mr. Maliphant took his 
 pipe out of his mouth, and began a story. " I remem- 
 ber," he said, "the last time but one that he was 
 ruined" — he did not state the name of the gentleman — 
 " the whole town was on fire, and his house with them. 
 What did he do? Mounted his horse and rode around, 
 and bought up all the timber for twenty miles around. 
 And see what he's worth now !" When he had told 
 this story he relapsed into silence. Angela thought of 
 that casual collection of unsj^mpathetic animals put into 
 a cage and called a " Happy Family." 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 133 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 SUNDAY AT THE EAST EXD. 
 
 Sunday morning in and about the Whitechapel and 
 Mile End roads Angela discovered to be a time of pe- 
 culiar interest. The closing of the shops adds to the 
 dignity of the broad thoroughfares, because it hides so 
 many disagreeable and even humiliating things. But 
 it by no means puts a stop to traffic, Avhich is conducted 
 with an ostentatious disregard of the Fourth Com- 
 mandment or Christian custom. At one end, the city 
 end, IS Houndsditch, crowded with men who come to 
 buy and sell; and while the bells of St. Botolph call 
 upon the faithful with a clanging and clashing which 
 ring like a cry of despair, the footpath is filled with the 
 busy loungers, who have long since ceased to regard 
 the invitation as having anything at all to do with them. 
 Strange and wonderful result of the gathering of men 
 in great cities ! It is not a French, or an English, or a 
 German, or an American result — it is universal. In 
 every great city of the world, below a certain level, 
 there is no religion— men have grown dead to their 
 higher instincts; they no longer feel the possibilities of 
 humanity ; faith brings to them no more the evidence 
 of things unsecA. They are crowded together, so that 
 they have ceased to feel their individuality. The crowd 
 is eternal— they are part of that eternitv ; if one drops 
 out, he is not missed ; nobody considers" that it will be 
 his own turn some day so to drop out. Life is nothing 
 for ever and ever, but work in the week with as much 
 beer and tobacco as the money will run to, and loafing 
 on Sundaj's with more beer and tobacco. This, my 
 friends, is a truly astonishing thing, and a thing un- 
 known until this century. Perhaps, however, in ancient 
 Kome the people had ceased to believe in their gods ; 
 perhaps, in Babylon, the sacred bricks were kicked 
 about by the unthinking mob; perhaps, in everv great 
 city, the same loss of individual manhood liiav be 
 found. 
 
 It was on a Sunday morning in August that Angela 
 
134 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 took a little journey of exploration, accompanied by the 
 yoimg workman who was her companion in these ex- 
 cursions. He led her into Houndsditch and the Minor- 
 ics, where she had the pleasure of inspecting the great 
 mercantile interest of old clothes, and of gazing upon 
 such as buy and sell therein. Then she turned her face 
 northward, and entered upon a journey which twenty 
 j^ears ago would have been full of peril, and is now, to 
 one who loves his fellow-man, full of interest. 
 
 The great boulevard of the East was thronged with 
 the class of men who keep the Sabbath in holy laziness 
 Avith tobacco. Some of them lounge, some talk, some 
 listen, all have pipes in their mouths. Here was a cir- 
 cle gathered round a man who was waving his arm's 
 and shouting. He was an Apostle of Temperance; 
 behind him stood a few of his private friends to act as 
 a claque. The listeners seemed amused but not con- 
 vinced. "The}^ will probabl}^" said Harr3S " enjoy 
 their dinner beer quite as much as if the3^had not heard 
 this sermon." Another circle was gathered round a 
 man in a cart, who had a flaming red flag to support 
 him. He belonged, the flag told the world, to the 
 Tower Hamlets Magna Charta Association. What he 
 said was listened to with the same languid curiosity 
 and tepid amusement. Angela stopped a moment to 
 hear Avhat he had to say. He was detailing, with im- 
 mense energy, the particulars of some awful act of in- 
 justice committed upon a friend unknown, who got six 
 months. The law of England is always trampling 
 upon some innocent victim, according to this sympa- 
 thizer with virtue. The working-men have heard it 
 all before, and they continue to smoke their pipes, their 
 blood not quickened b}' a single beat. The ear of the 
 people is accustomed to vehemence ; the case must be 
 put strongly before it will listen at all ; and listening, 
 as most brawlers discover, is not conviction. 
 
 Next to the Magna Charta brethren a cheap-jack 
 had placed his cart. He drove a roaring trade in two- 
 penn'orths, which, out of compliment to a day which 
 should be devoted to good works, consisted each of a 
 bottle of sarsaparilla, which he called "sassaple," and a 
 box of pills. Next to him the costers stood beside their 
 carts loaded with cheap ices, ginger-beer, and lemonade 
 
ALL SORTS AND COXDITIOXS OF MEN. 135 
 
 — to show that there was no deception, a great glass jar 
 stood upon each cart with actual undeniable slices of 
 lemon floating in water and a lump of ice upon the top ; 
 there were also piles of plums, plums without end, early 
 August apples, and windfall pears; also sweet things 
 in foot-long lumps sticky and gruesome to look upon ; 
 Brazil nuts, also a favorite article of commerce in cer- 
 tain circles, though not often met with at the tables of 
 the luxurious; late oranges, more plums, many more 
 plums, plums in enormous quantities; and periwin- 
 kles, which last all the year round, with whelks and 
 vinegar, and the toothsome shrimp. Then there came 
 another circle, and in the midst stood a 3'oung man 
 with long fair hair and large blue eyes. He was 
 preaching the Gospel, as he understood it; his face 
 was the face of an enthusiast : a little solitude, a little 
 meditation among the mountains, would have made 
 this man a seer of visions and a dreamer of dreams. 
 He was not ridiculous, though his grammar was defec- 
 tive and his pronunciation had the cockney twang and 
 his aspirates were wanting ; nothing is ridiculous that 
 is in earnest. On the right of the street they had 
 passed the headquarters of the Salvation Army; the 
 brave warriors were now in full blast, and the fighting, 
 "knee-drill," singing, and storming of the enemy's fort 
 were at their highest and most enjoj^able point ; Angela 
 looked in and found an immense hall crammed with 
 people who came to fight, or look on, to scotf, or gaze. 
 Higher up, on the left, stands a rival in red-hot relig- 
 ion, the Hall of the Jubilee Singers, where another vast 
 crowd was worshipping, exhorting, and singing. 
 
 " There seems, " said Angela, " to be too much exhort- 
 ing; can the}^ not sit down somewhere in quiet for 
 praise and praj'er?" 
 
 "We working-people,'' replied her comj)anion, "like 
 ever3'thing loud and strong. If we are persuaded to 
 take a side, we want to be alwaj's fighting on that side." 
 
 Streams of people passed them, lounging or walking 
 with a steady purpose. The former were the indiffer- 
 ent and the callous, the hardened and the stupid, men 
 to whom preachers and orators appealed in vain; to 
 whom Peter the Hermit might have bawled himself 
 hoarse, and Bernard would have thrown all his elo- 
 
136 ALL SORTS AXD CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 quonce away; they smoked short pipes, with their 
 hands in their pockets, and looked good-tempered ; with 
 them were boys, also smoking short pipes, with their 
 hands in their pockets. Those who walked were young 
 men dressed in long frock-coats of a shiny and lustrous 
 black, who carried Bibles and prayer-books with some 
 ostentation. They "svere on their way to church ; with 
 them were their sisters, for the most part well-dressed, 
 quiet girls, to whom the noise and the crowds wore a 
 part of life — a thing not to be avoided, hardly felt as a 
 trouble, 
 
 " I am always getting a new sensation, " said Angela. 
 
 '•'What is the last v" 
 
 " I have just realized that there are thousands and 
 thousands of ]jeople who never, all their lives, get to a 
 place where they can be (piiet. Always noise, always 
 crowds, always buying and selling." 
 
 " Here, at least," said Harry, "there is no noise." . 
 
 They were at the wicket-gate of the Trinity Alms- 
 house. 
 
 "What do you think, Miss Kennedy?" 
 
 "It is a haven of rest," she replied, thinking of a cer- 
 tain picture. '' Let us, too, seek peace awhile." 
 
 It was just eleven o'clock, and the beadsmen were 
 going to their chapel. They entered the square, and 
 joined the old men in their weekly service. Angela 
 discovered, to her disapix)intment, that the splendid 
 flight of steps leading to the magnificent portal was a 
 dummy, because the real entrance to the chapel was 
 a lowly door beneath the stone steps, suited, Mr. Bunker 
 would have said, to the humble condition of the money- 
 less. 
 
 It is a plain chapel, with a small organ in the corner, 
 a tiny altar, and over the altar the ten commandments 
 in a black wood frame — rules of life for those whose 
 life is well-nigh done — and a pulpit, which serves for 
 reading the service as well as delivering the sermon. 
 Tlie congregation consisted of about thirty of the alms- 
 men, with about half as many old ladies; and Angela 
 wondered why these old ladies were all dressed in black, 
 and all wore crape. Perhaps they desired by the use 
 of this material to symbolize mourning for the loss of 
 opportunities for making money; or for the days of 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF 3IEN. 137 
 
 beauty and courtship, or for children dead and gone, or 
 to mark the humility which becomes an inmate, or to 
 do honor to the day which is still revered by many 
 Englishwomen as a day of humiliation and rebuke, 
 or in the belief that crape confers dignity. We know 
 not, we know nothing ; the love which women bear for 
 crape is a mystery ; man can but speculate idly on their 
 ways. We are like the philosopher picking up pebbles 
 by the seaside. Among the old people sat Nelly S(jren- 
 sen, a flower of youth and loveliness, in her simj^ile 
 black dress, and her light hair breaking out beneath 
 her bonnet. The Catholics believe that no church is 
 complete without a bone of some dead saint or beati- 
 fied person. Angela made up her mind, on the spot, 
 that no act of public worship is complete without the 
 assistance of youth as well as of age. 
 
 The men were all dressed alike in blue coats and 
 brass buttons, the uniform of the place; they seemed 
 all, with the exception of one who was battered by time, 
 and was fain to sit while the rest stood, to be of the 
 same age, and that might be anything between a hearty 
 sixty-five and a vigorous eighty. After the manner of 
 sailors, they were all exact in the performance of their 
 share in public worship, following the prayers in the 
 book and the lessons in the Bible. When the time 
 came for listening they straightened themselves out, in 
 an attitude comfortable for listening. The Scotch elder 
 assumes, during the sermon, the air of a hostile critic; 
 the face of the British rustic becomes vacant ; the eyes 
 of the ordinary listener in church show that his 
 thoughts are far away, but the expression of a sailor's 
 face, while he is performing the duty — part of the 
 day's duty — of listening to the sermon, shows respect- 
 ful attention, although he may have heard it all before. 
 
 Angela did not listen much to the sermon : she was 
 thinking of the old men for whom that sermon was pre- 
 pared. There was a fresh color upon their faces, as if 
 it was not so very long since their cheeks had been 
 fanned by the strong sea-breeze ; their eyes were clear, 
 they possessed the bearing which comes of the habit of 
 command, and they carried themselves as if they were 
 not ashamed of their poverty. Now Bunker, Angela 
 reflected, would have been very much ashamed, and 
 
138 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 would have hung his head in shame. But then Bun- 
 ker was one of the nimble-footed hunters after money, 
 while these ignoble persons had contented themselves 
 with the simple and slavish record of duty done. 
 
 The service over, they w^ere joined by Captain Soren- 
 sen and his daughter, and for half an hour walked in 
 the quiet court behind the church, in peaceful converse. 
 Angela walked with the old man, and Nell}" with the 
 young man. It niiitters little what thej' talked about, 
 but it was something good, because when the Captain 
 went home to his dinner he kissed his daughter, and 
 said it seemed to him that it was the best day's work 
 he ever did when he let her go to Miss Kennedy. 
 
 In the evening Angela made another journey of ex- 
 ploration with the same escort. They passed down 
 Stepney Green, and plunged among the labyrinth of 
 streets lying between the Mile End Road and the 
 Thames. It is as unlovely a collection of houses as 
 may be found anywhere, always excepting Hoxton, 
 which may fairly be considered the Queen of Unloveli- 
 ness. The houses in this part are small, and they are 
 almost all of one pattern. There is no green thing to 
 be seen ; no one plants trees, there seem to be no gar- 
 dens; no flowers are in the windows; there is no bright- 
 ness of paint or of clean windows; there iy nothing of 
 joy, nothing to gladden the eye. 
 
 "Think," said Harr}", almost in a whisper, as if in 
 liomage to the Powers of Dirt and Dreariness, " thiiik 
 what this people could be made if we could only carry 
 out your scheme of the Palace of Delight." 
 
 " We could make them discontented, at least, " said 
 Angela. " Discontent must come before reform." 
 
 " We should leave them to reform themselves, " said 
 Harry. " The mistake of philanthropists is to think 
 that they can do for people what can only be done by 
 the people. As you said this morning, there is too 
 much exhorting." 
 
 Presently the}^ struck out of a street rather more 
 dreary than its neighbors, and found themselves in a 
 broad road with a great church. 
 
 "This is Limehouse Church," said Harr3^ "All 
 round you are sailors. There is East India Dock Road. 
 Here is West India Dock Road. There is the Foreign 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF 3IEN. 139 
 
 Sailors' Home; and we will go no farther, if you please, 
 because the streets are all full, you perceive, of the for- 
 eign sailors and the English sailors and the sailors' 
 friends." 
 
 Angela had seen enough of the sailors. They turned 
 back. Harry led her through another labyrinth into 
 another broad street, also crowded with sailors. 
 
 "This is Shad well," said her guide; "and if there is 
 anything in Shadwell to interest you, I do not know 
 what it is. Survey Shadwell !" 
 
 Angela looked up the street and down the street; 
 there was nothing for the eye in search of the beautiful 
 or the picturesque to rest upon. But a great bawling 
 of rough voices came from a great tent stuck up, oddl}-, 
 beside the road. A white canvas sheet with black let- 
 ters proclaimed this as the place of worship of the 
 "Happy Gypsies." They were holding their Sunday 
 Function. 
 
 " More exhorting !" said Angela. 
 
 "Now, this," he said, as they walked along, "is a 
 more interesting place. It used to be called Ratcliffe 
 Highway, and had the reputation of being the wicked- 
 est place in London. I dare say it was all brag, and 
 that really it was not much worse than its neighbors." 
 
 It is a distincth' squalid street, that now called St. 
 George's-in-the-East. But it has its points; it is pic- 
 turesque, like a good many dirty places ; the people are 
 good-tempered, though they do not wash their faces 
 even on Sundays. They have quite left off knocking 
 down, picking pockets, kicking, and robbing the harm- 
 less stranger; they are advancing slowly toward civil- 
 ization. 
 
 " Come this waj'," said Harry. 
 
 He pasvsed through a narrow passage, and led the way 
 into a place at the sight of which Angela was fain to 
 cry out in surprise. 
 
 In it was nothing less than a fair and gracious gar- 
 den planted with flowers, and these in the soft August 
 sunshine showed sweet and lovely. The beds were well 
 kept ; the walks were of asphalt ; there were seats set 
 about, and on them old women and old men sat basking 
 in the evening sun. .The young men and maidens 
 walked along the paths — an Arcadian scene. 
 
140 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF 3IEN. 
 
 " This little strip of Eden," said Harry, " was cut out 
 of the old church-yard." 
 
 The rest of the church-yard was divided from the gar- 
 den by a railing, and round the wall were the tomb- 
 stones of the departed obscure. From the church itself 
 was heard the rolling of the organ and the soft singing 
 of a hymn. 
 
 " This," said Angela, " is better than exhortation. A 
 garden for meditation and the church for prayer. I like 
 this place better than the Whitechapel Road." 
 
 "1 will show you a more quiet place still," said her 
 guide. They walked a little way farther down the 
 main street; then he turned into a narrow street on the 
 north, and Angela found herself in a scjuare of clean 
 houses round an inclosure of grass. Within the inclos- 
 ure was a chapel, and tombs were dotted on the grass. 
 
 They went into the chapel, a plain edifice of the 
 Georgian kind with round windows, and the evening 
 sun shone through the window in the west. The high 
 pews were occupied by a congregation of forty or fifty, 
 all men. They all had light-brown hair, and as they 
 turned round to look at the new-comers, Angela saw 
 that they all had blue eyes. The preacher, who wore 
 a black gown and bands, was similarly provided as to 
 hair and eyes. He preached in a foreign tongue, and 
 as it is difficult to be edified by a sermon not in one's 
 native speech, they shortly went out again. They were 
 followed by the verger, who seemed not indisposed to 
 break the monotony of the service by a few minutes' 
 walk. 
 
 He talked English imperfectly, but he told them that 
 it was the church of the Swedes. Angela asked if 
 they were all sailors. He said, with some seeming 
 contempt for sailors, that only a few of them were sail- 
 ors. She then said that she supposed the}" \A'ere people 
 engaged in trade. He shook his head again, and in- 
 formed her with a mj'sterious air that many of the 
 Swedish nobility lived in that neighborhood. After 
 this they came away, for fear of greater surprises. 
 
 They followed St. George' s-in-the-East to the end of 
 the street. Then they turned to the right, and passed 
 through a straight and quite ignoble road leading north. 
 It is a street greatly affected by Germans. German 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 141 
 
 names are over every shop and on every brass i^late. 
 They come hither, these honest Germans, because to 
 get good work in London is better than going after it 
 to New York or Philadelphia, and nearer home. In 
 the second generation their names will be Anglicized, 
 and their children will have become rich London mer- 
 chants, and very likely Cabinet ministers. They have 
 their churches, too, the Reformed and the Lutheran, 
 with nothing to choose between them on the score of 
 ugliness. 
 
 •' Let us get home, " said Angela ; " I have seen 
 enough." 
 
 " It is the joylessness of the life," she explained, "the 
 ignorant, contented joylessness, which w^eighs upon 
 one. And there is so much of it. Surel}^ there is no 
 other city in the world which is so utterly without joy 
 as this East London." 
 
 "No," said Harrj^ "there is not in the whole world 
 a city so devoid of pleasant things. The}-- do not know 
 how to be happy. They are like your work-girls when 
 you told them to dance." 
 
 " Look!" she cried, "what is that?" 
 
 There was a hoarse roar of many voices from a court 
 leading out of the main road; the roar became louder; 
 Harry drew the girl aside as a mob of men and boys 
 and women rushed headlong out of the place. It was 
 not a fight apparently, yet there was beating with sticks 
 and kicking. For those who were beaten did not strike 
 back in return. After a little the beaters and kickers 
 desisted, and returned to their court as to a stronghold 
 whose rights they had vindicated. 
 
 Those who had been beaten were a band of about a 
 dozen, men and women. The women's shawls were 
 hanging in tatters, and they had lost their bonnets. 
 The men were without hats, and their coats were griev- 
 ously torn. There was a thing among them which had 
 been a banner, but the pole was broken and the tlag 
 was dragged in the dirt and smirched. 
 
 One of them who, seemed to be the leader — he wore a 
 uniform coat something like a volunteer's coat — stepped 
 to the front and called upon them all to form. Then 
 with a loud voice he led off a hymn, in which all joined 
 as the}^ marched down the street. 
 
143 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 He was hatless, and his cheek was bleeding from an 
 open wound. Yet he looked undaunted, and his hymn 
 w^as a song of triumph. A wild-set-up young fellow 
 with thick black hair and black beard, but pale cheeks. 
 His forehead was square and firm ; his eyes were black 
 and fierce. 
 
 " Good heavens !" cried Harry. " It is my cousin 
 Tom, captain in the Salvation Arm}'. And that, I 
 suppose, is his regiment. Well, if standing still to be 
 kicked means a victor}', they have scored one to-night." 
 
 The pavement was even more crowded than in the 
 morning. The political agitators bawled more fiercely 
 than in the forenoon to their circle of apathetic listen- 
 ers; the preachers exhorted the unwilling more fer- 
 vently to embrace the faith. Cheap-jacks was dispen- 
 sing more volubly his two penn'orths of " sassaple." 
 The workmen lounged along, with their pipes in their 
 mouths, more lazily than in the morning. The only 
 difference was that the shop-boys were now added to 
 the crowd, every lad with a " twopenny smoke" between 
 his li])s; and that the throng was increased by those 
 who were going home from church. 
 
 "Let us, too, go home," said Angela; "there is too 
 much humanity here; we shall lose ourselves among 
 the crowd." 
 
 CHAPTER Xin. 
 
 ANGELA'S EXPERIMENT. 
 
 "No, Constance," Angela wrote, "I cannot believe 
 that your lectures will be a failure, or that your life's 
 work is destined to be anything short of a brilliant 
 success — an 'epoch-making' episode in the history oj 
 Woman's Rise. If your lectures have not 3'et attracted 
 reading men, it must be because they are not yet 
 known. It is unworthy of faith in your own high inis- 
 sion to suppose that personal appearance or beauty has 
 anything to do with popularity in matters of mind. 
 Who asks — who can ask? — whether a woman of genius 
 is lovely or not? And to take lower ground: every 
 woman owns the singular attractiveness of your own 
 
ALL SORTS AXD COXDITIOXS OF MEN. 143 
 
 face, which has always seemed to me, apart from per- 
 sonal friendship, the face of pure intellect. I do not 
 give up my belief that the men will soon begin to rim 
 after 3-our lectures as the}^ did after those of Hj-patia, 
 and yet will become in the University as great a teacher 
 of mathematics as Sir Isaac Newton himself. Mean- 
 time, it must be, I own, irksome to lecture on vulgar 
 fractions, and the First Book of Euclid, and unsatisfac- 
 tory to find, after you have made a research and ar- 
 rived at what seemed a splendid result, that some man 
 has been before you. Patience, Constance !" 
 
 At this point the reader, who was of course Constance 
 Woodcote, paused and smiled bitterly. She was angry 
 because she had advertised a course of lectures on some 
 desperately high mathematical subject and no one came 
 to hear them. Had she been, she reflected, a pink-and- 
 white girl with no forehead and soft ej-es, everybody 
 would have rushed to hear her. As it was, Angela, no 
 doubt, meant well, but she was always disposed to give 
 men credit for qualities which they did not possess. 
 As if you could ever persuade a man to regard a woman 
 from a purely intellectual point of view ! After all, she 
 thought, civilization was only just begun; we live in a 
 world of darkness; the reign of woman is as yet afar 
 off. She continued her reading with impatience. 
 Somehow, her friends seemed to have drifted away; 
 their lines were diverging; already the old enthusiasms 
 had given place to the new, and Angela thought less of 
 the great cause which she had once promised to further 
 with her mighty resources. 
 
 " As regards the scholarship which I promised j'ou, 
 I must ask you to wait a little, because my hands are 
 full — so full of important things that even a new schol- 
 arship at Newnham seems a small thing. I cannot tell 
 you in a letter what my projects are, and how I am 
 trying to do something new with my great wealth. 
 This, at least, I may tell 3'ou, partly because I am in- 
 toxicated with my own schemes, and, therefore, I must 
 tell everybody I speak to ; and partly because you are 
 perfectly certain not to sympathize with me, and there- 
 fore 3^ou will not trouble to argue the point with me. 
 I have found out, to begin with, a great truth. It is 
 that would-be philanthropists and benefactors and im- 
 
144 ALL SORTS AND CONDiriONS OF MEN. 
 
 provers of things have all along been M'orking on a false 
 assumption. They have taugiit and believed that the 
 peo})le look u\) to the 'better class' — phrase invented by 
 the well-to-do in order to show riches and virtue go 
 together — for guidance and advice. My dear, it is the 
 greatest mistake; they do not look up to us at all; thej' 
 do not want to copy our ways; they are perfectly satis- 
 tied with their own ways; the}' will naturally take as 
 much money as we choose to give them, and as many 
 prc^sents; and they consider tho'exhortations, preach- 
 ings, admonitions, words of guidance, and advice as 
 uncomfortable but unavoidable accompiiniments of this 
 gift. But we ourselves are neither respected nor cop- 
 ied. Nor do they want our culture." 
 
 " Angela, " said the mathematician, "is really very 
 prolix." 
 
 '' This being so, I nm endeavoring to make such peo- 
 ple as I can get at discontented as a first step. AVitli- 
 out discontent, nothing can be done. I work ujion them 
 by showing, practically, and by way of example, better 
 things. This I can do because I am here as simply one 
 of themselves — a workwoman among other workwomen. 
 I do not work as much as the others in our newly 
 formetl association, because I am sui)posed to run the 
 machine, and to go to the West End for work. Miss Mes- 
 senger is one of our customers. So much am I one of 
 them, that I take my wages on Saturday, and am to 
 have the same share, and no more, in the business as 
 mj' dressmakers. I confess to 3'ou that in the founda- 
 tion of my Dressmakers' Association I have violated 
 most distinctly every precept of political and social 
 economy. I have given them a house rent-free for a 
 year; I have fitted it up with all that they want; I have 
 started them with orders from mj'self ; I have resolved 
 to keep them going until they are able to run alone ; I 
 give wages, in money and in food, higher than the 
 market-value. I know what you will say. It is all 
 quite true scientifically. But outside the range of sci- 
 ence there is humanity. And only think what a great 
 field my method opens for the employment of the unfor- 
 tunate rich — the unhapp}', useless, heavil}- burdened 
 rich. They will all follow my example and help the 
 people to help themselves. 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF 3IEN. 145 
 
 " My girls were at first and for the most part uninter- 
 esting, until I came to know them individually : every 
 one,, when you know her, and can sympathize with 
 her, becomes interesting. Some are, however, more 
 interesting than others ; there are two or three, for in- 
 stance, in whom I feel a special interest. One of them, 
 whom I love for her gentleness and for her loyalty to 
 me, is the daughter of an old ship-captain now in an 
 almshouse. She is singularly beautiful, with an air of 
 fragility which one hopes is not real; she is endowed 
 by nature with a keenly sensitive disposition, and has 
 had the advantage, rare in these parts, of a father who 
 learned to be a gentleman before he came to the alms- 
 house. The other is a religious fanatic, a sectarian of 
 the most positive kind. She knows what is truth more 
 certainly than any Professor of Truth we ever encoun- 
 tered ; she is my manager and is good at business. I 
 think she has come to regard me with less contempt, 
 from a business point of view, than she did at first, 
 because in the conduct of the showroom and the trying- 
 on room she has all her own way. 
 
 " My evenings are mostly spent with the girls in the 
 garden and 'drawing-room.' Yes, we have a drawing- 
 room over the workroom. At first we had tea at five 
 and struck work at seven ; now we strike work at half 
 past six and take tea with lawn tennis. I assure you 
 my dressmakers are as fond of lawn tennis as the stu- 
 dents of Newnham. When it is too dark to play, we go 
 upstairs and have music and dancing." 
 
 Here followed a word which had been erased. The 
 mathematical lecturer held the letter to the light and 
 fancied the word was "Harry." This could hardly 
 be ; it must be Hetty, or Kitty, or Lotty, or some such 
 feminine abbreviation. There could be no Harry. She 
 looked again. Strange! It certainly ?t'as Harry. She 
 shook her head suspiciously and went on with the 
 letter. 
 
 " The girls' friends and sisters have begun to come, 
 and we are learning all kinds of dances. Fortunately 
 my dear old captain from the almshouse can play the 
 fiddle, and likes nothing better than to play for us. 
 We place him in the corner beside the piano and he 
 plays as long as we please, being the best of all old cap- 
 10 
 
146 ALL SORTS AND COXDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 tains. We are not well off for men, having at present 
 to rely principally on a superior young cabinet-maker, 
 who can also play the fiddle on occasion. He dances 
 very well, and perhaps he will fall in love with the cap- 
 tain's daughter. 
 
 " What I have attempted is, in short, nothing less 
 than the introduction of a love of what we call culture. 
 Other things will follow, but at present I am contented 
 with cin experiment on a very humble scale. If I were 
 to go among the people in my name, most of them 
 would try to borrow or steal from me ; as I am only a 
 poor dressmaker, only those who have business with 
 me try to take me in. I do not go on a })latform and 
 lecture the people; nor do I open a school to teach 
 them; nor do I print and circulate tracts. I simply 
 say, 'My dears, I am going to dance and sing, and 
 have a little music, and play lawn tennis; come with 
 me, and we will dance together.' And they come. 
 And they behave well. I think it is a strange thing 
 that young women of the lower class always prefer to 
 behave well when they cati, while young men of their 
 own station take so much pleasure in noise and riot. 
 We have no difficulty in our drawing-room, where the 
 girls behave perfectly and enjoy themselves in a sur- 
 prising manner. I find already a great impi-ovement 
 in the girls. They have acquired new interests in life, 
 thej' are happier : consequently, they chatter like birds 
 in spring and sunshine ; and whereas, since I came into 
 these regions, it has been a constant pain to listen to the 
 querulous and angry talk of work-girls in omnibuses 
 and in streets, I rejoice that we have changed all this, 
 and while they are with me my girls can talk without 
 angry snapping of the lips, and without the 'sezi' and 
 'sezee' and 'seshee' of the omnibus. This is surely a 
 great gain for them. 
 
 " Next, I observe that they are developing a certain 
 amount of pride in their own superiority; they are 
 lifted above their neighbors, if onl}' by the nightly 
 drawing-room. I fear they will become unpopular 
 from hauteur; but there is no gain without some loss. 
 If only one felt justified in doubling the number of the 
 girls! But the Stepney ladies have hitherto shown 
 no enthusiasm in the cause of the Association. The 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 147 
 
 feeling in these parts is, you see, commercial rather 
 than co-operative. 
 
 " The dinner is to me the most satisfactory as well as 
 the most unscientific part of the business. I believe I 
 have no right to give them a dinner at all; it is 
 against the custom in dressmakers' shops, where girls 
 bring their own dinners, poor things; it costs quite a 
 shilling a head every day to find the dinner, and Ee- 
 bekah, my forewoman, tells me that no profits can 
 stand against such a drain : but I must go on with the 
 dinner even if it swallows up all the profits. 
 
 " On Sundaj^s the drawing-room is kept open all day 
 long for those who like to come. Some do, because it 
 is quiet. In the evening we have sacred music. One 
 of the young men plays the violin" — the reader turned 
 back and referred to a previous passage — yes ; she had 
 already mentioned a cabinet-maker in connection with 
 a fiddle — no doubt it must be the same — " and vv^e have 
 duets, but I fear the girls do not care much yet ioi^ 
 classical music " 
 
 Here the reader crumpled up the letter in impatience. 
 
 " And this," she groaned, " is the result of two years 
 at JSTewnham ! After her course of political economy, 
 after all those lectures, after actually distinguishing 
 herself and taking a place, this is the end ! To play 
 the piano for a lot of work-girls; with a cabinet-maker; 
 and an old sailor ; and to be a dressmaker ! That is, 
 alas ! the very woret feature in the case : she evidently 
 likes it; she has no wish to return to civilization; she 
 has forgotten her science; she is setting a most mis- 
 chievous example ; and she has forgotten her distinct 
 promise to give us a mathematical scholarship. 
 
 "O Angela!" 
 
 She had imagined that the heiress would endow Newn- 
 ham with great gifts, and she Avas disappointed. She had 
 imagined this so very strongly that she felt personally 
 aggrieved and injured. What did she care about Stepne}'' 
 work-girls? What have mathematics to do with poor 
 people in an ugly and poor part of town? 
 
 Angela's letter did not convey the whole truth, be- 
 cause she herself was ignorant of the discussions, gos- 
 sips, rumors, and reports which were flj'ing ai)out in 
 the neighlwrhood of Stepney Green concerning her 
 
148 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 venture. There were some, for instance, who demon- 
 strated that sucli an institution must fail for reasons 
 which they learnedly expounded ; among: these was Mr. 
 Bunker. There were some who were ready to prove, 
 from the highest authorities, the wickedness of trying 
 to do without a pr()i)rietor, master, or boss ; there were 
 some who saw in this revolutionary movement the be- 
 ginning of those troubles which will afflict mankind 
 toward the coming of the end; there were others, 
 among whom was also Mr. Bunker, who asked by 
 what right this 3'oimg woman had come among them 
 to interfere, where she had got her mone}-, and what 
 were her antecedents? To Bunker's certain knowlc^dge, 
 and no one had better sources of information, liundreds 
 had been spent by jNIiss Kennedy in starting the asso- 
 ciation ; Avhile, whether it was true that Miss Messen- 
 ger supported the place or not, there could never be 
 enough work to get back all that money, pay all the 
 wages, and the rest, and the dinners, and hot dinners 
 every day ! There was even talk of getting up a me- 
 morial })ra3'ing Miss Messenger not to interfere with the 
 trade of the place, and pointing out that there were 
 many most respectable dressmakers where the work 
 could be quite as well done as by Miss Kennedy's girls, 
 no doubt cheaper, and the profit would go to the right- 
 ful claimant of it, not to be divided among the work- 
 M'omen. 
 
 As for the privileges bestowed upon the girls, there 
 was in certain circles but one opinion — they were ridic- 
 ulous. Recreation time, free dinner of meat and vege- 
 tables, short hours, reading aloud, and a club-room or 
 drawing-room for the evening; what more could their 
 betters have? For it is a fixed article of belief, one of 
 the Twenty-nine Articles in certain strata of society, 
 that people " below them" have no right to the enjoy- 
 ment of anything. They do not mean to be cruel, but 
 they have always associated poverty with dirt, discom- 
 fort, disagreeable companions, and the absence of 
 pleasantness ; for a poor person to be happy is either to 
 them an impossibility, or it is a tlying in the face of 
 Providence. But then, these people know nothing of 
 the joys which can be had without money. Now, when 
 the world discovers and realizes how many these are 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. Wd 
 
 and how great they are, the reign of the ahnighty dol- 
 lar is at an end. Whatever the Stepney folk thought, 
 and however diverse their judgment, they were all ex- 
 tremely curious, and after the place had been open for 
 a few weeks and began to get known, all the ladies 
 from Whitechapel Church to Bow Church began with* 
 one consent to call. They were received by a 5'oung 
 person of grave face and grave manners, who showed 
 them all the}' wanted to see, answered all their ques- 
 tions and the showrooms, the dining-room and the 
 drawing-room; the}^ also saw most beautiful dresses 
 which were being made for Miss Messenger ; those who 
 went there in the morning might see with their own 
 e^'es dressmaker girls actually playing lawn tennis, if 
 in the afternoon they miglit see an old gentleman read- 
 ing aloud while the girls worked; they might also 
 observe that there were flowers in the room; it was 
 perfectly certain that there was a piano upstairs, be- 
 cause it had been seen by many, and the person in the 
 showroom made no secret at all that there was danciug 
 in the evening, with songs, and reading of books, and 
 other diversions. 
 
 The contemplation of these things mostly sent the 
 visitors away in sorrow. They did not dance or sing 
 or pla}' ; ihey never wanted to dance or sing ; lawn tennis 
 was not played by //?e/r daughters; they did not have 
 bright-covered books to read. What did it mean, giv- 
 ing these things to dressmaker girls? Some of them 
 not only resolved not to send their custom to the asso- 
 ciation, but directed tracts to the house. 
 
 They came, however, after a time, and had their 
 dresses made there, for a reason which will ajjpear in 
 the sequel. But at the outset they held aloof. 
 
 Far different was the reception given to the institu- 
 tion by the people for whose benefit it was designed. 
 When they had quite got over their natural suspicion 
 of a strange thing; when the girls were found to bring 
 home their pay regularly on a Saturday; when the 
 dinner proved a real thing and the hours continued to 
 be merciful; when the girls reported continuously 
 kind treatment ; when the evenings spent in the draw- 
 ing-room were found to be delightful, and when other 
 doubts and whisperings about Miss Kennedy's motives,. 
 
150 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 intentions, and secret character gradually died away, 
 the association became popular, and all the needle- 
 girls of the place would fain have joined Miss Kennedy. 
 The thing which did the most to create the popularity 
 was the permission for the girls to bring some of their 
 friends and people on the Saturday evening. They 
 " received" on Saturday evening — they were at home ; 
 they entertained their guests on that night; and, though 
 the entertainment cost nothing but the lights, it soon 
 became an honor and a pleasure to receive an invita- 
 tion. Most of those who came at first were other girls ; 
 they were shy and stood about all arms; then they 
 learned their steps ; then they danced ; then the weari- 
 ness wore out of their eyes and the roses came back to 
 their cheeks; they forgot the naggings of the work- 
 room, and felt for the first time the joy of their youth. 
 Some of them were inclined at first to be rough and 
 bold, but the atmosphere calmed them ; they either 
 came no more or if they came they were quiet; some of 
 them affected a superior and contemptuous air, not un- 
 common with ■' young persons" when they are jealous 
 or envious, but this is a mood easily cured ; some of 
 them were frivolous, but these were also easily subdued. 
 For always with them was Miss Kennedy herself, a 
 Juno, their queen, whose manner was so kind, whose 
 smile was so sweet, whose voice was so soft, whose 
 greeting was so warm, and yet — yet. . .who could not 
 be resisted, even by the boldest or the most frivolous. 
 The first step was not to be afraid of Miss Kenned}" ; at 
 no subsequent stage of their acquaintance did any cease 
 to respect her. 
 
 As for Rebekah, she would not come on Saturday 
 evening, as it was part of her Sabbath; but JSTelly 
 proved of the greatest use in maintaining the decorum 
 and in promoting the spirit of the evenings, which 
 wanted, it is true, a leader. 
 
 Sometimes the girls' mothers would come, especially 
 those who had not too many babies; they sat with 
 folded hands and wondering eyes, while their daugh- 
 ters danced, while Miss Kennedy sang, and Mr. Gos- 
 lett played the fiddle. Angela went among them, 
 talking in her sympathetic way, and won their confi- 
 dence so that they presently responded and told her all 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 151 
 
 their ti'oiibles and woe. Or sometimes the fathers 
 would be brought, but verj^ seldom came tvv'ice. Now 
 and then a brother would appear, but it was many- 
 weeks before the brothers began to come regularly; 
 when they did, it became apparent that there was some- 
 thing in the place more attractive than brotherly duty 
 or the love of dancing. Of course, sweethearts were 
 bound to come whether they liked it or not. There 
 were, at first, many little hitches, disagreeable inci- 
 dents, rebellious exhibitions of temper, bad behavior, 
 mistakes, social sins, and other things of which the 
 chronicler must be mute, because the general result is 
 all that we desire to record. And this was satisfactory. 
 For the first time the girls learned that. there were joys 
 in life, joys even within their reach, with a little help, 
 poor as they were; joys wiiich cost them nothing. 
 Among them were girls of the veryhumblest, who had 
 the greatest difficulty in presentiug a decent appearance, 
 who lived in crowded lodgings or in poor houses with 
 their numerous brothers and sisters; pale-faced girls, 
 heavy-hearted girls ; joyless maidens, loveless maidens — 
 girls who from long hours of work, and from want of 
 open air and good food, stooped their shoulders and 
 dragged their limbs — when Angela saw them first, she 
 wished that she was a man to use strong language 
 against their employers. How she violated all princi- 
 ples of social economy, giving clothes, secretly lending 
 money, visiting mothers, paying rent, and all without 
 any regard to supply and demand, marketable value, 
 price current, worth of labor, wages rate, averages, per- 
 centages, interest, caj^ital, commercial rules, theory of 
 trade, encouragement of over-population, would be too 
 disgraceful to narrate; indeed, she blushed when she 
 thought of the beautiful and heart-warming science in 
 which she had so greatly distinguished herself, and on 
 which she trampled daily. Yet if, on the one side, 
 there stood cold science, and on the other a suffering 
 girl, it is ridiculous to acknowledge that the girl al- 
 ways won the day. 
 
 Among the girls was one who interested Angela 
 greatly, not because she was pretty, for she was not 
 pretty at all, but plain to look upon, and lame, but be- 
 cause she bore a very hard lot with patience and cour- 
 
152 ALL SORTS AND COXDITIOXS OF MEN. 
 
 age very beautiful to see. She had a sister who was 
 crippled and had a weak back, so that she could not sit 
 up long, nor earn much. She had a mother who was 
 growing old and weak of sight, so that she could not 
 earn much; she had a young brother who lived like the 
 sparrows; that is to say, he ran wild in the streets and 
 stole his daily bread, and was rapidly rising to the dig- 
 nity and rank of an habitual criminal. He seldom, 
 however, came home, except to borroAv or beg for 
 money. She had a father, whose name was never men- 
 tioned, so that he was certainly an undesirable father, 
 a bad bargain of a father, a father impossible, viewed 
 in connection with the fifth commandment. This was 
 the girl who byrst into tears when she saw the roast 
 beef for the first time. Her tears were caused by a 
 number of reasons : first, because she was hungry and 
 her condition was low; secondly, because roasted beef 
 to a hungry girl is a thing too beautiful; thirdly, be- 
 cause while she was feasting, her sister and mother 
 were starving. The crippled sister presently came to 
 the house and remained in it all day. What special 
 arrangements were made with Rebekah, the spirit of 
 commerce, as regards her pay, I know not; but she 
 came, did a little work, sat or lay down in the drawing- 
 room most of the time; and presently, under Miss Ken- 
 nedy's instruction, began to practise on the piano. A 
 work-girl, actually a work- girl, if you please, playing 
 scales, with a one, two, three, four, one, two, three, 
 four, just as if she was a lady living in the Mile End 
 Road and the daughter of a clerk in the brewery ! 
 
 Yes, the girls, who had formerly worked in unhealthy 
 rooms till half-past eight, new worked in well-venti- 
 lated rooms till half- past six ; they had time to rest and 
 run about ; they had good food, they had cheerful talk, 
 the}" were encouraged ; Captain Sorensen came to read 
 to them; in the evening they had a delightful room to 
 sit in, where they could read and talk, or dance, or lis- 
 ten. While they read the books which Miss Kennedy 
 laid on the table for them, she would play and sing. 
 First, she chose simple songs and simple pieces, and as 
 their taste for music grew, so her music improved ; and 
 everyday found the drawing-room more attractive, and 
 the girls more loath to go home. She watched her ex- 
 
ALL SORTS A.\D CONDITIOXS OF 3IEi\. 153 
 
 periment with the keenest interest ; the girls were cer- 
 tainly growing more refined in manner and in thought. 
 Even Kebekah was softening dail}^ ; she looked on at 
 the dance without a shudder, even when the handsome 
 young workman clasped Nelly Sorensen by the waist 
 and whirled her round the room ; and she owned that 
 there was music in the world, outside her little chapel, 
 far svv^eeter than anything they had within it. As for 
 Nelly, she simply worshipped. Whatever Miss Ken- 
 nedy did was right and beautiful and perfect in her 
 eyes ; nor, in her ignorance of the world, did she ponder 
 any more over that first difficulty of hers, why a lady, 
 and such a lady, had come to Stepney Green to be a 
 dressmaker. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THE TENDER PASSION. 
 
 It is always a dangerous thing for two young persons 
 of opposite sexes to live together under the same roof, 
 even when the lady is plain and at first sight unattract- 
 ive, and when the young man is stupid. For they 
 get to know one another. Now, so great is the beauty 
 of human nature, even in its second-rate or third-rate 
 productions, that love generally follows when one of the 
 two, by confession or unconscious self- betrayal, stands 
 revealed to the other. It is not the actual man or wom- 
 an, you see, who is loved— it is the ideal, the possible, 
 the model or type from which the specimen is copied, 
 and which it distinctly resembles. But think of the 
 danger when the house in which these young people find 
 themselves is not a large country-house, where many 
 are gathered together of like pursuits, but an obscure 
 boarding-house in a society-forgotten suburb, where 
 these two had only each other to talk to. Add to this 
 that they are both interested in an experiment of the 
 greatest delicacy, in which the least false step would 
 be fatal. Add, further, the fact that each is astonished 
 at the other : the one to find in a dressmaker the refine- 
 ment and all the accomplishments of a lady; the other, 
 to find in a cabinet-maker the distinguishirig marks of 
 
154 ALL ."^ORTS AND COXDITIOXS OF MEN. 
 
 a gentleman; the same way of looking at things and 
 talking about them; the same bearing and the same 
 courtesy. 
 
 The danger was even made greater by what seemed 
 a preventive — namely, by the way in which at the 
 beginning Angela so very firmly put down her foot on the 
 subject of "keeping company;" there wms to be no at- 
 tempt at love-making; on that understanding the two 
 could, and did, go about together as much as they 
 pleased. What followed naturally was that more and 
 more they began to consider each the other as a prob- 
 lem of an interesting character. Angela observed that 
 the young workman, whpm she had at first considered 
 of a frivolous disposition, seemed to be growing more 
 serious in his views of things, and even when he laughed 
 there was method in his folly. No men are so solemn, 
 she refiected, as the dull of comprehension ; perhaps the 
 extremely serious character of the place in which they 
 lived was making him dull, too. It is difficult, cer- 
 tainh^, for any one to go on laughing at Stepney; the 
 children, who begin by laughing, like children every- 
 where, have to give up the practice before they are 
 eight years of age, because the streets are so insuffer- 
 ably dull ; the grown-up people never laugh at all ; when 
 immigrants arrive from livelier quarters, say Man- 
 chester or Sheffield, after a certain time of residence — 
 the period varies with the mercurial temperament of 
 the patient — they laugh no more. "Surely," thought 
 Angela, " he is settling down ; he will soon find work ; 
 he will become like other men of his class ; and then, 
 no doubt, he will fall in love with Nelly. Nothing 
 could be more suitable." 
 
 By saying to herself, over and over again, that this 
 arrangement should take place, she had got to persuade 
 herself that it certainly would. "Nelly possessed," she 
 said, "the refinement of manner and nature, without 
 which the young man would be wretched; she was 
 affectionate and sensible; it would certainly do very 
 w^ell." And she was hardlj* conscious, while she ar- 
 ranged this in her own head, of a certain uneasy feeling 
 in her mind, which in smaller creatures might have 
 been called jealousy. 
 
 So far, there had been little to warrant the belief that 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 155 
 
 things were advancing in the direction she desired. 
 He was not much more attentive to Nelly than to any 
 other of the girls ; worse still, as she reflected with trep- 
 idation, there were many sj^mptoms by which he 
 showed a preference for quite another person. 
 
 As for Harry, it was useless for him to conceal from 
 himself any longer the fact that he was by this time 
 head-over-ears in love. The situation offered greater 
 temptations than his strength could withstand. He 
 succumbed — whatever the end might be, he was in love. 
 
 If one comes to think of it, this was rather a remark- 
 able result of a descent into the lower regions. One 
 expects to meet in the Home of Dull Ugliness things 
 repellent, coarse; enjoying the freedom of nature, un- 
 restrained, unconventional. Harry found, on the con- 
 trary, the sweetness of Eden, a fair garden of delights, 
 in which sat a peerless lady, the Queen of Beauty, a 
 very Venus. All his life, that is, since he had begun 
 to think about love at all, he had stoutly hekfand stren- 
 uously maintained that it was Use majeste, high treason 
 to love, for a man to throw away — he used to say 
 " throw away" — upon a maiden of low degree the pas- 
 sion which should be offered to a lady — a demoiselle. 
 The position was certainly altered, inasmuch as he was 
 no longer of gentle birth. Therefore, he argued, he 
 would no longer pretend to the hand of a lady. At 
 first he used to make resolutions, as bravely as a board 
 of directors : he would arise and flee to the desert — any 
 place would be a desert without her ; he would get out 
 of temptation ; ho would go back to Piccadilly, and there 
 forget her. Yet he remained; yet every day he sought 
 her again; every day his condition became more hope- 
 less; every day he continued to walk with her, play 
 duets with her, sing with her, dance with her, argue 
 with her, learn from her, teach her, watch over her, and 
 felt the sunshine of her presence, and at meeting and 
 parting touched her fingers. 
 
 She was so well educated, he said, strengthening his 
 faith; she was so kindly and considerate; her manners 
 were so perfect ; she was so beautiful and graceful ; she 
 knew so well how to command, that he was constrained 
 to own that no lady of his accjuaintance was, or could 
 be, her superior. To call her a dressmaker was to en- 
 
156 ALL SORTS AND COXDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 noble and sanctif}" the Avhole craft. She should be to 
 that art what Cecilia is to music — its patron saint ; she 
 should be to himself — yet, what would be the end? He 
 smiled grimly, thinking that there was no need to spec- 
 ulate on the end, when as yet there had been no begin- 
 ning. He could not make a beginning. If he ventured 
 on some shy and modest tentative in the direction of — 
 call it an understanding^she froze. She was always 
 on the watch ; she seemed to say : " Thus far you may 
 presume, but no farther." What did it mean? Was 
 she really resolved never to receive his advances? Did 
 she dislike him? That could hardly be. Was she 
 watching him? Was she afraid to trust him? That 
 might be. Or was she already engaged to some other 
 fellow — some superior fellow — perhaps with a shop — 
 gracious heavens! — of liis own? That might be, 
 though it made him cold to think it possible. Or did 
 she have some past history, some unhappy complication 
 of the affections, which made her as cold as Dian? 
 That, too, might be. 
 
 The ordinary young man, thrown into the society of 
 half a dozen working-girls, would have begun to flirt 
 and talk nonsense with all of them together, or with 
 one after the other. Harry was not that kind of young 
 man. There is always, by the blessing of kind Heaven, 
 left unto us a remnant of those who hold woman sacred, 
 and continually praise, worship, and reverence the 
 name of love. He was one of those young men. To 
 flirt with a milliner did not seem a delightful thing to 
 him at any time. And in this case there was another 
 reason why he should not behave in the manner cus- 
 tomary to the would-be Don Juan ; it Avas simply foi 
 de geniilhomme; he was tolerated among them all on 
 a kind of unspoken but understood parole. Miss Ken- 
 nedy received him in confidence that he would not 
 abuse her kindness. 
 
 One Sunday afternoon when they were walking to- 
 gether — it was in one of the warm days of last Septem- 
 ber — ^in Victoria Park, they had a conversation which 
 led to really important things. There are one or two 
 very pretty walks in that garden, and though the sea- 
 son was late, and the leaves mostly yellow, brown, 
 crimson, or golden, there were still flowers, and the 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIOXS OF MEN. 157 
 
 ornamental water was bright, and the path crowded 
 with people who looked happ}', because the sun was 
 shining; they had all dined plentifully, with copious 
 beer, and the girls had got on their best things, and the 
 swains were gallant with a tiower in the buttonhole 
 and a cigar between the lips. There is, indeed, so lit- 
 tle difference between the rich and the poor — can even 
 Hyde Park in the season go be3-ond the Hower and the 
 cigar? In certain tropical lands, the first step in civi- 
 lization is to buy a mosquito-curtain, though your dusky 
 epidermis is as impervious as a crocodile's to the sting 
 of a mosquito. In this realm of England the first step 
 toward gentility is the twopennj^ smoke, to which we 
 cling, though it is made of medicated cabbage, though 
 it makes the mouth raw, the tongue sore, the lips 
 cracked, the e.yes red, the nerves shak}-, and the temper 
 short. Who Avould not suffer in such a cause? 
 
 It began with a remark of Angela's about his con- 
 tinued laziness. He replied, evasively, that he had in- 
 tended to take a long holiday, in order to look round and 
 consider what was best to be done ; that he liked holi- 
 daj's ; that he meant to introduce holidays into the next 
 trade dispute; that his holida5*s enabled him to work a 
 little for Miss Kennedy, without counting his lordship, 
 whose case he had now drawn up; that he was now 
 ready for work whenever, he added airily, work was 
 ready for him ; and that he was not, in fact, quite sure 
 that Stepney and its neighborhood would prove the best 
 place for him to work out his life. 
 
 " I should think, " said Angela, " that it would be as 
 good a place as any you woukl find in America." 
 
 "If you tell me to stay. Miss Kennedy," he replied, 
 with a sudden earnestness, " I will stay." 
 
 She instantly froze, and chillingly said that if his 
 interests required him to go, of course he would go. 
 
 Therefore Harr}-, after a few moments' silence, dur- 
 ing which he battled with the temptation to "have it 
 out " there and then, before all the happy shepherds and 
 shepherdesses of Bethnal Green, returned to his origi- 
 nal form, and made as if those words had not been 
 spoken and that effect not been produced. You may 
 notice the same thing with children who have been 
 scolded. 
 
158 ALL SORTS AND COXDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 " Did 5^ou ever consider, Miss Kennedy, the truly 
 happy condition of the perfect cabinet-maker?" 
 
 " No: I never did. Is he happy above his fellows?" 
 
 " Your questions betray your ignorance. Till lately 
 — till I returned from America — 1 never wholly realized 
 what a su]3erior creature he is. Why, in the first 
 place, the cabinet-maker is perhaps the only workman 
 who never scamps his work; he is a responsible man; 
 he takes pride in producing a good and honest thing. 
 We have no tricks in our trade. Then, if you care to 
 hoar " 
 
 "' Pray go on : let me learn all I can." 
 
 " Then we were the first to organize ourselves. Our 
 societ}' was founded eighty years ago. We had no 
 foolish strike, but we just met the emplo3-ers and told 
 them we were going to arrange with them what our 
 share should be ; and we made a book about wages — I 
 do not think so good a book has been put together this 
 century. Then, we are a respectable lot; you never 
 hear of a cabinet-maker in trouble at a police-court; 
 ver}' few of us get drunk ; most of us read books and 
 papers, and have opinions. My cousin Dick has very 
 strong opinions. We are critical about amusements, 
 and we prefer Henry Irving to a music-hall ; we do not 
 allow rough talk in the workshops; w^e are mostly mem- 
 bers of some church, and we know how to value our- 
 selves." 
 
 "I shall know how to value your craft in future," 
 said Angela, "especially when you are working again." 
 
 " Yes. I do not want to work in a shop, you know ; 
 but one may get a place, perhaps, in one of the rail- 
 way-carriage depots, or a hotel, or a big factory, where 
 they always keep a cabinet-maker in regular pay. My 
 cousin Dick — Dick the radical — is cabinet-maker in a 
 mangle-factory. I do not know what he makes for his 
 mangles, but that is what he is." 
 
 " I have seen your cousin Tom, when he was rolled in 
 the mud and before he led off the hjnnn and the proces- 
 sion. You must bring me your cousin Dick." 
 
 " Dick is better fun than Tom. Both are terribly in 
 earnest; but you will find Dick interesting." 
 
 " Does he walk about on Sunday afternoons? Should 
 we be likely to meet him here?" 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 159 
 
 "Oh, no! Dick is forging his speech for to-night. 
 He addresses the Advanced Chib ahnost everj' Sunday 
 evening on the House of Lords, or the Church, or the 
 Couutr}- Bumpkin's Suffrage, or the Cape question, or 
 Protection, or the Nihilists, or Ireland, or America, or 
 something. The speech must be red-hot, or his reputa- 
 tion would be lost. So he spends the afternoon stick- 
 ing it into the furnace, so to speak. It doesn't matter 
 what the subject is, always provided that he can lug in 
 the bloated aristocrat and the hated Tory. I assure you 
 Dick is a most interesting person." 
 
 "Do you ever speak at the Advanced Club?" 
 " I go there ; I am a member ; now and then I say a 
 word. When a member makes a red-hot speech, brim- 
 ful of insane accusations, and sits down amid a round 
 of applause, it is pleasant to get up and set him right 
 on matters of fact, because all the enthusiasm is killed 
 when you come to facts. Some of them do not love 
 me at the club." 
 
 " They are real and in earnest, while you " 
 
 "No, Miss Kennedy, they are not real, whatever I 
 may be. They are quite conventional. The people 
 like to be roused by red-hot, scorching speeches ; they 
 want burning questions, intolerable grievances; so the 
 speakers find them or invent them. As for the audi- 
 ence, they have had so many sham gi-ievances told in 
 red-hot words that they have become callous, and don't 
 know of any real ones. The indignation of the speak- 
 ers is a sham ; the enthusiasm of the listeners is a sham ; 
 they applaud the eloquence, but as for the stuff that is 
 said, it moves them not. As for his politics, the Brit- 
 ish workman has got a vague idea that things go better 
 for him under the Li berals. When the Liberals come in, 
 after making promises by the thousand, and when, like 
 then- predecessors, they have made the usual mess, confi- 
 dence is shaken. Then he allows the Conservatives, 
 who do not, at all events, promise oranges and l>eer all 
 round, back again, and gives them another show. As 
 if it matters which side is in to the British workman !" 
 "And they are not discontented," asked Angela, 
 "with their own lives?" 
 
 " Not one bit. They don't want to change their own 
 hves. Whv should thev?" 
 
160 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 "All these people in the park to-da}^" she continued, 
 "are they working-men?'' 
 
 " Yes : some of them — the better sort. Of course'" — 
 Harry looked round and surveyed the crowd — "of 
 course, when you open a garden of this sort for the peo- 
 ple, the well-dressed come, and the ragged stay awa}" 
 and hide. There is plenty of ragged stuff round and 
 about us, but it hides. And there is plenty of comfort 
 which walks abroad and shows itself. This end of 
 London is the home of little industries. Here, for in- 
 stance, they make the things which belong to other 
 things." 
 
 " That seems a riddle," said Angela. 
 
 "I mean things like card-boxes, pill-boxes, orna- 
 mental boxes of all kinds, for confectioners, druggists, 
 and drapers; they make all kinds of such things for 
 wholesale houses. Why, there are hundreds of trades 
 in this great neglected city of East London, of which 
 we know nothing. You see the manufacturers. Here 
 they are with their wives, and their sons, and their 
 daughters; they all lend a hand, and between them the 
 thing is made." 
 
 "And are they discontented?" asked Angela with 
 persistence. 
 
 " Not they; they get as much happiness as the money 
 will run to. At the same time, if the Palace of Delight 
 were once built " 
 
 "Ah!" cried Angela with a sigh. "The Palace of 
 Delight; the Palace of Delight! We must have it, if it 
 is only to make the people discontented." 
 
 They walked home presently, and in the evening they 
 played together, one or two of the girls being present, 
 in the "drawing-room." The music softens — Angela 
 repented her coldness of the afternoon. When the 
 girls were gone, and they were walking side by side 
 beneath moonlight on the quiet green, she made shyly 
 a little attempt at compensation. 
 
 " If, " she said, " you should find work here in Step- 
 ney, you would be w^illing to stay?" 
 
 "I would stay," he replied, "if you bid me stay — or 
 go, if 3-0U bid me go." 
 
 "I M'ould bid you stay," she replied, speaking as 
 clearly and as firmly as she could, " because I like your 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 161 
 
 society, and because you have been, and will still be, I 
 hope, very helpful to us. But if I bid you stay," she 
 laid her hand upon his arm, " it must be on no mis- 
 understanding. " 
 
 "I am your servant," he said, with a little agitation 
 in his voice. " I understood nothing but what j^ou wish 
 me to understand." 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 A SPLENDID OFFER, 
 
 It was a strange coincidence that only two days after 
 this conversation with Miss Kennedy, Harry received 
 his first offer of emploj^ment. 
 
 It came from the brewery, and was in the first in- 
 stance a mere note sent by a clerk inviting "H. Gos- 
 lett" to call at the accountant's office at ten in the 
 morning. The name, standing bare and naked by it- 
 self, without any preliminary title of respect — Mister, 
 Master, or Sieur — presented, Harry thought, a very 
 miserable appearance. Perhaps it would be difficult to 
 find a readier method of insvilting a man than to hurl 
 his own name at his head. One may understand how 
 Louis Capet must have felt when thus reduced to a 
 plain simplicity. 
 
 " What on earth," Harry asked, forgetting his trade, 
 "can they want with meV" 
 
 In business houses, working-men, even of the gentle 
 craft of cabinet-making, generall}' carry with them 
 tools, sometimes wear an apron, always have their 
 trousers turned up, and never wear a collar — using, in- 
 stead, a red muffler, which keeps the throat warmer, 
 and does not so readily show the effect of London fog 
 and smoke. Also, some of their garments are made of 
 corduroy and their jackets have bulging pockets, and 
 their hats not unfrequently have a pipe stuck into them. 
 This young working-man repaired to the tr3'sting-place 
 in the eas}' attire in which he was wont to roam about 
 the bowers of the East End. That is to say, he looked 
 like a carelessly-dressed gentleman. 
 
 Harry found at the office his uncle, Mr. Bunker, who 
 snorted when he saw his nephew. 
 11 
 
163. ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN, 
 
 " What are you doing here?" he asked. " Can't you 
 waste your time and bring disgrace on a hard-work- 
 ing uncle outside the place where he is known and 
 respected?" 
 
 Harry sighed. 
 
 "Few of us," he said, "sufficiently respect their 
 uncles. And with such an uncle — ah !" 
 
 What more might have passed between them, I know 
 not. Fortunately, at this point, they were summoned 
 to the presence of the chief accountant. 
 
 He knew Mr. Bunker and shook hands with him. 
 
 "Is this your nephew, Mr. Bunker?" he asked, look- 
 ing curiously at the very handsome young fellow who 
 stood before him with a careless air. 
 
 " Yes ; he's mv nephew ; at least, he says so," said 
 Mr. Bunker surlil}'. "Perhaps, sir, you wouldn't mind 
 telling him what you want, and letting him go. Then 
 we can get to business." 
 
 " My business is with both of you." 
 
 "Both of us?" Mr. Bunker looked uneasy. What 
 business could that be in which he was connected with 
 his nephew? 
 
 " Perhaps I had better read a portion of a letter re- 
 ceived by me yesterday from Miss Messenger. That 
 portion which concerns you, Mr. Bunker, is as follows." 
 
 Rather a remarkable letter had been received at the 
 brewery on the previous day from Miss Messenger. 
 It was remarkable, and, indeed, disquieting, because it 
 showed a disposition to interfere in the management of 
 the great concern, and the interference of a young lady 
 in the brewery boded ill. 
 
 The chief brewer and the chief accountant read it 
 together. They were a grave and elderly pair, both in 
 their sixties, who had been regarded by the late Mr. 
 Messenger as mere boys. For he was in the eighties. 
 
 " Yes, " said the chief brewer, as his colleague read 
 the missive with a sigh, " I know what you would sny. 
 It is not the thing itself; the thing is a small thing; the 
 man may even be worth his paj^ ; but it is the spirit of 
 the letter, the spirit, that concerns me." 
 
 " It is the spirit," echoed the chief accountant. 
 
 "Either," said the chief brewer, "we rule here, or 
 we do not." 
 
ALL SORTS AXD CONDITIONS OF .VEN 163 
 
 "Certainly," said the chief accountant, "and well 
 put." 
 
 " If we do not" — here the chief brewer, rapped the 
 middle knuckle of the back of his left-hand forefinger 
 with the tip of his right-hand forefinger — " if we do 
 not, what then?" 
 
 They gazed upon each other for a moment in great 
 sadness, having before their eyes a hazy vision in which 
 Miss Messenger walked through the brewery, putting 
 down the mighty and lowering salaries. A grateful 
 reward for long and faithful services ! At the thought 
 of it, these two servants in their own e3'es became pa- 
 triarchal, as regards the length of years spent in the 
 brewery, and their long services loomed before them as 
 so devoted and so faithful as to place them above the 
 rewarding power of any salary. 
 
 The chief accountant was a tall old gentleman, and 
 lie stood in a commanding position on the hearth-rug, 
 the letter in one hand and a pair of double eye-glasses in 
 the other. 
 
 ■' You will see from "v^diat I am about to read to you, 
 Mr. Bunker," he began, "that j'our services, such^as 
 they were, to the late Mr. Messenger will not go un- 
 rewarded." 
 
 Yery good, so far; but what had his reward to do 
 with his nephew"? 
 
 " You were a good deal with Mr. Messenger at one 
 time, I remember, Mr. Bunker." 
 
 " I was, a great deal. " 
 
 " Quite so — quite so — and you assisted him, I he- 
 lieve, with his house property and tenants, and so 
 forth." 
 
 "I did." Mr. Bunker cleared his throat. "I did, 
 and often Mr. Messenger would talk of the reward I 
 was to have when he was took. " 
 
 " He left you nothing, however, possibly because he 
 forgot. You ought, therefore, to be the more grateful 
 to Miss Messenger for remembering you ; particularly 
 as the young lady has onlj" heard of you b}' some kind 
 of chance." 
 
 " Has she — has she — sent something?" he asked. 
 
 The chief accountant smiled graciously. 
 
 " She has sent a ver}' considerable present indeed." 
 
164 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 "All!" Mr. Bunker's fingers closed as if they were 
 grappling with bank-notes. 
 
 "Is it," he asked, in trembling accents — "is it a 
 check?" 
 
 " I think, Mr. Bunker, that you will like her present 
 better than a check." 
 
 " There can be nothing better than one of Miss Mes- 
 senger's checks," he replied gallantl}'. " Nothing in the 
 world, except, perhaps, one that's bigger. I suppose 
 it's notes, then?" 
 
 "Listen, Mr. Bunker 
 
 "'Considering the various services rendered to my 
 grandfather by Mr. Bunker, with whom I believe you 
 are acquainted, in connection with his property in 
 Stepney and the neighborhood, I am anxious to make 
 him some substantial present. I have therefore caused 
 inquiries to be made as to the best way of doing this. 
 I learn that he has a nephew named Henry Goslett, by 
 trade a cabinet-maker' " [here Mr. Bunker made violent 
 efforts to suppress emotion], "'who is out of employ- 
 ment. I propose that he should be received into the 
 brewery, that a shop with all that he wants should be 
 fitted up for him, and that he attend daily until any- 
 thing better offers, to do all that may be required in his 
 trade. I should wish him to be independent as regards 
 time of attendance, and that he should be paid at the 
 proj^er rate for piece-work. In this way, I hope ]\Ir. 
 Bunker may feel that he has received a reward more 
 appropriate to the friendly relations which seem to 
 has-e existed between my grandfather and himself than 
 a mere matter of money, and I am glad to be able to 
 gratify him in finding honorable employment for one 
 who is, I trust, a deserving 3'oung man.' " 
 
 "Then, Mr. Bunker, there is this — why, good heav- 
 ens! man, what is the matter?" 
 
 For Mr. Bunker was purple with wrath. Three 
 times he essayed to speak, three times he failed. Then 
 he put on his hat and fled precipitately. 
 
 "What is the matter with him?" asked the chief 
 accountant. 
 
 The young workman laughed. 
 
 " I believe," he replied, "that my uncle expected the 
 check. " 
 
ALL SORTS AXD COXDITIOXS OF MKX. ICr, 
 
 "Well, well!" the chief accountant waved his hf.ncl, 
 " There is nothing more to be said. You will find your 
 shop; one of the porters will take you to it; you vvill 
 have all the broken things that used to be sent out, kept 
 for you to mend, and — and — all that. What we want 
 a cabinet-maker for in the brewery, I do not under- 
 stand. That will do. Stay — you seem a rather su- 
 perior kind of workman." 
 
 " I have had an education," said Harry, blushing. 
 
 "Good; so long as it has not made you discontented. 
 Remember that we want sober and steady men in this 
 place, and good work." 
 
 " I am not certain 3'et," said Harry, "that I shall be 
 able to take the place." 
 
 " Not take the place? Not take a place in IMessenger's 
 brewery? Do you know that ever}" body who conducts 
 himself well here is booked for life? Do you know 
 what you are throwing away? Not take the place? 
 Why, you may be cabinet-maker for the brewery till 
 the}^ actually pension ^-ou off." 
 
 " I am — I am a little uncertain in my designs for the 
 future. I must ask for a day to consider." 
 
 " Take a day. If, to-morrow, you do not present 
 yourself in the workshop prepared for you, I shall tell 
 Miss Messenger that you have refused her offer." 
 
 Harry walked away with a quickened pulse. So far 
 he had been posturing only as a cabinet-maker. At 
 the outset he had no intention of doing more than post- 
 ure for a while, and then go back to civilized life with 
 no more difference than that caused b}- the revelation 
 of his parentage. As for doing work, or taking a wage, 
 that was very, very far from his mind. Yet now he 
 must either accept the place, with the pay, or he must 
 stand confessed a humbug. There remained but one 
 other waj'-, which was a worse wa}' than the other two. 
 He might, that is to say, refuse the work without as- 
 signing any reason. He would then appear in the char- 
 acter of a lazy and worthless workman — an idle ap- 
 })rentice, indeed; one who would do no work while 
 there was money in the locker for another day of sloth. 
 With that face could he stand before Miss Kennedy, 
 revealed in these — his true colors? 
 
 It was an excellent opportunity for flight. That oc- 
 
166 ALL SORTS AXD COXDITIOXS OF MEX. 
 
 curred to liim. But flight — and after that last talk 
 with the woman whose voice, whose face, whose gra- 
 ciousness had so . filled his head and inflamed his im- 
 agination. 
 
 He walked away, considering. 
 
 When a man is very much perplexed, he often does a 
 great many little odd things. Thus, Harry began by 
 looking into the office wdiere his cousin sat. 
 
 Josephus' desk was in the warmest juirt of the room, 
 near the fire — so much jn-omotion he had received. He 
 sat among half a dozen lads of seventeen or twenty years 
 of age, who did the mechanical wtn-k of making entries 
 in the books. This he did, too, and had done every 
 day for forty years. Beside him stood a great iron 
 sate, where the books were put away at night. The 
 door was open. Harry looked in, caught the eye of his 
 cousin, nodded encouragingly, and went on his way, his 
 hands in his pockets. 
 
 When he came to Mrs. Bormalack's he went in there 
 too. and found Lord Davenant anxiously waiting for 
 the conduct of the case to be resumed, in order that he 
 might put up his feet and take his morning nap. 
 
 "This is my last morning," Harry said. "As for 
 your case, old boy, it is as complete as I can make it, 
 and wo had better send it in as soon as we can, ujiless 
 you can find any more evidence. " 
 
 "No — no," said his lordship, wdio found this famil- 
 iarity a relief after .the stately enjoyment of the title, 
 " there will be no more evidence. Well, if there's noth- 
 ing more to be done, Mr. Goslett, I think I will" — here 
 ho lifted his feet — " and if you see Clara Martha, tell 
 her that— that " 
 
 Here he fell asleep. 
 
 It was against the rules to visit the Dressmakers' 
 Association in the morning or afternoon. Harry there- 
 fore \vent to the room where he had fitted his lathe, 
 and began to occupy himself with the beautiful cabinet 
 he M'as making for Miss Kennedy. But he was rest- 
 less ; he was on the eve of a very important step. To 
 take a place, to be actually paid for piece-work, is, if 
 you please, a very different thing from pretending to 
 have a trade. 
 
 Was he prepared to give u[) the life of culture? 
 
ALL SORTS AND COXDITIOXS OF JMEX. 167 
 
 He sat do^^^l and thought what such a surrender 
 would mean. 
 
 First, there would be no club ; none of the pleasant 
 dinners at the little tables with one or two of his own 
 friends; no easy-chair in the smoking-room for a wet 
 afternoon ; none of the talk with men who are actually 
 in the ring — political, literary, artistic, and dramatic, 
 none of the pleasant consciousness that you are behind 
 the scenes, which is enjoyed by so many young fellows 
 who belong to good clubs. The club in itself would be 
 a great thing to surrender. 
 
 Next, there would be no society. 
 
 He was at that age when societj^ means the presence 
 of beautiful girls ; therefore, he loved society, whether 
 in the form of a dance, or a dinner, or an at-home, or 
 an afternoon, or a garden-party, or any other gathering 
 where young people meet and exchange those ideas 
 which they fondly imagine to be original. Well, he 
 must never think any more of society. That was 
 closed to him. 
 
 ISText, he must give up most of the accomplishments, 
 graces, arts, and skill which he had acquired by dint of 
 great assiduity and much practice. Billiards, at which 
 he could hold his own against most ; fencing, at which 
 he was capable of becoming a professor ; shooting, in 
 which he was ready to challenge any American ; rid- 
 ing, the talking of different languages — what would it 
 help him now to be a master in these arts? They must 
 all go ; for the future he would have to work nine 
 hours a day for tenpence an hour, which is two pound 
 a week, allowing for Saturday afternoon. There would 
 simply be no time for practising any single one of 
 these "things, even if he could afford the purchase of the 
 instruments required. 
 
 Again, he would have to grieve and disappoint the 
 kindest man in the whole world — Lord Jocelyn. 
 
 I think it speaks well for this young man that one 
 thing did not trouble him — the question of eating and 
 drinking. He would dine no more; working-men do 
 not dine — they stoke. He would drink no more wine ; 
 well, Harry found beer a most excellent and delicious 
 beverage, particularly when you get it unadulterated. 
 
 Could he give up all these things? He could not 
 
168 ALL SORTS AXD COXDITIOXS OF 3IEX. 
 
 conceive it possible, you see, that a man should go and 
 become a workman, receiving a wage and obeying orders, 
 and afterward resume his old place among gentlemen, 
 as if nothing had happened. Indeed, it would require 
 a vast amount of explanation. 
 
 Then he began to consider what he would get if he 
 remained. 
 
 One thing only would reward him. He was so far 
 gone in love, that for this girl's sake he would renounce 
 everything and become a workman indeed. 
 
 He could not work ; the quiet of the room oppressed 
 him ; he must be up and moving wliile this struggle 
 went on. 
 
 Then he thought of his uncle Bunker and laughed, re- 
 membering his discomfiture and wrath. While he was 
 laughing the door opened, and the very man appeared. 
 
 He had lost his purple hue, and was now, in fact, 
 rather pale, and his cheeks looked flabb3^ 
 
 " Nephew, " he said huskily, " I want to talk to you 
 about this thing; give over sniggerin', and talk serioiia 
 now." 
 
 " Let us be serious." 
 
 " This is a most dreadful mistake of Miss Messen- 
 ger's; you know at first I thought it must be a joke. 
 That is wh)^ I went away ; men of my age and respect- 
 ability don't like jokes. But it was no joke. I see now 
 it is just a mere dreadful mistake which you can set 
 right." 
 
 " How can I set it right?" 
 
 " To be sure, I could do it myself, very easily. I 
 liave only got to write to her, and tell her that 3'ou've 
 got no character, and nobody knows if you know vour 
 trade." 
 
 " I don't think that would do, because I might write 
 as well " 
 
 " The best plan would be for 5'ou to refuse the sit- 
 uation and go away again. Look here, boy ; you come 
 from no one knows where; a'ou live no one knows how; 
 you don't do any work; my impression is 3'ou don't 
 want any, and you've only come to see what you can 
 borrow or steal. That's my opinion. Now, don't let's 
 argue, but just listen. If you'll go away quieth% with- 
 out any fuss, just telling them at the brewery that 
 
ALL SORTS AXD CONDITIONS OF MEX. Ifll) 
 
 you've got to go, I'll give you — yes — I'll give you — • 
 twenty pounds down ! There I" 
 
 " Very liberal indeed ! But I am afraid " 
 
 " I'll make it twent3'^-five. A man of spirit can do 
 anything with twenty-five pounds down. Why, he 
 might go to the other end of the world. If I were j^ou 
 I'd go there. Large openings there for a lad of spirit 
 — large openings! Twenty-five pounds down, on the 
 nail. " 
 
 *' It seems a generous offer, still -" 
 
 _ "Nothing," Mr. Bunker went on, "has gone well 
 since you came. There's this dreadful mistake of Miss 
 Messenger's; then that Miss Kennedy's job. I didn't 
 make anj-thing out of thatcompared with what I might, 
 and there's the " He stopped, because he was think- 
 ing of the houses. 
 
 " I ivant you to go," he added almost plaintively. 
 
 " And that, very much, is one of the reasons why I 
 want to stay. Because, you see, you have not yet an- 
 swered a question of mine. What did you get for me 
 when you traded me awaj^?" 
 
 For the second time his question jDroduced a very 
 remarkable effect upon the good man. 
 
 When he had gone, slamming the door behind him, 
 Harry smiled sweetly. 
 
 "I know," he said, "that he has done 'something,' 
 as ihej call it. Bunker is afraid. And I — yes — I shall 
 find it out and terrify him still more. But, in order to 
 find it out, I must stay. And if I stay, I must be a 
 workman. And wear an apron! And a brown-paper 
 cap! No. I draw the line above aprons. No con- 
 sideration shall induce me to wear an apron. Not evea 
 — no — not if she were to make the apron a condition of 
 marriage." 
 
 CHAPTER XYI. 
 
 Harry's decision. 
 
 He spent the afternoon wandering about the streets 
 of Stepney, full of the new thought that here might be 
 his future home. This reflection made him regard the 
 place from quite a novel point of view. As a mere out- 
 
irO ALL SORTS AXD COXDITIOXS OF MEN. 
 
 sider, he had looked upon the place critically, with 
 amusement, with pity, with horror (in rainy weather), 
 Avith wonder (in sunshiny days). He was a spectator, 
 while before his eyes were plaj'ed as man}^ little come- 
 dies, comediettas, or tragedies or melodramas as there 
 were inhabitants. But no farces, he remarked, and no 
 burlesques. The life of industry contains no elements 
 of farce or of burlesque. But if he took this decisive 
 step he would have to look u])on the East End from an 
 inside point of view ; he would be himself one of the 
 actors ; he would play his own little comedy. There- 
 fore he must introduce the emotion of sympathy, and 
 suppress the critical attitude altogether. 
 
 There was once an earl who went awaj' and became 
 a sailor before the mast; he seems to have enjoyed 
 sailoring better than legislating, but was, by accident, 
 inghjriouslv drowned while so engaged. There was 
 also the Honorable Timoth}'- Clitheroe Davenant, who 
 was also supposed to be drowned, but in reality exer- 
 cised until his death, and apparently with happiness, 
 the craft of wheelwright. There was another unfor- 
 tunate nobleman, well known to fame, who became a 
 butcher in a colony, and liked it. Precedents enough 
 of voluntary descent and eclipse, to say nothing of the 
 involuntary obscurations, as when an emigre had to 
 teach dancing, or the son of a royal duke was fain to 
 become a village schoolmaster. These historical par- 
 allels pleased Harry's fancy until he recollected that 
 he was himself only a son of the people, and not of 
 noble descent, so that they reall}^ did not bear upon his 
 case, and he could find not one single precedent in the 
 whole histor}' parallel with himself. "Mine," he said, 
 formulating the thing, " is a very remarkable and un- 
 usual case. Here is a man brought up to believe him- 
 self of gentle birth and educated as a gentleman, 
 so that there is nothing in the most liberal training of 
 a gentleman that he has not learned, and no accom- 
 plishment which becomes a gentleman that he has not 
 acquired. Then he learns that he is not a gentleman 
 by birth, and that he is a pauper; wherefore, why not 
 honest work? Work is noble, to be sure, especially if 
 you get the kind of work jou like, and please yourself 
 about the time of doing it; nothing could be a more 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 171 
 
 noble spectacle than that of myself working at the lathe 
 for nothing, in the old cla3's ; would it be quite as noble 
 at the brewery, doing pie je- work?" 
 
 These reflections, this putting of the case to himself, 
 this grand dubiety, occuj)ied the whole afternoon. 
 AVhen the evening came, and it was time for him to 
 present himself in the drawing-room, he was no fur- 
 ther advanced toward a decision. 
 
 The room looked bright and restful ; wherever An- 
 gela went, she was accompanied and surrounded by an 
 atmosphere of refinement. Those who conversed with 
 her became infected with her culture; therefore, the 
 place was like any dravving-room at the West End, 
 save for the furniture, which was simple. Ladies 
 would have noticed, even in such little things, in the 
 way in which the girls sat and carried themselves, a 
 note of difference. To Harry these minuticB were un- 
 known, and he saw only a room full of girls quietly 
 happy and apparently well-bred; some were reading; 
 some were talking, one or two were " making" some- 
 thing for themselves, though their busy fingers had 
 been at work all da}'. Nell}' and Miss Kennedy were 
 listening to the captain, who was telling a 3'arn of his 
 old East Indiaman. The three made a pretty group, 
 Miss Kennedy seated on a low stool at the captain's 
 knee, while the old man leaned forward in his arm- 
 chair, his daughter beside him watching, in her affec- 
 tionate and pretty way, the face of her patron. 
 
 The quiet, peaceful air of the room, the happ}^ and 
 contented faces which before had been so harassed and 
 worn, struck the j^oung man's heart. Part of this had 
 been his doing ; could he go away and leave the brave 
 girl who headed the little enterprise to the tender mer- 
 cies of a Bunker? The thought of what he was throw- 
 ing up — the club-life, the art-life, the literary life, the 
 holiday-time, the delightful roving in foreign lands, 
 which he should enjoy no more — all seemed insignificant 
 considered beside this haven of rest and peace in the 
 troubled waters of the East End. He was no philan- 
 thropist ; the cant of platforms was intolerable to him ; 
 yet he was thinking of a step which meant giving up 
 his own hap]>iness for that of others ; with, of course, the 
 constant societv of the woman he loved. Without that 
 
172 ALL SORTS AND COyDITIONS OF MEX. 
 
 compensation the sacrifice would be impossible. Miss 
 Kennedy looked np and nodded to him kindly, motion- 
 ing him not to interrupt the story, which the captain 
 presently finished. 
 
 Then they had a little music and a little playing, and 
 there was a little dancing — all just as usual ; a quiet, 
 pleasant evening ; and they went away. 
 
 "You are silent to-night, Mr. Goslett," said An- 
 gela, as they took their customary walk in the quiet 
 little garden called Stepney Green. 
 
 "Yes. I am like the parrot; I think the more." 
 
 "What is in your mind?" 
 
 " This : I have had an offer — an offer of work — from 
 the brewery. Miss Messenger herself sent the offer, 
 which I am to accept or to refuse to-morrow morn- 
 ing." 
 
 " An offer of work? I congratulate j^ou. Of course 
 you will accept?" She looked at him sharpl}', even 
 suspiciously. 
 
 " I do not know." 
 
 "You have forgotten," she said — in other girls the 
 words and the tone of her voice would have sounded 
 lilvc an encouragement — "you have forgotten what 
 you said only last Sunday evening." 
 
 " No : I have not forgotten. What I said last Sunday 
 evening only increases my embarrassment. I did not 
 expect, then — I did not think it possible that any work 
 here would be offered to me." 
 
 " Is the pay insufficient?" 
 
 "No: the pay is to be at the usual market-rate." 
 
 " Are the hours too long?" 
 
 " I am to please myself. It seems as if the young 
 lady had done her best to make me as independent as a 
 man who works for money can be." 
 
 " Yet you hesitate. Why?" 
 
 He was silent — thinking what he should tell her. 
 The whole truth would have been best ; but then, one 
 so seldom tells the whole truth about anj^thing, far less 
 about one's self. He could not tell her that he had been 
 masquerading all the time, after so many protestations 
 of being a real working-man. 
 
 " Is it that you do not like to make friends among 
 the East End workmen?" 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 173 
 
 "No." He could answer this with truth. "It is not 
 that. The working-men here are better than I expected 
 to find them. They are more sensible, more self-re- 
 liant, and less dangerous. To be sure, they profess to 
 entertain an unreasoning dislike for rich people, and, I 
 believe, think that their lives are entirely spent over 
 oranges and skittles. I wish they had more knowledge 
 of books, and could be got to think in some elemental 
 fashion about art. I wish they had a better sense of 
 beauty, and I wish thej' could be got to cultivate some 
 of the graces of life. You shall teach them. Miss Ken- 
 nedy. Also, I wish that tobacco was not their only 
 solace. I am very much interested in them. That is 
 not the reason." 
 
 " If 5'ou please to tell me " she said. 
 
 " Well, then"— he would tell that fatal half-truth— 
 "the reason is this; you know that I have had an edu- 
 cation above what fortune intended for me when she 
 made me the son of Sergeant Goslett." 
 
 "I know," she replied. "It was my case, as well; 
 we are companions in this great happiness." 
 
 "The man who conferred this benefit upon me, the 
 best and kindest-hearted man in the world, to whom I 
 am indebted for more than I can tell 5'ou, is willing to 
 do more for me. If I please, I may live with him in 
 idleness." 
 
 " You may live in idleness? That must be, indeed, 
 a tempting offer !" 
 
 "Idleness," he replied, a little hurt at her contempt 
 for what certainly was a temptation for him, "does not 
 alwavs mean doing nothing." 
 
 "What would you do, then?" 
 
 " There is the life of culture and art " 
 
 " Oh, no !" she replied. " Would you really like to 
 become one of those poor creatures who think they lead 
 lives devoted to art? Would j'ou like to grow silly 
 over blue china, to quarrel about color, to worship form 
 in poetry, to judge everything b}' the narrow rules of 
 the latest pedantic fashion?" 
 
 "You know this art world, then?" 
 
 " I know something of it, I have heard of it. Never 
 mind me— think of yourself. You would not, you could 
 not, condemn yourself to such a life." 
 
174 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 " Not to such a life as you picture. But, consider, 
 I am offered a life of freedom instead of servitude." 
 
 " Servitude I Why, we are all servants one of the 
 other. Society is like the human body, in which all 
 the limbs belong to each other. There must be rich 
 and poor, idlers and workers ; we depend one upon the 
 other ; if the rich do not work with and for the poor, 
 retribution falls upon them. The poor must work for 
 the rich, or they will starve; poor or rich, I think it is 
 better to be poor ; idler or worker, I know it is better 
 to be worker." 
 
 He thought of Lord Jocelj'n ; of the pleasant cham- 
 bers in Piccadilly, of the club, of his own friends, of 
 society, of little dinners, of stalls at the theatre ; of sup- 
 pers among- actors and actresses; of artists and the 
 smoking-parties ; of the men who write, and the men 
 who talk, and the men who know everybody, and are 
 full of stories ; of his riding, and hunting, and shoot- 
 ing; of his fencing, and billiards, and cards. 
 
 All these things passed through his brain swiftly, in 
 a inoment. And then he thought of the beautiful wo- 
 man beside him, whose voice was the sweetest music 
 to him that he had ever heard. 
 
 "You must take the offer," she went on, and her 
 words fell upon his ear like the words of an oracle to a 
 Greek in doubt. " Work at the brewery is not hard. 
 You will have no task-master set over you ; you are 
 free to go and come, to choose your own time; there 
 will be in so great a place, there must be, work, quite 
 enough to occupy your time. Give up yearning after 
 an idle life, and work in patience." 
 
 " Is there anything," he said, " to which you could not 
 persuade me?" 
 
 " Oh, not for me !" she replied impatiently. " It ie 
 for yourself. You have your life before you, to throw 
 away or to use. Tell me," she hesitated a little; "j^ou 
 have come back to your own kith and kin, after many 
 years. They were strange to you at first, all these peo- 
 ple of the East End — your own people. Now that you 
 know them, should you like to go away from them, al- 
 together away and forget them? Could j^ou desert 
 them? You know, if you go, that you will desert 
 them, for between this end of London and the other 
 
ALL SORTS AXD COXDITTOXS OF JIEN. 175 
 
 there is a great gulf fixed, across v.diicli no one ever 
 passes. You will leave us aJtogether if you leave us 
 now. " 
 
 At this point Harry felt the very strongest desire to 
 make it clear that what concerned him most would be 
 the leaving her, but he repressed the temptation and 
 merely remarked that, if he did desert his kith and kin, 
 they would not regret him. His Uncle Bunker, he 
 explained, had even offered him tive-and-twenty pounds 
 to go. 
 
 " It is not that you have done anything, you know, 
 except to help us in our little experiment," said Angela. 
 " But it is what you may do, what you shall do, if you 
 remain." 
 
 "What can I do?" 
 
 " You have knowledge ; you have a voice ; j'ou have 
 a quick eye and a ready tongue; you could lead, you 
 could preside. Oh ! what a career you might have be- 
 fore you !" 
 
 " You think too well of me, Miss Kennedy. I am a 
 very lazy and worthless kind of man." 
 
 "'Xo." She shook her head and smiled superior. " I 
 know you better than you know yourself. I have 
 watched you for these months. And then we must 
 not forget, there is our Palace of Delight. " 
 
 " Are we millionaires?" 
 
 "AVhy, we have already begun it. There is our 
 drawing-room ; it is only a few weeks old, yet see what 
 a difference there is already. The girls are happy; 
 their finer tastes are awakened ; their natural yearnings 
 after things delightful are partly satisfied ; they laugh 
 and sing now; they run about and play. There is al- 
 ready something of our dream realized. Stay with us, 
 and we shall see the rest. " 
 
 He made an effort and again restrained himself. 
 
 "I stay, then," he said, "for your sake — because you 
 command me to stay." 
 
 Had she done well? She asked herself the question 
 in the shelter of her bedroom, with great doubt and anx- 
 iety. This young workman, who might if he chose be 
 a — well — yes — a gentleman — quite as good a gentlernan 
 as most of the men who pretend to the title — was going 
 to give up whatever prospects he had iu the world, at 
 
176 ALL SORTS AND COXDITIOXS OF MEN. 
 
 her bidding:, and for her sake. For her sake! Yet 
 what he wished was impossible. 
 
 What reward, then, had she to offer him that would 
 satisfy him? Nothing. Staj^ he was only a man. 
 One i:)retty face was as good as another ; he was struck 
 with hers for the moment. She would put him in the 
 waj' of being attracted by another. Yes : that would 
 do. This settled in her own mind, she put the matter 
 aside, and, as she was very sleep}', she only murmured 
 to herself, as her eyes closed, "Nelly Sorensen." 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 WHAT LORD JOCELYN THOUGHT. 
 
 The subject of Angela's meditations was not where 
 siie thought him, in his own bedroom. When he left 
 his adviser, he did not go in at once, but walked once 
 or twice up and down the pavement, thinking. What 
 he had promised to do was nothing less than to reverse, 
 altogether, the whole of his promised life; and this is 
 no light matter, even if 3'ou do it for love's sweet sake. 
 And, Miss Kennedy being no longer with him, he felt 
 a little chilled from the first enthusiasm. Presently he 
 looked at his watch ; it was still early, only half -past 
 ten. 
 
 " There is the chance," he said. " It is only a chance. 
 He generally comes back somewhere about this time." 
 
 There are no cabs at Stepne}^ but there are tramways 
 which go quite as fast, and, besides, give one the op- 
 portunity of exchanging ideas on current topics with 
 one's travelling companions. Harry jumped into one, 
 and sat down between a bibulous old gentleman, who 
 said he lived in Fore Street, but had for the moment 
 mislaid all his other ideas, and a lady who talked to 
 herself as she carried a bundle. She was rehearsing 
 something dramatic, a monologue, in which she was 
 " giving it" to somebody unknown. And she was so 
 much under the influence and emotion of imagination 
 that the young man trembled lest he might be mis- 
 taken for the person addressed. However. hajDpily, 
 the lady so far restrained herself, and Aldgate was 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 177 
 
 reached in peace. There he took a hansom and drove 
 to Piccadilly. 
 
 The streets looked strange to him after his three 
 months' absence; the lights, the crowds on the pave- 
 ments, so different from the East End crowd; the rush 
 of the carriages and cabs taking the people home from 
 the theatre, filled him with a strange longing. He had 
 been asleep ; he had had a dream ; there was no Stepne}' ; 
 there was no Whitechapel Road — a strange and won- 
 drous dream. Miss Kennedy and her damsels were 
 only a part of this vision. A beautiful and delightful 
 dream. He was back again in Piccadill}^ and all was 
 exactly as it always had been. So far all was exactly 
 the same, for Lord Jocelyn was in his chamber and 
 alone. 
 
 "You are come back to me, Harry?" he said, holding 
 the young man's hand; "you have had enough of your 
 cousins and the Avorthy Bunker. Sit down, boy. I 
 heard your foot on the stairs. I have waited for it a 
 long time. Sit down and let me look at 3-ou. To- 
 morrow you shall tell me all your adventures." 
 
 "It ?'.s comfortable," said Harry, taking his old chair 
 and one of his guardian's cigarettes. " Yes, Piccadilly 
 is better, in some respects, than Whitechapel." 
 
 " And there is more comfort the higher up you climb, 
 eh?" 
 
 " Certainly, more comfort. There is not, I am sure, 
 such an easy-chair as this east of St. Paul's." 
 
 Then they were silent, as becomes two men who 
 know what is in each other's heart, and wait for it to 
 be said. 
 
 "You look well," said Harry presently. "Where 
 did you spend the summer?" 
 
 "Mediterranean. Yacht. Partridges." 
 
 " Of course. Do you stay in London long?" 
 
 And so on. Playing with the talk, and postponing 
 the inevitable, Harrj' learned where everA-body had 
 been, and who was engaged, and who was married, 
 and how one or two had joined the majority since his 
 departure. He also heard the latest scandal, and the 
 current talk, and what had been done at the club, and 
 who had been blackballed, with divers small bits of 
 information about people and things. And he took up 
 
178 ALL SORTS AXD CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 the talk in the old manner, and fell into the old attitude 
 of mind quite naturally, and as if there had been no 
 break at all. Presently the clock pointed to one, and 
 Lord Jocelyn rose. 
 
 " W e will talk again to-morrow, Harry, my boy, and 
 the day after to-morrow, and many days after that. I 
 am glad to have you back again." He laid his hand 
 upon the young man's shoulder. 
 
 " Do not go just 3"et," said Harr}^ blushing and feel- 
 ing guilty, because he was going to intiict pain on one 
 who loved him. " I cannot talk with you to-morrow." 
 
 " Why not?" 
 
 " Because — sit down again and listen — because I have 
 made up my mind to join my kith and kin altogether, 
 and stay among them." 
 
 "What? Stay among them?" 
 
 " You remember what j^ou told me of your motive 
 in taking me. You would bring up a boy of the people 
 like a gentleman. You would educate him in all that 
 a gentleman can learn, and then you would send him 
 back to his friends, whom he would make discontented, 
 and so open the way for civilization." 
 
 " I said so — did I? Yes : but there were other things, 
 Harry. You forget that motives are always mixed. 
 There was affection for my brave sergeant and a desire 
 to help his son; there were all sorts of things. Be- 
 sides, I expected that you would take a rough kind of 
 polish only — like nickel, j^ou know, or pewter — and you 
 turned out real silver. A gentleman, I thought, is born, 
 not made. This proved a mistake. The puddle blood 
 Avould show, I expected, which was prejudice, you see, 
 because there is no such thing as puddle blood. Be- 
 sides, I thought you would be stupid and slow to pick 
 up ideas, and that you would pick up only a few ; sup- 
 posing, in my ignorance, that all persons not 'born,' as 
 the Germans say, must be stupid and slow." 
 
 " And I was not stupid?" 
 
 "You? The brightest and cleverest lad in the whole 
 world — you stepped into the place I made for you as if 
 you had been born for it. Now tell me why you wish 
 to step out of it." 
 
 " Like you, sir I have many motives. Partly, I am 
 greatly interested in my own people; partly, I am inter- 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 179 
 
 ested in the place itself and its ways ; partly, I am told, 
 and I believe, that there is a great deal which I can do 
 there — do not laugh at nie." 
 
 " I am not laughing, Harry ; I am only astonished. 
 Yes, you are changed, your eyes are different, jowv 
 voice is different. Go on, my boy." 
 
 " I do not think there is much to sa}" — I mean, in ex- 
 planation. But of course I understand — it is a part of 
 the thing — that if I stay among them I must be inde- 
 pendent. I could no longer look to 3'our bounty, which 
 I have accepted too long. I must work for my living." 
 
 " Work ! And what will you do?" 
 
 " I know a lot of things, but somehow they are not 
 wanted at Stepney, and the only thing by which I can 
 make money seems to be my lathe — I have become a 
 cabinet-maker. " 
 
 "Heavens! You have become a cabinet-maker? Do 
 you actually mean, Harry, that you are going to work 
 — with your hands — for mone}'?" 
 
 " Yes ; with my hands. I shall be paid for my work ; 
 I shall live by my work. The puddle blood, you see." 
 
 " No, no, " said Lord Jocelyn, " there is no proof of 
 puddle blood in being independent. But think of the 
 discomfort of it." 
 
 " I have thought of the discomfort. It is not really 
 so very bad. What is your idea of the life I shall have 
 to live?" 
 
 " Why," said Lord Jocelyn, with a shudder, " you Vv'ill 
 rise at six ; you will go out in working-clothes, carry- 
 ing your tools, and with your apron tied round and 
 tucked up like a missionary bishop on his way to a 
 confinuation. You will find j'ourself in a workshop 
 full of disagreeable people, who pick out unpleasant 
 adjectives and tack them on to everything, and whose 
 views of life and habits are — well, not your own. You 
 will have to smoke pipes at a street corner on Sundays; 
 3-our tobacco wall be bad ; you will drink bad beer — 
 Harry! the contemplation of the thing is too painful." 
 
 Harry laughed. 
 
 '' The reality is not quite so bad," he said. " Cabinet- 
 makers are excellent fellows. And as for myself, I 
 shall not work in a shop, but alone. I am offered the 
 post of cabinet-maker in a great place where I shall 
 
180 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 have my own room to my;elf , and can please my own 
 convenience as to my hours. I shall earn about ten- 
 pence an hour — say seven shillings a day, if I keep at it." 
 
 "If he keeps at it," murmured Lord Jocelyn, "he 
 will make seven shillings a day." 
 
 " Dinner in the middle of the day, of course." Harry 
 went on, with a cheerful smile. "At the East End 
 everybody stokes at one. We have tea at five and sup- 
 per when we can get it. A simpler life than yours. " 
 
 "Tins is a programme of such extreme misery," said 
 Lord Jocelyn, "that your explanations are quite in- 
 sufficient. Is there, I wonder, a woman in the case?" 
 
 Harry blushed violentl3^ 
 
 "Tbere is a woman, then?" said his guardian tri- 
 umphantly. " There always is. I might have guessed 
 it from the beginning. Come, Harry, tell me all about 
 it. Is it serious? Is she — can she be — at Whitechapel 
 —a lady?" 
 
 "Yes," said Harry, "it is quite true. There is a 
 woman, and I am in love with her. She is a dress- 
 maker. " 
 
 " Oh !" 
 
 "And a lady." 
 
 Lord Jocelyn said nothing. 
 
 "A lady." Harry repeated the words, to show that 
 he knew wdiat he was saj^ing. " But it is no use. She 
 won't listen to me." 
 
 " That is more remarkable than your two last state- 
 ments. Many men have fallen in love w4th dress- 
 makers, some dressmakers have acquired partiall}^ the 
 manners of a lad}- ; but that any dressmaker should re- 
 fuse the honorable attentions of a handsome j^oung fel- 
 low like 3'ou, and a gentleman, is inconceivable." 
 
 " A cabinet-maker, not a gentleman. But do not let 
 us talk of her, if you please." 
 
 Then Lord Jocelyn proceeded, with such eloquence 
 as was at his command, to draw a picture of what he 
 was throwing away compared with what he was ac- 
 cepting. There was a universal feeling, he assured 
 his ward, of sj' mpathy with him : everybody felt that 
 it was rough on such a man as himself to find that he 
 was not of illustrious descent; he would take his old 
 place in society ; all his old friends would welcome him 
 
ALL SOm\^ AXD CONDITIONS OF MEN. 181 
 
 back among tliem, with much more to the same pur- 
 pose. 
 
 It was four o'clock in the morning when their con- 
 versation ended and Lord Jocelyn went to bed sorrow- 
 ful, promising to renew his arguments in the morning. ' 
 As soon as he was gone, Harr}' went to his own room^ 
 and put together a few little trifles belonging to the past! 
 which he thought he should like. Then he wrote a let- 
 ter of farewell to his guardian, promising to report him- 
 self from time to time, with a few words of gratitude 
 and affection. And then he stole quietly down the 
 stairs and found himself in the open street. Like a 
 school-boy, he had run away. 
 
 There was nobody left in "^the streets. Half -past four 
 in the morning is almost the quietest time of any ; even 
 the burglar has gone home, and it is too early for any- 
 thing but the market-garden carts on their way to 
 Covent Garden. He strode down Piccadilly and across 
 the silent Leicester Square into the Strand. He passed 
 through that remarkable thoroughfare, and, by way of 
 Fleet Street, where even the newspaper ofBces were"^ de- 
 serted, the leader-writers and the editor and the sub- 
 editors all gone home to bed, to St. Paul's. It was 
 then a little after five, and there was alreadv a stir. 
 An occasional footfall along the principal streets. By 
 the time he got to the Whitechapel Road there were a 
 good many up and about, and before he reached Step- 
 ney Green the day's work was beginning. The night 
 had gone and the sun was rising, for it was six o'clock 
 and a cloudless morning. At ten he presented himself 
 once more at the accountant's office. 
 
 "Well?" asked the chief. 
 
 "I am come," said Harry, "to accept Miss Messen- 
 ger's offer. " 
 
 " You seem pretty independent. However, that is the 
 way with 3'ou working-men nowada3-s. I suppose you 
 don't even pretend to feel any gratitude?" 
 
 "I don't pretend," said Harry pretty hotlv, "to an- 
 swer questions outside the work I have to do." 
 
 The chief looked at him as if he could, if he wished, 
 and was not a Christian, annihilate him. 
 
 "Go, young man," he said presenth', pointing to the 
 door, " go to your work. Rudeness^ to his betters a 
 
183 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 working-man considers due to himself, I suppose. Go 
 to 3"our work." 
 
 Harry obeyed without a word, being in such a rage 
 that he could not speak. When he reached his work- 
 shop, he found waiting to be mended an office-stool 
 with a broken leg. I regret to report that this unhappy 
 stool immediately became a stool with four broken legs 
 and a kicked-oLit seat. 
 
 Harry was for the moment too strong for the furni- 
 ture. 
 
 Not even the thought of Miss Kennedy's approbation 
 could bring him comfort. He was an artisan, he 
 worked by the piece — that was nothing. The galling 
 thing was to realize that he must now behave to certain 
 classes with a semblance of respect, because now he had 
 his "betters." 
 
 The day before he was a gentleman who had no " bet- 
 ters." He was enriched by this addition to his posses- 
 sions, and yet he was not grateful. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 THE PALACE OF DELIGHT. 
 
 There lies on the west and southwest of Stepney 
 Green a triangular district, consisting of an irregular 
 four-sided figure — what Euclid beautifully calls a trape- 
 zium — formed by the Whitechapel Road, the Commer- 
 cial Road, Stepney Green, and High Street, or Jamaica 
 Street, or Jubilee Street, whichever you please to call 
 your frontier. This favored spot exhibits in perfection 
 all the leading features which characterize the great 
 Joyless Cit3^ It is, in fact, the heart of the East End. 
 Its streets are mean and without individualit}^ or beau- 
 ty; at no season and under no conditions can the}^ ever 
 be picturesque; one can tell, without inquiring, that 
 the lives led in those houses are all after the same mod- 
 el, and that the inhabitants have no pleasures. Every- 
 thing that goes to make a city, except the means of 
 amusement, is to be found here. There are churches 
 and chapels — do not the blackened riiins of Whitechapel 
 Church stand here? There are superior " seminaries" 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 1S3 
 
 and "academies," names which linger here to show 
 where the yearning after the genteel survives; there is 
 a board school, there is the great London Hospital, 
 there are almshouses, there are even squares in it — 
 Sidney Squai-e and Bedford Square, to wit — but there 
 are no gardens, avenues, theatres, art galleries, libra- 
 ries, or any kind of amusement whatever. 
 
 The leading thoroughfare of this quarter is named 
 Oxford Street, which runs nearly all the wa}'' from the 
 New Road to Stepney Church. It begins well with 
 some breadth, a church and a few trees on one side, and 
 almshouses with a few trees on the other. This prom- 
 ise is not kept; it immediatel}^ narrows and becomes 
 like the streets which branch out of it, a double row of 
 little two-storied hovises, all alike. Apparenth", they 
 are all furnished alike ; in each ground-floor front there 
 are the red curtains and the white blind of respectabil- 
 ity, with the little table bearing something, either a 
 basket of artificial flowers, or a big Bible or a vase, or 
 a case of stuffed birds from foreign parts, to mark the 
 gentility of the family. A little farther on, the houses 
 begin to have small balconies on the first floor, and are 
 even more genteel. The streets which run off north and 
 south are like unto it but meaner. Now, the really sad 
 thing about this district is that the residents are not 
 the starving class, or the vicious class, or the drinking 
 class; they are well-to-do and thriA'ing people, yet they 
 desire no happiness, they do not feel the lack of joy, 
 they live in meanness and are content therewith. So 
 that it is emphaticall}' a representative quarter and a tj'pe 
 of the East End generall}', which is for the most part 
 respectable and whollj^ dull, and perfectly contented 
 never to know what pleasant strolling and resting- 
 places, what delightful interests, what varied occupa- 
 tion, what sweet diversions there are in life. 
 
 As for the people, the}' follow a great variety of 
 trades. There are " travelling drapers" in abundance ; 
 it is, in fact, the chosen quartier of that romantic fol- 
 lowing; there are a good many stevedores, which be- 
 trays the neighborhood of docks; there are some who 
 follow the mysterious calling of herbalist, and I believe 
 you could here still buy the materials for those now for- 
 gotten delicacies, saloop and tansy pudding. You can 
 
184 ALL SORTS AXD CONDITIOXS OF MEN. 
 
 at least purchase medicines for any disease under the 
 sun if you know the right herbalist to go to. One of 
 them is a medium as well ; and if you call on him, 
 you may be entertained by the artless prattle of the 
 " sperruts, " of whom he knows one or two. They call 
 themselves all sorts of names — such as Peter, Paul, 
 Shakespeare, Napoleon, and Byron — but in reality there 
 are only two of them, and they are bad actors. Then 
 there are cork-cutters, " wine merchants' engineers" — it 
 seems rather a grand thing for a wine merchant, above 
 all other men, to want an engineer; novelists do not 
 want engineers — sealing-wax manufacturers, workers 
 in shellac and zinc, sign-painters, heraldic painters, 
 coopers, makers of combs, iron hoops, and sun-blinds, 
 powterers, feather- makers — they only pretend to make 
 feathers; what they really do is to buy them, or pluck 
 the birds, and then arrange the feathers and trim them ; 
 but they do not really make them — ship-modelers, a 
 small but haughty race ; mat-dealers, who never pass a 
 prison without using bad language, for reasons which 
 many who have enjoyed the comforts of a prison will 
 doubtless understand. There are also a large quantity 
 of people w^ho call themselves teachers of music. This 
 may be taken as mere pride and ostentatious pretence, 
 because no one wants to learn music in this country, no 
 one ever plays any music, no one has a desire to hear 
 any. If any one called and asked for terms of tuition, 
 he would be courteously invited to go awa}-, or the pro- 
 fessor would be engaged, or ho would be out of town. 
 In the same way, a late learned professor of Arabic in 
 the University of Cambridge was reported always to 
 have important business in the country if an Arab came 
 to visit the colleges. But what a lift above the steve- 
 dores, pewterers, and feather pretenders to be a pro- 
 fessor of music I 
 
 Angela would plant her Palace in this region, the 
 most fitting place, because the most dreary; because 
 here there exists nothing, absolutely nothing, for the 
 imagination to feed upon. It is, in fact, though this is 
 not generally known, the purgatory prepared for those 
 who have given themselves up too much to the enjo}''- 
 ment of roses and rapture while living at the West End. 
 How beautiful are all the desigi:is of Nature 1 Could 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 185 
 
 there be, anywhere in the world, a more fitting place 
 for such a purgator}^ than such a city? Besides, once 
 one understands the thing, one is further enabled to ex- 
 plain why these grim and sombre streets remain with- 
 out improvement. To beautify them would seem, in 
 the eyes of pious and religious people, almost flj'ing in 
 the face of Providence. And yet, not really so ; for it 
 may be argued that there are other places also fitted for 
 the punishment of these purgatorial souls — for instance, 
 Hoxton, Bethnal Green, Battersea, and the Isle of 
 Dogs. 
 
 Angela resolved, therefore, that on this spot the Pal- 
 ace of Joy should stand. There should be, for all who 
 chose to accept it, a general and standing invitation to 
 accept happiness and create new fonns of delight. She 
 would awaken in dull and lethargic brains a new sense, 
 the new sense of pleasure; she would give them a crav- 
 ing for things of which as yet they knew nothing. She 
 would place within their reach, at no cost whatever, 
 absolutely free for all, the same enjoyments as are pur- 
 chased by the rich. A beautiful dream ! They should 
 cultivate a noble discontent; they should gradually 
 learn to be critical ; they should import into their own 
 homes the spirit of discontent; they should cease to look 
 upon life as a daily uprising and a down-sitting, a daily 
 mechanical toil, a daily rest. To cultivate the sense of 
 pleasure is to civilize. With the majorit}^ of mankind 
 the sense is undeveloped, and is chiefl}* confined to eat- 
 ing and drinking. To teach the people how the capac- 
 ity of delight may be widened, how it may be taught 
 to throw out branches in all manner of unsuspected di- 
 rections, was Angela's ambition. A very beautiful 
 dream ! 
 
 She owned so many houses in this district that it was 
 quite easy to find a place suitable for her purpose. She 
 discovered upon the map of her property a whole four- 
 square block of small houses, all her own, bounded 
 north, south, east, and west by streets of other small 
 houses, similar and similarly situated. This site was 
 about five minutes west of Stepney Green, and in the 
 district already described. The houses were occupied 
 by weekly tenants, who would find no difficulty in getting 
 quarters as eligible elsewhere. Some of them were in 
 
186 ALL SORTS AAD CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 bad repair; and what with maintenance of roofs and 
 chimneys, bad debts, midnight fiittings, and other 
 causes, there was little or no income derived from these 
 houses. Mr. Messenger, indeed, who was a hard man, 
 but not unjust, onl}^ kept them to save them from the 
 small owner like Mr. Bunker, whose necessities and 
 greed made him a rack-rent landlord. 
 
 Having fixed upon her site, Angela next proceeded 
 to have interviews — but not on the spot, where she 
 might be recognized — with lawyers and architects, and 
 to unfold partiall}' her design. The area on which the 
 houses stood formed a pretty large plot of ground, ample 
 for her purpose, provided that the most was made of 
 the space and nothing wasted. But a great deal was 
 required ; therefore she would have no lordly staircases 
 covering half the ground, nor great ante-rooms, nor 
 handsome lobbies. Everything, she caref ull}' explained, 
 was to be constructed for use and not for show. She 
 wanted, to begin with, three large halls : one of them 
 was to be a dancing-room, but it might also be a chil- 
 dren's play-room for wet weather; one was to be used 
 for a permanent exhibition of native talent, in paint- 
 ing, drawing, wood and ivory-carving, sculpture, leather- 
 work, and the like, everything being for sale at low 
 prices; the last was to be a library, reading and writ- 
 ing room. There was also to be a theatre, which wouFd 
 serve as a concert and music room, and was to have an 
 organ in it. In addition to these there were to be a 
 great number of class-rooms for the various arts, ac- 
 complishments, and graces that were to be taught by 
 competent professors and lecturers. There were to be 
 other rooms where tired people might find rest, quiet, 
 and talk — the women with tea and work, the men with 
 tobacco. And there were to be billiard-rooms, a tennis- 
 court, a racket-court, a fives-court, and a card-room. 
 In fact, there was to be space found for almost every 
 kind of recreation. 
 
 She did not explain to her architect how she proposed 
 to use this magnificent place of entertainment; it was 
 enough that he should design it and carry out her ideas; 
 and she stipulated that no curious inquirers on the spot 
 should be told for what purpose the building was des- 
 tined, nor who was the builder. 
 
ALL SORTS AND COXDITIOXS OF iMEX. 187 
 
 One cannot get designs for a palace in a week : it was 
 already late in the autumn, after Harry had taken up 
 his appointment, and was busy among the legs of stools, 
 that the houses began to be pulled down and the rem- 
 nants carted away. Angela pressed on the work ; but 
 it seemed a long and tedious delay before the founda- 
 tions were laid and the walls began slowly to rise. 
 
 There should have been a great function when the 
 foundation-stone was laid, with a procession of the 
 clergy in white surplices and college caps, perhaps a 
 bishop, Miss Messenger herself, with her friends, a lord 
 or two, the officers of the nearest Masonic Lodge, a few 
 Foresters, Odd Fellows, Buffaloes, Druids, and Shep- 
 herds, a flag, the charity children, a dozen policemen, 
 and Venetian masts, with a prayer, a hymn, a speech 
 and a breakfast — nothing short of this should have sat- 
 isfied the founder. Yet she let the opportunity slip, 
 and nothing was done at all ; the great building, des- 
 tined to change the character of the gloomy city into a 
 City of Sunshine, was begun with no pomp or outward 
 demonstration. Gangs of workmen cleared away the 
 ignoble bricks ; the little tenements vanished ; a broad 
 space bristling with little garden- walls gaped where 
 they had stood ; then the walls vanished ; and nothing 
 at all was left but holes where cellars had bee7i ; then 
 they raised a hoarding round the whole, and began to 
 dig out the foundation. After the hoarding was put 
 up, nothing more for a long time was visible. An- 
 gela used to prowl round it in the morning, when her 
 girls were all at work, but fearful lest the architect 
 might come and recognize her. 
 
 As she saw her palace begin to grow into existence, 
 she became anxious about its success. The first beati- 
 fic vision, the rapture of imagination, was over, and 
 would come no more; she had now to face the hard 
 fact of an unsympathetic people who perhaps would not 
 desire any pleasure — or if any, then the pleasure of a 
 "spree," with plenty of beer. How could the thing be 
 worked if the people themselves would not work it? 
 How many could she reckon upon as her friends? Per- 
 haps two "or three at most. Oh, the Herculean task, 
 for one woman, with two or three disciples, to revolu- 
 tionize the Citv of East London ! 
 
188 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIOyS OF MEN. 
 
 With this upon her mind, her conversations with 
 the intelhgent young cabinet- maker became more than 
 usually graA'e and earnest. He was himsc^lf more se- 
 rious than of old, because he now occupied so responsi- 
 ble a position in the brewery. Their relaticns remained 
 unchanged. They walked together, they talked and 
 they devised things in the drawing-room, and especiahy 
 for Saturday evenings. 
 
 " I think," he said, one evening when they were alone 
 except for Nelly in the drawing-room, " I think that 
 we should never think or talk of working-men in the 
 lump, any more than we think of rich men in a lump. 
 All sorts and conditions of men are pretty much alike, 
 and what moves one moves all. We are all tempted in 
 the same way; we can all be led in the same way." 
 
 " Yes, but I do not see how that fact helps." 
 
 They were talking, as Angela loved to do, of the 
 scheme of the palace. 
 
 "If the palace were built, we should offer the people 
 of Stepney, without prejudice to Whitechapel, Mile End 
 Bow, or even Cable Street, a great many things which 
 at present they cannot get and do not desire. Yet they 
 have always proved extremely attractive. We offer 
 the society of the young for the young, with dancing, 
 singing, music, acting, entertainments — everj^thing ex- 
 cept, which is an enormous exception, feasting; we offer 
 them all for nothing ; we tell them, in fact, to do every- 
 thing for themselves; to be the actors, singers, dancers, 
 and musicians." 
 
 "And they cannot do anj^thing." 
 
 "A few can; the rest will come in. You forget, 
 Miss Kennedy, the honor and glory of acting, singing, 
 and performing in public. Can there be a greater re- 
 ward than the applause of one's friends?" 
 
 " It could never be so nice," said Nelly, "to dance in 
 a great hall among a lot of people as to dance up here, 
 all b}^ ourselves." 
 
 The palace was not, in these days, very greatly in 
 the young man's mind. He was occupied with other 
 things : his own work and position ; the wisdom of his 
 choice; the prospects of the future. For surely, if he 
 had exchanged the old life and got nothing in return 
 but work at a lathe all day at tenpence an hour, the 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF 3IEN. 189 
 
 change was a bad one. Nothing more liad been said to 
 him by Miss Kennedy about the great things he was to 
 do, with her, for her, among his people. \Vas he, then, 
 supposed to find out for himself these great things y And 
 he made no more way with his wooing. That was 
 stopped, apparently, altogether. 
 
 Always kind to him ; always well pleased to see him ; 
 always receiving him witli the same sweet and gracious 
 smile ; always frank and open with him ; but nothing 
 more. 
 
 Of late he had observed that her mind was greatly 
 occupied ; she was brooding over something ; he feared 
 that it might be something to do with the Associated 
 Dressmakers' financial position. She did not commu- 
 nicate her anxieties to him, but always, when they were 
 alone, wanted to go back to their vision of the palace. 
 Harry possessed a ready sympathy; he fell easily and 
 at once into the direction suggested by another's words. 
 Therefore, when Angela talked about the palace, he too 
 took up the thread of invention, and made believe with 
 her as if it were a thing possible, a thing of brick and 
 mortar. 
 
 "I see," he went on this evening, warming to the 
 work, " I see the opening day, long announced, of the 
 palace. The halls are furnished and lit up; the danc- 
 ing-room is ready; the theatre is completed, and the 
 electric lights are lit ; the concert- rooms are ready with 
 their music-stands and their seats. The doors are open. 
 Then a wonderful thing happens." 
 
 " What is that?" asked Angela. 
 
 " Nobody comes. " 
 
 " Oh !" 
 
 " The vast chambers echo with the footsteps of your- 
 self. Miss Kennedy, and of Nelly, who makes no more 
 noise than a demure kitten. Captain Sorensen and I 
 make as much trampling as we can, to produce the 
 effect of a crowd. But it hardly seems to succeed. 
 Then come the girls, and we try to "get up a dance; but, 
 as Nelly says, it is not quite the same as your drawing- 
 room.^ Presently two men, with pipes in their mouths, 
 come in and look about them. I explain that the stage 
 is ready for them, if they like to act; or the concert- 
 room, if they will sing; or the dancing-room, should 
 
190 ALL SORTS AND COXDITIOXS CF MEN. 
 
 they wish to shake a leg. They stare and thej" go away. 
 Then we shut up the doors and go away and cry." 
 
 " O Mr. Goslett, have you no other comfort for me?" 
 
 " Plenty of comfort. While we are all crjing, some- 
 body has a happy thought. I think it is Nelly." 
 
 She blushed a pretty rosy red. " I am sure I could 
 never suggest an3'thing." 
 
 " Nelly suggests that we shall offer prizes, a quantity 
 of prizes, for competition in ever^^thing, the audience 
 or the spectators to be judges ; and then the palace will 
 be filled and the universal reign of joy will begin." 
 
 "Can we afford prizes?" asked Angela the practical. 
 
 "Miss Kennedy," said Harry severel}', "permit me 
 to remind you that, in carrjing out this project, mone}", 
 for the first time in the world's history, is to be of no 
 value." 
 
 If Newnham does not teach women to originate — 
 which a thousand Newjihams will never do — it teaches 
 them to catch at an idea and develop it. The young 
 workman suggested her palace; but his first rough idea 
 was a poor thing compared with Angela's finished 
 structure — a wigwam beside a castle, a tabernacle be- 
 side a cathedral. Angela was devising an experiment, 
 the like of which has never yet been tried upon restless 
 and dissatisfied mankind. She was going, in short, to 
 say to them : " Life is full, crammed full, overflowing 
 with all kinds of delights. It is a mistake to suppose 
 that only rich people can enjoy these things. They 
 may buy them, but everybody may create them ; they 
 cost nothing. You shall learn music, and forthwith 
 all the world will be transformed for you; you shall 
 learn to paint, to carve, to model, to design, and the 
 da}^ shall be too short to contain the happiness you will 
 get out of it. You shall learn to dance, and know the 
 rapture of the waltz. You shall learn the great art of 
 acting, and give each other the pleasure which rich 
 men buy. You shall even learn the great art of v/rit- 
 ing, and learn the magic of a charmed phrase. All 
 these things which make the life of rich people happy 
 shall be j^ours ; and they sliall cost you nothing. AVhat 
 the heart of man can desire shall be yours, and for 
 nothing. I will give you a house to shelter you, and 
 rooms in which to play; you have only to find the rest. 
 
ALL SORTS AXD COXDITIONS OF MEN. 191 
 
 Enter in, my friends ; forget the squalid past ; here are 
 great halls and lovely corridors — they are yours. Fill 
 them with sweet echoes of dropping music; let the 
 walls be covered with your works of art ; let the girls 
 laugh and the boys be happy within these walls. I 
 give j'ou the shell, the empty carcass; fill it with the 
 spirit of content and luippiness." 
 
 '' Would the}^ to begin with,- "behave according"? It 
 was easy to bring together half a dozen dressmakers : 
 girls always like behaving nicely; would the young 
 men be equally amenable? And would the policeman 
 be inevitable, as in the corridors of a theatre? The po- 
 lice, however, would have to be voluntary, like every 
 other part of the institution, and the guardians of the 
 peace must, like the performers in the entertainments, 
 give their services for nothing. For which end, Harry 
 suggested, it would be highly proper to have a pro- 
 fessor of the noble art of self-defence, with others of 
 fencing, single-stick, quarter-staff, and other kindred 
 objects. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 DICK THE RADICAL. 
 
 In the early days of winter, the walls of the palace 
 being now already well above the hoarding, Angela 
 made another important convert. This was no other 
 than Dick Coppin, the cousin of whom mention has 
 been already made. 
 
 " I Avill bring him to 3'our drawing-room, " said Har- 
 ry. " That is, if he will come. He does not know 
 much about drawing-rooms, but he is a great man at 
 the Stepney Advanced Club. He is a reddest of red- 
 hot Rads, and the most advanced of Republicans. I do 
 not think he would himself go a-miu'dering of kings 
 and priests, but I fancy he regards these things as ac- 
 cidents naturally rising out of a pardonable enthusiasm. 
 His manners are better than j'ou will generally find, 
 because he belongs to my own gentle craft. You shall 
 tame him. Miss Kennedy." 
 
 Angela said she would try. 
 
 "He shall learn to waltz," Harry went on. "This 
 
192 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 will convert him from a fierce Republican to a merely 
 enthusiastic Radical. Then he shall learn to sing in 
 parts; this Avill drop him down into advanced Liberal- 
 ism. And if you can persuade him to attend your 
 evenings, talk with the girls, or engage in some art, 
 say painting, he will become, quite naturally, a mere 
 Conservative." 
 
 With some difficulty Harry persuaded his cousin to 
 come with him. Dick Coppin was not, he said of him- 
 self, a dangler after girls' apron-strings, having some- 
 thing else to think of; nor was he attracted by the 
 promise, held out by his cousin, of music and singing. 
 But he came mider protest, because music seemed to 
 him an idle thing while the House of Lords remained 
 undestroyed, and because this cousin of his could some- 
 how make him do pretty nearly what he pleased. 
 
 He was a man of Harry's own age; a short man, 
 with somewhat rough and rugged features — strong, 
 and not without the beauty of strength. His forehead 
 was broad; he had thick eyebrows, the thick lips of 
 one who speaks much in public, and a straight chin — 
 the chin of obstinac}'. His eyes were bright and full ; 
 his hair was black; his face was oval; his expression 
 was masterful ; it was altogether the face of a man who 
 interested one. Angela thought of his brother, the 
 captain in the Salvation Army ; this man, she felt, had 
 all the courage of the other, with more common-sense; 
 j^et one who, too, might become a fanatic — who might 
 be dangerous if he took the wrong side. She shook 
 hands with him and welcomed him. Then she said 
 that she wanted dancing men for her evenings, and 
 hoped that he could dance. It was the first time in his 
 life that Mr. Coppin had been asked that question, and 
 also the first time that he had thought it possible that 
 any man in his senses, except a sailor, should be ex- 
 pected to dance. Of course he could not, and said so 
 bluntly, sticking his thumbs in his waistcoat pockets, 
 which is a gesture peculiar to the trade, if you care to 
 notice so small a fact. 
 
 "Your cousin," said Angela, "will teach you. Mr. 
 Goslett, please give Mr. Coppin a lesson in a quadrille. 
 Nelly, you will be his partner. Now, if you will make 
 up the set, I will play." 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 193 
 
 An elderly bishop of Calvinistic principles could not 
 have been more astonished than was this j^onng work- 
 man. He had not the presence of mind to refuse. Be- 
 fore he realized his position, he was standing beside 
 his partner : in front of him stood his cousin, also with 
 a partner ; four girls made up the set. Then the music 
 began, and he was dragged, pushed, hustled, and pulled 
 this way and that. He would have resented this treat- 
 ment but that the girls took such pains to set him right, 
 and evidently regarded the lesson as one of the greatest 
 importance. Nor did they cease until he had discerned 
 what the mathematician called the Law of the Quad- 
 rille, and could tread the measure with some approach 
 to accuracy. 
 
 "We shall not be satisfied, Mr. Coppin," said An- 
 gela, when the quadrille was finished, " until we have 
 taught everybody to dance." 
 
 " What is the good of dancing?" he asked good- 
 humoredl}', but a good deal humiliated b}^ the struggle. 
 
 "Dancing is graceful; dancing is a good exercise; 
 dancing should be natural to young people ; dancing is 
 delightful. See — I will play a waltz; now watch the 
 girls." 
 
 She played. Instantly the girls caught each other b}'' 
 the waist and whirled round the room with brightened 
 e3'es and parted lips. Harry took Nelly in the close 
 embrace which accompanies the German dance, and 
 swiftly, easily, gracefully, danced round and round the 
 room. 
 
 " Is it not happiness that you are witnessing, Mr. 
 Coppin?" asked Angela. "Tell me, did you ever see 
 dressmakers happy before? You, too, shall learn to 
 waltz. I will teach you, but not to-night." 
 
 Then they left off dancing and sat down, talking and 
 laughing. Harry took his violin and discoursed sweet 
 music, to which they listened or not as they listed. 
 Only the girl who was lame looked on with rapt and 
 eager face. 
 
 " See her !" said Angela, pointing her out. " She has 
 found what her soul was ignorautly desiring. She 
 has found music. Tell me, Mr. Coppin, if it were 
 not for the music and this room, what would that poor 
 child be?" 
 13 
 
194 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 He made no reply. Never before had he witnessed, 
 never had he suspected, such an evening. There were 
 the girls whom he despised, who laugTied and jested 
 with the lads in the street, who talked loud and were 
 foolish. Why, they were changed ! What did it mean? 
 And who was this young woman, who looked and 
 spoke as no other woman he had ever met, yet was only 
 a dressmaker? 
 
 "I have heard of you, Mr. Coppin," this young per- 
 son said, in her queen-like manner, " and I am glad that 
 you have come. We shall expect you, now, every Sat- 
 urday evening. I hear that you are a political stu- 
 dent." 
 
 "I am a Republican," he replied. "That's about 
 what I am. " Again he stuck his thumbs into his waist- 
 coat pockets. 
 
 " Yes. You do not perhaps quite understand -what 
 it is that we are doing here, do you? In a small way 
 — it is quite a little thing — it may interest even a polit- 
 ical student like yourself. The interests of milliners 
 and dressmakers are very small compared with the 
 House of Lords. Still — your sisters and cousins " 
 
 " It seems pleasant," he replied, " if you don't all get 
 set up with high notions. As for me, I am for root- 
 and-branch Reform." 
 
 " Yes : but all improvement in government means 
 improvement of the people, does it not? Else, I see no 
 reason for trying to improve a government." 
 
 He made no repl3\ He was so much accustomed to 
 the vague denunciations and cheap rhetoric of his 
 class that a small practical point Avas strange to him. 
 
 " Now, " said Angela, " I asked your cousin to bring 
 you here, because I learn that you are a man of great 
 mental activity, and likely, if j'ou are properly directed, 
 to be of great use to us." 
 
 He stared again. Who was this dressmaker who 
 spoke about directing him? The same uncomfortable 
 feeling came over him — a cold doubt about himself, 
 which he often felt when in the society of his cousin. 
 No man likes to feel that he is not perfectly and en- 
 tirely right, and that he must be right. 
 
 " We are a society," she went on, "of girls who want 
 to work for ourselves ; we all of us belong to your class : 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 195 
 
 we therefore look to 3^011 for sympathy and assistance. 
 Yet u hold aloof from ns. We have had some sup- 
 port nere already, but none from the people who ought 
 most to sympathize with us. That is, I suppose, because 
 you know nothing about us. Very well, then. While 
 your cousin is amusing those girls, I will tell you about 
 our association." 
 
 " Now you understand, Mr. Coppin. You men have 
 long since organized yourselves — it is our turn now; 
 and we look to you for help. We are not going to work 
 any longer for a master : we are not going to work long 
 hours any longer ; and we are going to get time every 
 day for fresh air, exercise, and amusement. You are 
 continually occupied, I believe, at your club, denounc- 
 ing the ])leasures of the rich. But we are actually go- 
 ing to enjoy all those pleasures ourselves, and they will 
 cost us nothing. Look round this room — we have a 
 piano lent to us : there is your cousin with his fiddle, 
 and Captain Sorensen with his ; we are learning part- 
 songs, which cost us three-halfpence each; we dance; 
 we play; we read — a subscription to Smith's is only 
 three guineas a year ; we have games which are cheap : 
 the whole expense of our evenings is the fire in winter 
 and the gas. On Saturday evenings we have some cake 
 and lemonade, which one of the girls makes for us. 
 What can rich people have more than society, lights, 
 music, singing, and dancing?" 
 
 He was silent, wondering at this thing. 
 
 "Don't you see, Mr. Coppin, that if we are success- 
 ful we shall be the cause of many more such associa- 
 tions? Don't you see, that if wo could get our principle 
 established, we should accomplish a greater revolution 
 than the overthrow of the Lords and the Church, and 
 one far more beneficial?" 
 
 "You can't succeed," he said. " It's been tried be- 
 fore." 
 
 " Yes — b}' men : I know it. And it has always broken 
 down because the leaders were false to their principles 
 and betrayed the cause." 
 
 " Where are the girls to get the money to start with?" 
 
 " We are fortunate," Angela replied. " We have this 
 
196 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 house and furniture given to us by a lady interested in 
 us. That, I own, is a great thing. But other rich peo- 
 ple will be found to do as much. Why, how much bet- 
 ter it is than leaving money to hospitals !" 
 
 " Rich people !" he echoed with contempt. 
 
 " Yes : rich people, of whom you know so little, Mr. 
 Coppin, that I think you ought to be very careful how 
 you speak of them. But think of us — look at the girls. 
 Do they not look happier than they used to look?" 
 
 He replied untruthfulh^ because he w^as not going to 
 give in to a woman, all of a sudden, that he did not re-» 
 member how they used to look, but that undoubtedly 
 they now looked very well. He did not say — which he 
 felt — that they were behaving more quietly and mod- 
 estly than he had ever known them to behave. 
 
 "You," Angela weut on, with a little emphasis on 
 the pronoun, which made her speech a delicate tlattery — • 
 "you, Mr. Coppin, cannot fail to observe how the 
 evening's relaxation helps to raise the whole tone of the 
 girls. The music which they hear sinks into their 
 hearts and lifts them above the little cares of their lives ; 
 the dancing makes them merry; the social life, the talk 
 among ourselves, the books they read, all help to main- 
 tain a pure and elevated tone of thought. I declare, 
 Mr. Coppin, I no longer know these girls. And then 
 they bring their friends, and so their influence spreads. 
 They will not, I hope, remain in the workrooms all 
 their lives. A woman should be married ; do not you 
 think so, Mr. Coppin?" 
 
 He was too much astonished at the whole conversa- 
 tion to make any coherent reply. 
 
 " I think you have perhaps turned your attention too 
 much to politics, have you not? Yet practical ques- 
 tions ought to interest you." 
 
 "They say, at the club," he answered, "that this 
 place is a sham and a humbug." 
 
 " Will you bring your friends here to show them that 
 it is not?" 
 
 " Harry stood up for you the other night. He's 
 plucky, and they like him for all he looks a swell." 
 
 " Does he speak at your club?" 
 
 " Sometimes — not to say speak. He gets up after the 
 speech, and says so and so is wrong. Yet they like 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN 197 
 
 him — because he isn't afraid to say what ho thinks. 
 They call him Gentleman Jack." 
 
 " 1 thought he was a brave man," said Angela, look- 
 ing at Harry, who was rehearsing some story to the 
 delight of Nelly and the girls. 
 
 " Yes — the other night they were talking about 3'ou, 
 and one said one thing and one said another, and a 
 chap said he thought he'd seen you in a West End 
 music-hall, and he didn't believe j^ou were any better 
 than you should be." 
 
 " Oh !" She shrank as if she had been struck some 
 blow. 
 
 " He didn't say it twice. After he'd knocked him 
 down, Harry invited that chap to stand up and have it 
 out. But he wouldn't." 
 
 It was a great misfortune for Harry that he lost the 
 soft and glowing look of gratitude and admiration 
 which was quite wasted upon him. For he was at the 
 very point, the critical point, of the story. 
 
 Angela had made another convert. When Dick Cop- 
 pin went home that night, he was humbled but pensive. 
 Here was a thing of which he had never thought ; and 
 here was a woman the like of whom he had never im- 
 agined. The House of Lords, the Church, the Land 
 Laws, presented no attraction that night for his 
 thoughts. For the first time in his life he felt the in- 
 fluence of a woman. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 DOWN ON THEIR LUCK. 
 
 Engaged in these pursuits, neither Angela nor Harry 
 paid much heed to the circle at the boarding-house, 
 where they were still nominally boarders. For Angela 
 was all day long at her association, and her general 
 assistant, or prime-minister, after a hasty breakfast, 
 hastened to his daily labor. He found that he was left 
 entirely to his own devices : work came in which he did 
 or left undone. Miss Messenger's instructions were faith- 
 fully carried out, and his independence was respected. 
 During work-time he planned amusements and sur- 
 prises for Miss Kennedy and her girls, or he meditated 
 
198 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 upon the Monoton}' of Man, a subject which I may pos- 
 sibly explain later ou; or when he knocked off, he would 
 go and see the drayman roll about the heavy casks as 
 if they w^ere footballs ; or he would watch the machin- 
 ery and look at the great brown mass of boiling hops, 
 or he would drop suddenl}" upon his cousin Josephus, 
 and observe him faithfully entering names, ticking off 
 and comparing, just as he had done for forty years, 
 still a junior clerk. But he gave no thought to the 
 boarders. 
 
 One evening, however, in late September, he hap- 
 pened to look in toward nine o'clock, the hour when the 
 frugal supper was generally spread. The usual occu- 
 pants of the room were there, but there was no supper 
 on the table, and the landlady was absent. 
 
 Harry stood in the doorway, with his hands in his 
 pockets, carelessly looking at the group. Suddenly he 
 became aware, with a curious sinking of heart, that 
 something was gone wrong with all of them. They 
 were all silent, all sitting bolt upright, no one taking 
 the least notice of his neighbor, and all apparently in 
 some physical pain. 
 
 The illustrious pair were in their usual places, but 
 his lordship, instead of looking sleepy and sleepily con- 
 tent, as was his custom at the evening hour, sat bolt 
 upright and thrummed the arm of his chair with his 
 fingers, restless and ill at ease; opposite to him sat his 
 consort, her hands tightly clasped, her bright beady 
 eyes gleaming with impatience, which might at any 
 moment break out into wrath. Yet the case was com- 
 pletely drawn up, as Harry knew, because he had fin- 
 ished it himself, and it only remained to make a clean 
 copy before it was " sent in" to the Lord Chancellor. 
 
 As for the professor, he was seated at the windoAv, 
 his legs curled under the chair, looking moodily across 
 Stepney Green — into space, and neglecting his experi- 
 ments. His generally cheerful face wore an anxious ex- 
 pression as if he was thinking of something unpleasant, 
 which would force itself upon his attention. 
 
 Josephus was in his corner, without his pipe, and 
 more than usually melancholy. His sadness always, 
 however, increased in the evening, so that he hardly 
 counted. 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 199 
 
 Daniel, frowning like a Rhine baron of the good old 
 time, had his books before him, but they were closed. 
 It was a bad sign that even the Version in the Hebrew 
 had no attraction for him. 
 
 Mr. Maliphant alone was smiling. His smiles, in 
 such an assemblage of melancholy faces, produced an 
 incongruous effect. The atmosphere was charged with 
 gloom — it was funereal : in the midst of it the gay and 
 cheerful countenance, albeit wrinkled, of the old man, 
 beamed like the sun imiDertinently shining amid fog 
 and rain, sleet and snow. The thing was absurd. 
 Harry felt the force of Miss Kennedy's remark that the 
 occupants of the room reminded her of a fortuitous con- 
 course of flies, or ants, or rooks, or people in an omni- 
 bus, each of whom was profoundly occupied with its 
 own affairs and careless of its neighbors. Out of six 
 in the room, five were unhappy : they did not ask for, 
 or expect, the sympathies of their neighbors; they did 
 not reveal their anxieties ; they sat and suffered in si- 
 lence ; the sixth alone was quite cheerful : it was noth- 
 ing to him Vv'hat experiences the rest were having, 
 whether they were enjoying the upper airs, or endur- 
 ing hardness. He sat in his own place near the pro- 
 fessor: he laughed aloud; he even talked and told 
 stories, to which no one listened. When Harry ap- 
 peared, he was just ending a story which he had never 
 begun : 
 
 '' So it was given to the other fellow. And he came 
 from Baxter Street, close to the City Hall, which is 
 generallv allowed to be the wickedest street in New 
 York City" 
 
 He paused a little, laughed cheerfully, rubbed his dry 
 old hands together, smoked his pipe in silence, and then 
 concluded his stor}^ having filled up the middle in his 
 own mind, without speech. 
 
 " And so he took to the coasting trade off the Andes." 
 
 Harry caught the eye of the professor, and beckoned 
 him to come outside. 
 
 "Now," he said, taking his arm, "what the devil is 
 the matter with all of j'ou?" 
 
 The professor smiled feebl}^ under the gas-lamp in 
 the street, and instantly relapsed into his anxious ex- 
 pression. 
 
200 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 " I suppose," he said, "that is, I guess, because they 
 haven't told me, that it's the same with them as with 
 me," 
 
 "And that is ?" 
 
 The professor slapped his empty pockets : 
 
 " Want of cash," he said. " I'm used to it in the au- 
 tumn, just before the engagements begin. Bless you! 
 It's nothing to me; though, when you've had no dinner 
 for a week, you do begin to feel as if you could murder 
 and roast a cat, if no one was looking. I've even be- 
 gun to wish that the Eighth Commandment was sus- 
 pended during the autumn." 
 
 " Do you mean, man, that you are all hungry?" 
 
 "All except old Maliphant, and he doesn't count. 
 Josephus had some dinner, but he says he can't afford 
 supper and dinner too at the rate his heels wear out. 
 Yes, I don't suppose there's been a dinner apiece among 
 us for the last week. " 
 
 "Good heavens!" Harry hurried off to find the 
 landlady. 
 
 She was in the kitchen sitting before the fire, though 
 it was a warm night. She looked up when her lodger 
 entered, and Harry observed that she, too, wore an air 
 of dejection. 
 
 "Well, Mrs. Bormalack." 
 
 She gToaned and wiped away a tear. 
 
 "My heart bleeds for them, Mr. Gcslett," she said. 
 "I can't bear to set eyes on them; I can't face them. 
 Because to do what I shovdd like to do for them, would 
 be nothing short of ruin. And how to send them away 
 I cannot tell." 
 
 He nodded his head encouragingly. 
 
 " You are a young man, Mr. Goslett, and you don't 
 consider — and you are thinking day and night of that 
 sweet young thing. Miss Kennedy. And she of you. 
 Oh ! you needn't blush ; a handsome fellow like you is 
 a i)rize for any woman, however good-looking. Be- 
 sides, I've got eyes." 
 
 " Still, that doesn't help us much to the point, Mrs. 
 Bormalack, which is, what can we do for them?" 
 
 " Oh, dear me! the poor things don't board and lodge 
 any more, Mr. Goslett. They've had no board to-day. 
 If I did what I should like to do — but I can't. There's 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDTTTOXS OF MEX. 201 
 
 the rent and rates and all. And how I can keep them 
 in the house, unless they pay their rent, I can't tell. 
 I've never been so miserable since Captain Saftrey went 
 away, owing for three months." 
 
 "' Not enough to eat?" 
 
 " Lady Davenant came to me this morning, and paid 
 the rent for this week, but not the board; said that her 
 nephew Nathaniel hadn't sent the six dollars, and they 
 could only have breakfast, and must find some cheap 
 place for dinner somewhere else. In the middle of the 
 day they went out. Her ladyship put quite a chirpy 
 face upon it ; said they were going into the citj^ to get 
 dinner, but his lordship groaned. Dinner! They came 
 home at two, and his groans have been heart-rending 
 all the afternoon. I never heard such groaning." 
 
 " Poor old man !" 
 
 " And there's the professor, too. It's low water with 
 him. No one wants conjuring till winter comes. But 
 he's quite used to go without his dinner. You needn't 
 mind him !" 
 
 "Eels," said Harry, "are used to being skinned. 
 Yet they wriggle a bit." 
 
 He produced a few coins and proffered a certain re- 
 quest to the landlady. Then he returned to his fellow- 
 lodgers. 
 
 Presently there was heard in the direction of the 
 kitchen a cheerful hissing, followed by a perfectly di- 
 vine fragrance. Daniel closed his eyes, and leaned 
 back in his chair. The professor smiled. His lordship 
 rolled in his chair and groaned. Presently Mrs. Bor- 
 malack appeared, and the cloth was laid. His lord- 
 ship showed signs of an increasing agitation. The 
 fragrance increased. He leaned forward clutching the 
 arm of his chair, looking to his wife as if for help and 
 guidance at this most difficult crisis. He was fright- 
 fully hungry; all his dinner had been a biscuit and a 
 half, his wife having taken the other half. What is a 
 biscuit and a half to one accustomed to the flesh-pots of 
 Canaan City? 
 
 "Clara Martha," he groaned, trN'ing to whisper, but 
 failing in his agitation, " I must have some of that 
 beefsteak or I shaU " 
 
 Here he relapsed into silence again. 
 
203 ALL SORTS AND COXDITIOXS OF MEN. 
 
 It was not from a desire to watch the sufferings of 
 the unlucky peer, or in order to laugh at them, that 
 Harry hesitated to invite him. Now, however, he hesi- 
 tated no longer. 
 
 " I am giving a little supper to-night. Lady Dave- 
 nant, to — to — celehrate my birthday. JMa}^ I hope that 
 you and his lordship will join us?" 
 
 Her ladyship most atl'ably accepted. 
 
 Weil, they were fed; they made up for the meagre- 
 ness of the midday meal by such a supper as should be 
 chronicled, so large, so generous was it. Such a su]:)per, 
 said the professor, as should carry a man along for a 
 week, were it not for the foolish habit of getting hun- 
 gry twice at least in the four-and-twenty hours. After 
 supper they all became cheerful, and presently went to 
 bed as happy as if there were no to-morrow, and the 
 next day's dinner was assured. 
 
 When the}'' were gone, Harry began to smoke his 
 evening pipe. Then he became aware of the presence 
 of the two who were left — his cousin Josephus and old 
 Mr. Maliphant. 
 
 The former was sitting in gloomy silence, and the 
 latter was making as if he would say something, but 
 thought better of it, and smiled instead. 
 
 "Josephus," said Harry, "what the devil makes you 
 so gloom}'? You can't be hungry still?" 
 
 ''^No, " lie replied. " It isn't that ; a junior clerk fifty- 
 five years old has no right to get hungry." 
 
 "What is it, then?" 
 
 " They talk of changes in the office, that is all. Some 
 of the juniors will be promoted ; not me, of course, and 
 some will have to go. After forty years in the brew- 
 ery, I shall have to go. That's all." 
 
 " Seems rough, doesn't it? Can't you borrow a hand- 
 ful of malt, and set up a little brewery for yourself?" 
 
 " It is only starvation. After all, it doesn't matter — 
 nobody cares what happens to a junior clerk. There 
 are plenty more. And the workhouse is said to be well 
 managed. Perhaps they will let me keep their ac- 
 counts. " 
 
 "When do you think — the — the reduction will be 
 made?" 
 
 "Next month, they say." 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIOXS OF MEX. 203 
 
 "Come, cheer up, old man," said his cousin, " Wh}-, 
 if they do turn you out — which would be a burning 
 shame — you can find something better." 
 
 " No," replied Josephus sadly, " I know my place. I 
 am a junior clerk. They can be got to do my work at 
 seven bob a week. Ah! in thousands." 
 
 "Well, but can't j'ou do anything else?" 
 
 "Nothing else," 
 
 " In all these years, man, have you learned nothing 
 at ah":'" 
 
 "Nothing at all." 
 
 Is there, thought Harry, gazing upon his luckless 
 cousin, a condition more miserable than that of the 
 cheap clerk? In early life ^le learns to spell, to read, 
 to write, and perhaps keep books, but this only if he is 
 ambitious. Here his education ends ; he has no desire 
 to learn anything more; he falls into whatever place he 
 can get, and then he begins a life in which there is no 
 hope of preferment and no endeavor after better things. 
 There are, in ever}" civilized countr}', thovisands and 
 thousands of these helpless and hopeless creatures : they 
 mostly suffer in silence, being at the best ill-fed and ill- 
 paid, but they sometimes utter a feeble moan, when 
 one of them can be found with vitality enough about 
 their pay and prospects. No one has yet told them tha 
 honest truth — that they are already paid as much as thoy 
 deserve; that their miserable accomplishments cannot 
 for a moment be compared with the skill of an artisan ; 
 that they are self-condemned because they make no 
 effort. They have not even the energy to make a 
 Union ; they have not the sense of self- protection ; they 
 are content if they are not hungry, if they have tobacco 
 to snioke and beer to drink. 
 
 " How long is it since you — did — whatever it was 
 you did, that kept you down?" asked the younger man, 
 at length. 
 
 "I did nothing. It was an accident. Unless," 
 added Josephus with a smile — " unless it was the devil. 
 But devils don't care to meddle with junior clerks." 
 
 "What was the accident, then?" 
 
 " It was one day in June ; I remember the day quite 
 well. I was alone in my office, the same office as I am 
 in still. The others, 3-ounger than myself, and I was 
 
204 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 then twenty-one, were gone off on business. The safe 
 stood close to my desk. There was a bundle of papers 
 in it sealed up, and marked 'Mr. Messenger, Private,' 
 which had been there a goodish while, so that I sup- 
 posed they were not important : some of the books were 
 there as well, and Mr. Messenger himself had sent 
 down, only an hour before . . . before ... It hap- 
 pened, a packet of notes to be paid into the bank. The 
 money had been brought in by our country collectors 
 — fourteen thousand pounds, in country bank-notes. 
 Now remember, I was sitting at the desk and the safe 
 was locked, and the keys were in the desk, and no one 
 was in the office except me. And I will swear that the 
 notes were in the safe. •! told Mr. Messenger that I 
 would take my oath to it, and I would still. " Josephus 
 grew almost animated as he approached the important 
 point in his histor3\ 
 
 " Well?" 
 
 " Things being so — remember, no one but me in the 
 office, and the keys " 
 
 " I remember. Get along." 
 
 " I was sent for. " 
 
 "By Mr. Messenger?" 
 
 " Mr. Messenger didn't send for junior clerks. He 
 used to send for the heads of departments, who sent 
 for the chief clerks, who ordered the juniors. That 
 was the way in those days. No, I was sent for to the 
 chief clerk's office and given a packet of letters for 
 copying. That took three minutes. When I came 
 back the office was still empty, the safe was locked, and 
 the keys in my desk." 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " Well — but the safe was empty !" 
 
 "What! all the money gone?" 
 
 "All gone, every farthing — with Mr. Messenger's 
 private papers." 
 
 " What a strange thing !" 
 
 " No one saw anybody going into the office or coming 
 out. Nothing else was taken." 
 
 " Come — with fourteen thousand pounds in his hand, 
 no reasonable thief would ask for more." 
 
 " And what is more extraordinary still, not one of 
 those notes has ever since been presented for payment." 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 205 
 
 "And then, I suppose, there was a row." 
 
 Josephus assented. 
 
 " First, I was to be sacked at once; then I was to be 
 watched and searched ; next, I was to be kept on until 
 the notes were presented and the thief caught. I have 
 been kept on, the notes have not been presented ; and 
 I've had the same pay, neither more nor less, all the 
 time. That's all the story. Now, there's to be an end 
 of that. I'm to be sent away." 
 
 Mr. Maliphant had not been listening to the story at 
 all, being pleasantly occupied with his own reminis- 
 cences. At this point one of them made him laugh and 
 rub his hands. 
 
 " When Mr. Messenger's father married Susannah 
 Coppiu, I have heard " 
 
 Here he stopped. 
 
 "Halloo!" cried Harry. " Go on, Venerable. Why, 
 we are cousins or nephews, or something, of Miss Mes- 
 senger. Josephus, my boy, cheer up !" 
 
 Mr. Maliphant's memory now jumped over two gen- 
 erations, and he went on : 
 
 " Caroline Coppin married a sergeant in the army, 
 and a handsome lad— I forget his name. But Mary 
 Coppin married Bunker. The Coppins were a good old 
 W^hitechapel stock, as good as the Messengers. As for 
 Bunker, he was an upstart, he was; and came from 
 Barking, as I always understood." 
 
 Then he was once more silent. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 LADY DAVENANT. 
 
 It was a frequent custom with Lady Davenant to sit 
 with the girls in the workroom in the morning. She 
 hked to have a place where she could talk; she took an 
 ex-professional interest in their occupation; she had 
 the eye of an artist for their interpretation of the fash- 
 ion. Moreover, it pleased her to be in the company of 
 Miss Kennedy, who was essentially a woman's woman. 
 Men who are so unhappy as to have married a man's 
 woman will understand perfectly what I mean. On 
 
206 ALL SORTS AND COXDITIOXS OF MEX. 
 
 the morning after Harry's most providential birthday, 
 therefore, when she ajjpeared no one was in the least 
 disturbed. But to-day she did not greet the girls with 
 her accustomed stately inclination of the head which 
 implied that, although now a peeress, she had been 
 brought up to their profession and in a republican 
 school of thought, and did not set herself up above her 
 neighbors. Yet respect to rank should be conceded, 
 and was expected. In general, too, she was talkative, 
 and enlivened the tedium of work with many an anec- 
 dote illustrating Canaan City and its ways, or showing 
 the lethargic manners of the Davenants, both her hus- 
 band and his, to say nothing of the grandfather, con- 
 tented with the lowly occupation of a wheelwright 
 while he might have soared to the British House of 
 Lords. This morning, however, she sat down and was 
 silent, and her head drooped. Angela, who sat next 
 her and watched, presently observed that a tear formed 
 in her eye, and dropped upon her work, and that her 
 lips moved as if she was holding a conversation with 
 herself. Thereupon she arose, put her hand ui3on the 
 poor lady's arm, and drew her away without a word to 
 the solitude of the dining-room, where her ladyship 
 gave way and burst into an agony of sobbing. 
 
 Angela stood before her, saying nothing. It was 
 best to let the fit have its way. When the crying was 
 nearly over, she laid her hand upon her hair and gently 
 smoothed it. 
 
 "Poor dear lady," she said, "will you tell me what 
 has happened?" 
 
 "Everything," she gasped. " Oh, everything ! The 
 six months are all gone, all but one. Nephew Nathan- 
 iel writes to say that, as we haven't even made a start 
 all this time, he reckons we don't count to make any; 
 and he's got children, and as for business, it's got down 
 to the hard pan, and dollars are skurce, and we may 
 come back again right away, and there's the money for 
 the voyage home whenever we like, but no more." 
 
 " Oh !" said Angela, beginning to understand. 
 "And . . . and your husband?" 
 
 " There's where the real trouble begins. I wouldn't 
 mind for myself, money or no money. I would write to 
 the Queen for money. I would go to the workhouse. 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 207 
 
 I would beg my bread in the street, but the case I 
 would uever give up — never — never — never." 
 
 She clasped her hands, dried her eyes, and sat bolt 
 upright, the picture of unyielding determination. 
 
 " And your husband is not, perhaps, so resolute as 
 yourself?" 
 
 " He says, 'Clara Martha, let us go hum. As for the 
 title, I would sell it to nephew Nathaniel, Avho's the 
 next heir, for a week of square meals ; he should have 
 the coronet, if I'd got it, for a month's certainty of 
 steaks and chops and huckleberry pie; and as for my 
 seat in the House of Lords, he should have it for our 
 old cottage in Canaan City, which is sold, and the 
 school which I have given up and lost. ' He says : 
 'Pack the box, Clara Martha — there isn't much to pack 
 — and we will go at once. If the American Minister 
 Avon't take up the case for us, I guess that the case 
 may slide till Nathaniel takes it up for himself.' That 
 is what he says, Miss Kennedy, Those were his words. 
 Oh ! Oh ! Oh ! Mr. Feeblemind ! Oh ! Mr. Facing- 
 Both-Ways !" 
 
 She wrung her hands in despair, for it seemed as if 
 her husband would be proof against even the scorn and 
 contempt of these epithets. 
 
 " But what do 3'ou mean to do?" 
 
 " I shall stay," she replied. "And so shall he, if my 
 name is Lady Davenant. Do 3'ou think I am going 
 ])ack to Canaan City to be scorned at by Aurelia 
 Tucker? Do you think I shall let that poor old man, 
 who has his good side. Miss Kennedy — and as for vir- 
 tue he is an angel, and he knows not the taste of to- 
 bacco or whiskey — face his nephew, and have to say 
 what good he has done with all those dollars? No, 
 here we stay." She snapped her lips, and made as if 
 she would take root upon that very chair. " Shall he 
 part with his birthright like Esau, because he is hun- 
 gry? Never! The curse of Esau would rest upon 
 us. 
 
 "He's at home now," she went on, "preparing for 
 another day without dinner; groans won't help him 
 now; and this time there will be no supper — unless Mr. 
 Goslett has another birthday." 
 
 " Wh\-i good gracious, you will be starved." 
 
208 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 " Better starve than to go home as we came. Be- 
 sides, I shall write to the Queen when there's nothing 
 left. When Nathaniel's money comes, which may be 
 to-morrow, and may be next month, I shall give a 
 month's rent to Mrs. Bormalack, and save the rest for 
 one meal a day. Yes, as long as the money lasts, he 
 shall eat meat — once a day — at noon. He's been pam- 
 pered, like all the Canaan City folk ; set up with turkey 
 roast and turkey boiled, and ducks and beef every day, 
 and buckwheat cakes and such. Oh ! a change of diet 
 would bring down his luxur}^ and increase his pride." 
 
 Angela thought that starvation was a new way of 
 developing pride of birth, but she did not say so. " Is 
 there no way, " she asked, " in which he can earn 
 money?" 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 " As a teacher he was generally allowed to be learned, 
 but sleepy. In our city, however, the boys and girls 
 didn't expect too much, and it's a sleepy place. In 
 winter they sit round the stove and they go to sleep; 
 in summer they sit in the shade and they go to sleep. 
 It's the sleepiest place in the States. No, there's no 
 kind o' way in which he can earn any mone}". And if 
 there were, did you ever hear of a British peer work- 
 ing for his daih^ bread?" 
 
 "But you. Lady Davenant? Surely your ladyship 
 would not mind — if the chance offered — if it were a 
 thing kept secret — if not even your husband knew — 
 would not object to earning something every week to 
 find that square meal which your husband so naturally 
 desires?" 
 
 Her ladyship held out her hands without a word. 
 
 Angela, in shameful contempt of political economy, 
 placed in them the work which she had in her own, 
 and whispered : 
 
 " You had better," she said, " take a week in advance. 
 Then you can arrange with Mrs. Bormalack for the 
 usual meals on the old terms ; and if you would rather 
 come here to work, you can have this room to yourself 
 all the morning. Thank you. Lady Davenant. The 
 obligation is entirely mine, you know. For, really, 
 more delicate work, more beautiful work, I never saw. 
 Do all American ladies work so beautifully?" 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 209 
 
 Hor ladyship, quite overcome with these honeyed 
 words, took the work and made no reply. 
 
 " Only one thing, dear Lady Davenant," Angela went 
 on, smiling: "you must promise me not to work too 
 hard. You know that such work as yours is worth at 
 least twice as much as mine. And then you can push 
 on the case, you know. " 
 
 The little lady rose, and threw her arms round An- 
 gela's neck. 
 
 "My dear!" she cried with more tears, "you are 
 everybody's friend. Oh! yes, I know. And how you 
 do it and all — I can't think, nor Mrs. Bormalack nei- 
 ther. But the da}' may come — it shall come — when we 
 can show our gratitude." 
 
 She retired, takmg the work with her. 
 
 Her husband was asleep as usual, for he had had 
 breakfast, and as yet the regidar pangs of noon were 
 not active. The case was not spread out l^efore him, 
 as was usual ever since Mr. Goslett had taken it in 
 hand. It was ostentatiously rolled up, and laid on the 
 table, as if packed ready for departure by the next mail. 
 
 His wife regarded him with a mixture of affection 
 and contempt. 
 
 "He would sell the crown of England," she mur- 
 mured, " for roast turkey and apple fixin's. The Dave- 
 nants couldn't have been always like that. It must be 
 his mother's blood. Yet she was a church-member, 
 and walked consistent." 
 
 She did not wake him up, but sought out Mrs. Bor- 
 malack, and presently there was a transfer of coins and 
 the Resurrection of Smiles and Dour Parler, that Fairy 
 of Sweet Speech, who covers and hides beneath the cold 
 wind of poverty. 
 
 "Tell me, Mr. Goslett," said Angela, that evening, 
 stih thinking over the sad lot of the claimants, " tell 
 me: you have examined the claim of these people — 
 what chance have they?" 
 
 " I should sfij none whatever." 
 
 "Then what makes them so confident of success?" 
 
 "Hush! listen. They are really confident. His 
 
 noble lordship perfectly understands the weakness of 
 
 his claim, which depends u])on a pure assumption, as 
 
 you shall hear. As for the little lady, his wife, she has 
 
 14 
 
310 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF .MEN. 
 
 long since jumped to the conclusion that the assumption 
 requires no proof. Therefore, save in moments of de- 
 jection, she is pretty confident. Then they are hope- 
 lessly ignorant of how they should proceed and of the 
 necessary delays, even if their case was unanswerable. 
 They thought they had only to cross the ocean and send 
 in a statement in order to get admitted to the rank and 
 privilege of the peerage. And I believe they tliink that 
 the Queen will, in some mysterious way, restore the 
 property to them." 
 
 " Poor things !" 
 
 " Yes, it's rather sad to think of such magnificent ex- 
 pectations. Besides, it really is a most beautiful case. 
 The last Lord Davonant had one son. That only son 
 grew up, had some quarrel with his father, and sailed 
 from the port of Bristol, bound for some American 
 port, I forget which. Neither he nor his ship was 
 ever heard of again. Therefore the title became ex- 
 tinct." 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " Very good. Now the story begins. His name was 
 Timothy Clitheroe Davenant, the name always given 
 to the eldest son of the family. Now, our friend's name 
 is Timothy Clitheroe Davenant, and so was bis father's, 
 and so was his grandfather's." 
 
 "That is very strange." 
 
 " It is very strange — what is stranger still is, that his 
 grandfather was born, according to the date on his 
 tomb, the same year as the lost heir, and at the same 
 place — Davenant, where was the family-seat." 
 
 " Can there have been two of the same name bom in 
 the same place and in the same 5'ear?" 
 
 " It seems improbable, almost impossible. Moreover, 
 the last lord had no brother, nor had his father, the sec- 
 ond lord. I found that out at the Heralds' College. 
 Consequently, even if there was another branch, and 
 the birth of two Timothys in the same year was cer- 
 tain, they would not get the title. So that their one 
 hope is to ba able to prove what they call the 'connec- 
 tion.' That is to say, the identity of the lost heir with 
 this wheelwright." 
 
 " That seems a very doubtful thing to do, after all 
 these 5'ears." 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 211 
 
 " It is absolutely impossible, unless some documents 
 are discovered which prove it. But nothing remains 
 of the wheelwright." 
 
 " No book? No papers?" 
 
 " Nothing, except a small book of songs, supposed to 
 be convivial, with his name on the inside cover, written 
 in a sprawling hand, and misspelt, with two v's — 'Dav- 
 venant,' and above the name, in the same hand, the 
 day of the week in which it was written, 'Satturday,' 
 with two t's. No Christian name." 
 
 " Does it not seem as if the absence of the Christian 
 name would point to the assumption of the title?" 
 
 "Yes: they do not know this, and I have not yet 
 told them. It is, however, a very small point, and 
 quite insufficient in itself to establish anything." 
 
 "Yes," Angela mused. She was thinking whether 
 something could not be done to help these poor people 
 and settle the case decisively for them one way or the 
 other. " What is to be the end of it?" 
 
 Harry shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 " Who knows how long they can go on? When there 
 are no more dollars, they must go home again. I hear 
 they have got another supply of money : Mrs. Borma- 
 lack has been paid for a fortnight in advance. After 
 that is gorfe — perhaps they had better go too." 
 
 "It seems a pity," said Angela, slightly reddening 
 at mention of the money, " that some researches could 
 not be made, so as to throw a little light upon this 
 strange coincidence of names." 
 
 "We should want to know first what to look for. 
 After that, we should have to find a man to conduct the 
 search. And then we should have to pay him." 
 
 "As for the man, there is the professor; as for the 
 place, first, there is the Heralds' College, and secondly, 
 there are the parish registers of the village of Dave- 
 nant; and as for the money, why, it would not cost 
 much, and I believe something might be advanced for 
 them. If you and I, Mr. Goslett, between us, were to 
 pay the professor's expenses, would he go about for 
 us?" 
 
 She seemed to assume that he was quite readj-^ to join 
 her in giving his money for this object. Yet Harry 
 was now living, having refused his guardian's prof- 
 
213 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 fered allowance, on his pay by the piece, which gave 
 him, as already stated, tenpence for every working 
 hour. 
 
 "What would the professor cost?" she asked. 
 
 "The professor is down upon his luck," said Harry. 
 " He is so hard up at present that I believe we would 
 get it for nothing but his expenses. Eighteen shillings 
 a week would buy him outright until his engagements 
 begin again. If there were any travelling expenses, of 
 course that would be extra. But the village of Dave- 
 nant is not a great way off. It is situated in Essex, 
 and Essex is now a suburb of London, its original 
 name having been East-End-seaxas, which is not gen- 
 erally known." 
 
 "Very well," she replied gravely. "That would be 
 only nine shillings apiece, say eleven hours of extra 
 work for you; and probably it would not last long, 
 more than a week or two. Will you give two hours a 
 day to his lordship?" 
 
 Harry made a wry face, and laughed. This young 
 person had begun by turning him into a journeyman 
 cabinet-maker, and was now making him work extra 
 time. What next? 
 
 "Am I not your slave, Miss Kennedy?" 
 
 " O Mr. Goslett, I thought there was to be no more 
 nonsense of that kind ! You know it can lead to noth> 
 ing — even if you desired that it should." 
 
 " Even? Miss Kennedy, can't 3'ou see " 
 
 " No — I can see nothing — I will hear nothing. Do 
 not — O Mr. Goslett — we have been — we are — such ex- 
 cellent friends. You have been so great a help to me: 
 I look to you for so much more. Do not spoil all ; do 
 not seek for what you could never be : pray, pray, do 
 not!" 
 
 She spoke with so much earnestness ; her eyes were 
 filled with such a frankness ; she laid her hand upon 
 his arm with so charming camaraderie, that he could 
 not choose but obey. 
 
 "It is truly wonderful," he said, thinking, for the 
 thousandth time, how this pearl among women came 
 to Stepney Green. 
 
 " What is wonderful?" she blushed as she asked. 
 
 "You know what I mean. Let us both be frank. 
 
ALL SORTS AND COXDITIOXS OF MEN. 213 
 
 You command me not to say the thing I most desire to 
 say. Very good, I will be content to wait, but under 
 one promise- 
 
 "Whatisthat?" 
 
 " If the reason or reasons which command mj' silence 
 should ever be removed — mind, I do not seek to know 
 what they are — you will yourself " 
 
 " What?" she asked, blushing sweetly. 
 
 " You will yourself — tell me so. " 
 
 She recovered her composure and gave him her hand. 
 
 " If at any time I can listen to you, I will tell you 
 so. Does that content j'ou?" 
 
 Certainly not, but there was no more to be got; 
 therefore Harry was fain to be contented whether he 
 would or not. And this was only one of a hundred lit- 
 tle skirmishes in which he endeavored to capture an 
 advanced fort or prepared to lay the siege in form. 
 And always he was routed with heavy loss. 
 
 " And now, " she went on, " we will get back to our 
 professor." 
 
 " Yes. I am to work two extra hours a day that he 
 may go about in the luxury of eighteen shillings a 
 week. This it is to be one of the horny-handed. What 
 is the professor to do first?" 
 
 " Let us, " she said, '' find him and secure his ser- 
 vices." 
 
 It has been seen that the professor was already come 
 to the period of waist-tightening, which naturally fol- 
 lows a too continued succession of banyan-da5's. 
 
 He listened with avidity to any proposition which 
 held forth a prospect of food. The work, he said, only 
 partly understanding it, would be difficult, but, there- 
 fore, the more to be desired. Common conjurers, he 
 said, would spoil such a case. As for himself, he would 
 undertake to do just whatever they wanted with the 
 register, whether it was the substitution of a page or 
 the tearing out of a page, under the verj' eyes of the 
 parish clerk. " There must be," he said, " a patter suit- 
 able to the occasion. I will manage that for you. I'm 
 afraid I can't make up as I ought for the part, because 
 it would cost too much, but we must do without that. 
 And now, Miss Kennedy, what is it exactly that you 
 want me to do?" 
 
214 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 He was disappointed on learning that there would be 
 no " palming " of leaves, old or new, among the regis- 
 ters; nothing, in fact, but a simple journey, and a sim- 
 ple examination of the books. And though, as he con- 
 fessed, he had as yet no experience in the art of falsify- 
 ing parish registers, where science was concerned its 
 interests were above those of mere morality. 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 DANIEL FAGG. 
 
 What would have happened if certain things had 
 not happened? This is a question which is seldom set 
 on examination papers, on account of the great scope it 
 offers to the imaginative faculty, and we all know how 
 dangerous a thing it is to develop this side of the human 
 mind. Many a severe historian has been spoiled by 
 developing his imagination. But for this, Scott might 
 have been another Alison and Thackeray a Mill. In 
 this Stepney business the appearance of Angela cer- 
 tainly worked changes at once remarkable and impossi- 
 ble to be dissociated from her name. Thus, but for her, 
 the unfortunate claimants must have been driven back 
 to their own country like baffled invaders " rolling sul- 
 lenly over the frontier." Nelly would have spent her 
 whole life in the sadness of short rations and long 
 hours, with hopeless prayers for days of fatness. Re- 
 bekah and the improvers and the dressmakers and the 
 apprentices would have endured the like hardness. 
 Harry would have left the joyless city to its joyless- 
 ness, and returned to the regions whose skies are all 
 sunshine — to the young and fortunate — and its pave- 
 ments all of gold. And there would have been no Pal- 
 ace of Delight. And what would have become of Dan- 
 iel Fagg, one hardly likes to think. The unlucky 
 Daniel had, indeed, fallen upon very evil daj^s. There 
 seemed to be no longer a single man left whom he could 
 ask for a subscription to his book. He had used them 
 all up. He had sent begging letters to every Fellow 
 of every scientific society ; he had levied contributions 
 upon every secretary ; he had attacked in person every 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 215 
 
 official at the museums of Gr^at Russell Street and 
 South Kensington ; he had tried all the publishers ; he 
 had written to every bishop, nobleman, clergyman, and 
 philanthropist of whom he could hear, pressing upon 
 them the claims of his great Discover5\ Now he could 
 do no more. The subscriptions he had received for 
 publishing his book were spent in necessary food and 
 lodgings : nobody at the ]\Iuseum would even see him ; 
 he got no more answers to his letters : starvation stared 
 him in the face. 
 
 For three days he had lived upon ninepence. Three- 
 pence a day for food. Think of that, ye wlio are fed 
 regularly, and fed well. Threepence to satisfy all the 
 cravings of an excellent appetite ! There was now no 
 more mone}' left. And in two days more the week's 
 rent would be due. 
 
 On the morning when he came forth, hungry and 
 miserable, without even the penny for a loaf, it hap- 
 pened that Angela was standing at her upper window, 
 on the other side of the Green, and, fortunately for the 
 unluclcA- scholar that she saw him. His strange be- 
 havior made her watch him. First he looked up and 
 down the street in uncertainty^; then, as if he had busi- 
 ness which could not be delayed a moment, he turned 
 to the right and marched straight away toward the 
 Mile End Road. This was because he thought he 
 would go to the Head of the Egyptian Department at 
 the British Museum and borrow five shillings. Then 
 he stopped suddenl}- : this was because he remembered 
 that he would have to send in his name, and that the 
 chief would certainly refuse to see him. Then he 
 turned slowly and walked, dragging his limbs and hang- 
 ing his head in the opposite direction — because he was 
 resolved to make for the London Docks, and drop acci- 
 dentally into the sluggish green water, the first drop 
 of which kills almost as certainh" as a glass of Bourbon 
 whiskey. Then he thought that there would be some 
 luxury in sitting down for a few moments to think 
 comfortably over his approaching demise, and of the 
 noise it would make in the learned world, and how 
 remorseful and ashamed the scholars — especially he of 
 the Egyptian Department — would feel for the short bal- 
 ance of their sin-laden days, and he took a seat on a 
 
216 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 bench in the green-garden with this view. As he 
 thought he leaned forward, staring into vacancy, and 
 in his face there grew so dark an expression of despair 
 and terror that Angela shuddered and ran for her hat, 
 recollecting that she had heard of his poverty and dis- 
 appointments. 
 
 " I am afraid you are not well, Mr. Fagg." 
 
 He started and looked up. In imagination he was 
 already lying dead at the bottom of the green-water, 
 and before his troubled mind there were floating con- 
 fused images of his former life, now past and dead and 
 gone. He saw himself in his Australian cottage arriv- 
 ing at his grand discovery ; he was lecturing about it 
 on a platform ; he^ was standing on the deck of a ship, 
 drinking farewell nobblers with an enthusiastic crowd; 
 and he was wandering hungry, neglected, despised, 
 about the stony streets of London. 
 
 "Well? No: I am not well," he replied presently, 
 understanding things a little. 
 
 " Is it distress of mind or of body, Mr. Fagg?" 
 
 "Yesterday it was both; to-night it will be both; 
 just now it is onlj^ one." 
 
 "Which one?" 
 
 "Mind," he replied fiercely, refusing to acknowledge 
 that he was starving. He threw his hat back, dashed 
 his subscription book to the ground, and banged the 
 unoffending bench with his fists. 
 
 "As for mind," he went on, "it's a pity I was born 
 with any. I wish I'd had no more mind than my 
 neighbors. It's mind, and nothing else, that has 
 brought me to this." 
 
 "What is this, Mr. Fagg?" 
 
 " Nothing to you. Go your ways ; you are young ; 
 you have yet 3^our hopes, which may come to nothing, 
 same as mine; even though they are not, like mine, 
 hopes of glor}" and learning. There's Mr. Goslett in 
 love with you; what is mind to j^ou? Nothing. And 
 you in love with him. Very likely he'll go off with 
 another woman, and then you'll find out what it is to 
 be disappointed. What is mind to anybody? Noth- 
 ing. Do they care for it in the Museum? No. Does 
 the head of the Egyptian Department care for it? Not 
 he; not a bit. It's a cruel and a selfish country," 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 317 
 
 "O Mr. Fagg!" She disregarded his allusion to 
 herself, though it was sufficiently downright. 
 
 " Yes : but I will be revenged. I will do something 
 — yes — something that shall tell all Australia how I 
 have been wronged ; the colony of Victoria shall ring 
 with my story. It shall Scip their loyalty ; they shall 
 grow discontented; they will import more Irishmen; 
 there shall be separation. Yes : my friends shall de- 
 mand reparation in revenge for my treatment." 
 
 "It is Christian to forgive, Mr. Fagg." 
 
 " I will forgive when I have had my revenge. No 
 one shall say I am vindictive. Ah !" — he heaved a 
 profound sigh. " They gave me a dinner before I came 
 awa}' ; they drank my health ; they all told me of the 
 reception I should get, and the glory that awaited me. 
 Look at me now. Not one penny in my pocket. Not 
 one man who believes in the Discovery. Therefore I 
 may truly say that it is better to be born without a 
 brain." 
 
 ''This is your subscription-book, I believe." She 
 took and turned over its pages. 
 
 " Come, Mr. Fagg, 3'ou have come to the fifty-first 
 copy of the book. Fifty-one copies ordered beforehand 
 does" not look like disbelief. May I add my name? 
 That will make fifty-two. Twelve shillings and six- 
 pence, I see. Oh, I shall look forward with the greatest 
 interest to the appearance of the book, I assure you. 
 Yet 3"ou must not expect of a dressmaker much knowl- 
 edge of Hebrew, Mr. Fagg. You great scholars must 
 be contented with the simple admiration of ignorant 
 work-girls." He was too far gone in misery to be easily 
 soothed, but he began to wish he had not said that cruel 
 thing about possible desertion by her lover. 
 
 "Admiration!" he echoed with a hollow groan. 
 " And yesterday nothing to eat further than three- 
 })ence, and the day before the same, and the day before 
 that. In Australia, when I was in the shoemaking 
 line, there was always plenty to eat. Starvation, I 
 suppose, goes to the brain. And is the cause of sui- 
 cide, too. I know a beautiful i)lacc in the London 
 Docks, v/here the water's green with minerals. I shall 
 go there." He pushed his hands deeper into his pock- 
 ets, while his bushy eyebrows frowned so horribly that 
 
218 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 two children who were playing in the walk screamed 
 with terror and fled without stopping. '' That water 
 poisons a man directl3^" 
 
 "Come, Mr. Fagg," said Angela, "we allow some- 
 thing for the superior activity of great minds. But we 
 must not talk of despair, when there should be nothing 
 Leyond a little despondency." 
 
 He shook his head. 
 
 " Too much reading has probably disordered your di- 
 gestion, Mr. Fagg. You want rest and society, with 
 sympathy — a woman's sympathy. Scholars, perhaps, 
 are sometimes jealous." 
 
 "Reading has emptied my purse," he said. "Sym- 
 pathy won't fill it." 
 
 " I do not know — sympathy is a wonderful medicine 
 sometimes ; it works miracles. I think, Mr. Fagg, you 
 had better let me pay my subscription in advance — you 
 can give me the change when you please." 
 
 She placed a sovereign in his hand. His fingers 
 clutched it greedily. Then his conscience smote him — 
 her kind words, her flattery, touched his heart. 
 
 "I cannot take it," he said. "Mr. Goslett warned 
 me not to take your money. Besides (he gasped,- and 
 pointed to the subscription list) — fifty-one names! 
 They've all paid their money for printing the book. 
 I've eaten up all the money, and I shall eat up yours as 
 well. Take the sovereign back — I can starve. When 
 I am dead I would rather be remembered for my dis- 
 covery than for a shameful devourer of subscription 
 money." 
 
 She took him by the arm, and led him unresisting to 
 the establishment. 
 
 "We must look after you, Mr. Fagg," she said. 
 " Now I have got a beautiful room, where no one sits 
 all day long except sometimes a crippled girl, and 
 sometimes myself. In the evening the girls have it. 
 You may bring your books there, if you like, and sit 
 there to work when you please. And by the way" — 
 she added this as if it were a matter of the very least 
 consequence, hardly worth mentioning — " if you Avould 
 like to join us any day at dinner (we take our simple 
 meals at one), the girls, no doubt, will all think it a 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 210 
 
 great honor to have so distinguished a scholar at table 
 with them." 
 
 Mr. Fagg blushed with pleasure. Why— if the Brit- 
 ish Museum treated him with contumely; if nobody 
 would subscribe to his book ; if he was weary of asking 
 and being refused— here was a haven of refuge, where 
 he would receive some of the honor due to a scholar. 
 
 " And now that you are here, Mr. Fagg "—said An- 
 gela, when she had broken bread and given thanks— 
 " you shall tell me all about your discovery. Because, 
 '' you see, we are so ignorant, we girls of the working 
 classes, that I do not exactly know what is your dis- 
 covery." 
 
 He sat down and asked for a piece of paper. With 
 this assistance he began his exposition. 
 
 " I was drawn to my investigation," he said solemnly, 
 " by a little old book about the wisdom of the ancients ; 
 that is now five years ago, and I was then fifty-five 
 years of age. No time to be lost (says I to myself) if 
 anything is to be done. The more I read and the more 
 I thought— I was in the shoemaking trade and I'm not 
 ashamed to own it; for it's a fine business for such as 
 are born with a head for thinking— the more I thought, 
 I say, the more I was puzzled. For there seemed to 
 me no way possible of reconciling what the scholars 
 said." 
 
 " You have not told me the subject of your research 
 yet." 
 
 "Antiquity," he replied grandly. "All antiquity 
 Avas the subject of my research. First, I read about 
 the Egvptians and the hieroglyphics ; then I got hold 
 of a new book, all about the Assyrians and the cimi- 
 form character." 
 
 "I see," said Angela. "You were attracted by the 
 ancient inscriptions?" 
 
 "Naturally. Without inscriptions where are you? 
 The scholars said this, and the scholars said that— they 
 talked of reading the Eg>']^tian language and the As- 
 syrian and the ^Median and what not. That wouldn't 
 do for me." 
 
 The audacity of the little man excited Angela's curi- 
 osity, which had been languid. 
 
 "Pray go on," she said. 
 
220 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 " The scholars have the same books to go to as me, 
 yet they don't go — they've eyes as good, but they won't 
 use them. Now follow me, miss, and you'll be sur- 
 prised. When Abraham went down into Egypt, did he 
 understand their language, or didn't he?" 
 
 " Why, I suppose — at least, it is not said that he did 
 not." 
 
 " Of course he did. When Joseph went there, did he 
 understand them? Of course he did. When Jacob 
 and his sons came into the country, did they talk a 
 strange speech? Not they. When Solomon married 
 an Egyptian princess, did he understand her talk? 
 Why, of course he did. Now, do you guess what's 
 coming next?" 
 
 "No— not at all." 
 
 " None of the scholars could. Listen, then : if they 
 all understood each other, they must all have talked the 
 same language — mustn't they?" 
 
 " Why, it would seem so. " 
 
 " It's a sound argument, which can't be denied. 
 Nobody can denj^ it — I defy them. If they understood 
 each other there must have been a common language. 
 Where did this common language spread? Over all 
 the countries thereabout. What was the common lan- 
 guage? Hebrew." 
 
 " Oh," said Angela, "then they all talked Hebrew?" 
 
 " Every man Jack — nothing else known. What 
 next? They wanted to write it. Now we find what 
 seems to be one character in Egypt, and another in 
 Syria, and another in Arabia, and another in Phoe- 
 nicia, and another in Judsea. Bless you ! I know all 
 about these alphabets. What I say is — if a common 
 language, then a common alphabet to write it with." 
 
 " I see. A common alphabet, which you discovered, 
 perhaps?" 
 
 " That, young lady, is my discovery — that is the great- 
 est discovery of the age. I found it myself, once a 
 small shoemaker in a little Victorian township- — I alone 
 found out that common alphabet, and have come over 
 here to make it known. Not bad, says you, for a shoe- 
 maker, who had to teach himself his own Hebrew." 
 
 " And the scholars here " 
 
 " They're jealous — that's what it is; they're jealous. 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 221 
 
 Most of them have written books to prove other things, 
 and they won't give in and own that they've been 
 
 wrong. My word ! the scholars " He paused and 
 
 shook his hand before her face. "Some of them have 
 got the Hebrew alphabet, and try to make out how one 
 letter is a house and another a bull's head. And so on. 
 And some have got the cuneiforms, and they make out 
 that one bundle of arrows is an A and another a B. 
 And so on. And some have got the hieroglyphic, and 
 it's the same game with all. While I — if you please — 
 with my little plain discovery just show that all the 
 different alphabets — different to outward seeming — are 
 really one and the same." 
 
 "This is very interesting," said Angela. The little 
 man was glowing with enthusiasm and pride. He was 
 transformed ; he walked up and down throwing about 
 his arms ; he stood before her looking almost tall ; his 
 eyes flashed with fire, and his voice was strong. " And 
 can you read inscriptions by your simple alphabet?" 
 
 "There is not," he replied, "a single inscription in 
 the British Museum that I can't read. I just sit down 
 before it, with my Hebrew dictionary in my hand — I 
 didn't tell you I learned Hebrew on purpose, did I? — 
 and I read that inscription, however long it is. Ah !" 
 
 " This seems extraordinary. Can you show me your 
 alphabet?" 
 
 He sat do\vn and began to make figures. 
 
 " What is the simplest figure? A circle; a square; a 
 naught? No. A triangle. Very good, then. Do 
 3'ou think they were such fools as to copy a great ugly 
 bviU's head when they'd got a triangle read}^ to their 
 hands, and easy to draw? Not they : they just made a 
 triangle — so — " [he drew an equilateral triangle on its 
 base], "and called it the first letter; and two triangles, 
 one atop the other — so — ^and called that the second let- 
 ter. Then they struck their triangle in another po- 
 sition, and it was the third letter ; and in another, and 
 its fourth " Angola felt as if her head was swim- 
 ming as he manipulated his triangles, and rapidly pro- 
 duced his primitive alphabet, which realh' did present 
 some resemblance to the modern sj'mbols. " There — 
 and there — and there — and what is that; and this? 
 And so you've got the whole. Now, young lady, with 
 
223 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF HEN. 
 
 this in yoar hand, which is the key to all learning — • 
 and the Hebrew dictionaiy, there's nothing you can't 
 manage." 
 
 " And an account- of this is to be given in your book, 
 is itV" 
 
 " That is the secret of my book. Now you know 
 what it was I found out ; now you see why my friends 
 paid my passage home, and are now looking for the 
 glory which they prophesied." 
 
 " Don't get gloomy again, Mr. Fagg. It is a long 
 lane, you know, that has no turning. Let us hope for 
 better luck." 
 
 " No one will ever know, " he went on, " the inscrip- 
 tions that I have found — and read — in the Museum. 
 They don't know what they've got. I've told nobody 
 yet, but they are all in the book, and I'll tell you before- 
 hand, Miss Kennedy, because you've been kind to me. 
 Yes, a woman is best; I ought to have gone to the wo- 
 man first. I would marry 3'ou, Miss Kennedy — I would 
 indeed ; but — I am too old, and besides, I don't think 
 I could afford a family." 
 
 " I thank you, Mr. Fagg, all the same. You do me a 
 great honor. But about these inscriptions?" 
 
 "Mind, it's a secret." He lowered his voice to a 
 whisper. " There's cuniform inscriptions in the Mu- 
 seum with David and Jonathan on them — ah ! — and 
 Balaam and Balak — Alio!" — he positively chuckled 
 over the thought of these great finds — " and the whole life 
 of Jezebel — Jezebel ! What do you think of that? And 
 what else do 3"ou think they have got, only they don't 
 know it? The two tables of stone! Nothing short of 
 the two tables, with the Ten Commandments written 
 out at length !" 
 
 Angela gazed with amazement at this admirable 
 man : his faith in himself ; his audacity ; the grandeur 
 of his conceptions; the wonderful power of his imag- 
 ination overwhelmed her. But, to be sure, she had 
 never before met a genuine enthusiast. 
 
 '' I know where they are kept ; nobody else knows. It 
 is in a dark corner; they are each about two feet high, 
 and there's a hole in the corner of each for Moses' 
 thumb to hold them by. Think of that ! I've read them 
 all through — only," he added with a look of bewilder- 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 223 
 
 ment, " I think there must bo something wrong with 
 my Hebrew dictionary, because none of the command- 
 ments read quite right. One or two come out quite sur- 
 prising. Yet the stones must be right, mustn't they? 
 There can be no question about that, and the discovery 
 must be right. No question about that. And as for 
 the dictionaries — who put them together? Tell me that ! 
 Yah ! the scholars !" 
 
 CHAPTER XXni. 
 
 THE MISSING LINK. 
 
 The professor then started on his quest with a cheer- 
 ful heart, caused by the certainty of dinner for some 
 days to come. But he was an honest Professor, and he 
 did not prolong his absence for the sake of those din- 
 ners. On the other hand, he made the most rapid dis- 
 patch consistent with thorough work, and returned 
 after an absence of four days, bearing with him the 
 fruits of his research. 
 
 "I think," said Harry, after readiug his report, "I 
 think. Miss Keunedj^, that we have found the Missing 
 Link." 
 
 " Then they really will make their claim good?" 
 
 " I did not say that — quite. I said that we have 
 found a Missing Link. There might be, if j^ou will 
 think of it — two. One of them would have connected 
 the condescending wheelwright with his supposed par- 
 ent, the last Lord Davenant. The other would connect 
 him with — quite another father. " 
 
 The truth, which was for some time carefully con- 
 cealed from the illustrious pair, was, in fact, this. 
 
 There is a village of Davenant, surrounding or adjoin- 
 ing a castle of Davenant, just as Alnwick, Arundel, Dur- 
 ham, Lancaster, Chepstow, Ragland, and a great many 
 more English towns have a castle near them. And 
 whether Davenant town was built to be protected by the 
 castle, or the castle for the protection of the town, is a 
 point on wliich I must refer you to the county historian, 
 who knows all about it, and is not likely to deceive you on 
 so important a point. The castle is now a picturesque 
 
234 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 ruin, with a country-house built beside it. In this 
 country-house the last Lord Davenant died and the 
 last heir to the title v/as born. There is an excellent 
 old church, with a tower and ivy, and high-pitched 
 roof, as an ancient church should have, and in the fam- 
 ily vault under the chancel all the Davenants, except 
 the last heir, lie buried. 
 
 There is also in the village a small country inn called 
 the Davenant Arms, where the professor put up and 
 where he made himself extraordinarily popular, be- 
 cause, finding himself among an assemblage of folk slow 
 to see and slower still to think, he astonished them for 
 four nights consecutively. The rustics still tell, and 
 will continue to tell, so long as memory lasts, of the 
 wonderful man who took their money out of their 
 waistcoats, exchanged handkerchiefs, conveyed pota- 
 toes into strange coat-pockets, read their thoughts, 
 picked out the cards the}- had chosen, made them take 
 a card he had chosen whether they wanted it or not, 
 caused balls of glass to vanish, changed halfpence into 
 half-crowns, had a loaded pistol fired at himself and 
 caught the ball, with other great marvels, all for noth- 
 ing, to oblige and astonish the villagers, and for the 
 good of the house. These are the recreations of his 
 evening hours. The mornings he spent in the vestry 
 of the old church searching the registers. 
 
 There was nothing professional about it, only the 
 drudgery of clerk's work ; to do it at all was almost 
 beneath his dignity; yet he went through with it con- 
 scientiously, and restrained himself from inviting the 
 sexton, who stayed with him, to lend him his hand- 
 kerchief or to choose a card. Nor did he even hide* a 
 card in the sexton's pocket, and then convey it into the 
 parish register. Nothing of the sort. He w^as sternly 
 practical, and searched diligently. Nevertheless, he 
 noted how excellent a place for the simple feasts would 
 be the reading-desk. The fact is, that gentlemen of his 
 profession never go to church, and, therefore, are ig- 
 norant of the uses of its various parts. On Sunday 
 morning they lie in bed; on Sunday afternoon they 
 have dinner, and perhaps the day's paper, and on Sun- 
 day evening they gather at a certain house of call for 
 conjurers in Drury Lane, and practise on each other. 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 225 
 
 There is, therefore, no room in the conjurer's life for 
 church. Some remedy should be found for this by the 
 bishops. 
 
 " What have I got to look for?" said the professor, 
 as the sexton produced the old books. " Well, I've got 
 to find what families there were living here a hundred 
 years ago, or thereabouts, named Davenant, and what 
 Christian names they had, and whether there were two 
 children born and baptized here in one year, both bear- 
 ing the name of Davenant." 
 
 The sexton shook his head. He was only a middle- 
 aged man, and therefore not 3"et arrived at sextonial 
 ripeness ; for a sexton only begins to be mellow when 
 he is ninet}' or thereabouts. He knew nothing of the 
 Davenants except that there were once Lords Dave- 
 nant, now lying in the family vault below the chancel, 
 and none of them left in the parish at all, nor any in 
 his memory, nor in that of his father's before him, so 
 far as he could tell. 
 
 After a careful examination of the books, the pro- 
 fessor was enabled to state with confidence that at the 
 time in question the Davenant name was borne by none 
 but the family at the castle; that there were no cousins 
 of the name in the place; and that the heir born in that 
 year was christened on such a daj^, and received the 
 name of Timoth}- Clitheroe. 
 
 If this had been the only evidence, the ■case would 
 have made in favor of the Canaan City claimant ; but, 
 unfortunately, there was another discovery made by the 
 professor, at sight of which he whistled, and then shook 
 his head, and then considered whether it would not be 
 best to cut out the page, while the sexton thought he 
 was forcing a card, or palming a ball, or boiling an 
 egf^, or some other ingenious feat of legerdemain. For 
 he instantly perceived that tlie fact recorded before his 
 eyes had an all-important bearing upon the case of his 
 illustrious friends. 
 
 The little story which he saw was, in short, this : 
 
 In the same year of the birth of the infant Timothy 
 Clitheroe, there was born of a poor vagrant woman, 
 wlio wandered no one knew where from, into the parish 
 and died in giving him to the world, a man-child. 
 Thei'e was no one to rejoice over him, or to welcome 
 
226 ALL SORTS AXD CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 him, or to claim him : therefore ho became parish prop- 
 erty, and had to be christened, fed, flogged, admon- 
 ished, and educated, so far as education in those daj's 
 was considered necessar}-, at the charge of the parish. 
 The first step was to give him a name. For it Avas 
 formerly, and may be still, a custom in country par- 
 ishes to name a waif of this kind after the village itself, 
 which accounts for many odd surnames, such as Step- 
 ne}', Marylebone, or Hoxton. It was not a good cus- 
 tom, because it might lead to complications, as perhaps 
 it did in this case, when there was already another 
 family legitimately entitled to bear the name. The au- 
 thorities, following this custom, conferred upon the 
 baby the lordly name of Davenant. Then, as it v/as 
 necessary that he sliould have a Christian name, and ic 
 would be a pity to waste good Richard or Robin upon a 
 beggar brat, they gave him the day of the week on 
 which he was born. This was intended to keep him 
 humble, and to remind him that he had no right to any 
 of the distinguished Christian names bestowed upon 
 respectably born children. 
 
 He w^as called Saturday Davenant. 
 
 The name, the date, and the circumstances were 
 briefly recorded in the parish register. 
 
 In most cases this book contains three entries for each 
 name — those of the three important events in his life; 
 the beginning, the marrying, which is the making or 
 the marring, and the ending. One does not of course 
 count the minor occasions in which he ma}' be men- 
 tioned, as on the birth or death of a child. The pro- 
 fessor turned over the pages of tlie register in vain for 
 any farther entr}^ of this Saturday Davenant. 
 
 He appeared no more. His one public appearance, 
 as far as history records it, was on that joyful occasion 
 when, held in hireling arms, he was received into the 
 Christian Church. The one thing to Avhich he was 
 bom was his brotherhood in the Christian faith — no 
 doubt the grandest of all possessions, yet in itself not 
 professing to provide the material comforts of life. The 
 baby was presented at the font, received a contempt- 
 uous name, squealed a little, no doubt, when he felt the 
 cold water, and then — then — nothing more. What he 
 did, whither he went, where he died, might be left to 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 327 
 
 conjecture. A parish brat, a cottage home, bread and 
 bacon to eat, with more bread and bacon, plenty of 
 stick, the Chiu'ch Catechism, and particular attention 
 called to the clauses about picking- and stealing; prac- 
 tical work as a scarecrow at seven ; the plough later on ; 
 for pleasures, quarter-staff, wrestling, tigliting, bull- 
 baiting and i)erhaps poaching, with strong beer and small 
 beer for drink; presently a wife, then children, then old 
 age, then death. One was free to conjecture, because 
 there was no more mention of this bab}" ; he did not marry 
 in the parish, nor did he die in it. He, therefore, went 
 awa}'. In those days, if a man went away it was for 
 two reasons : either he fell into trouble and went awa}', 
 to escape the wrath of the squire; or he enlisted, 
 marched off with beer in his head and ribbons in his 
 hat, swore terribly with the army in Flanders, and 
 presently earned the immortal glory which England 
 rejoices to confer upon the private soldier who falls upon 
 the ensanguined field. The enjoyment of this glory 
 is such a solid, substantial, and satisfying thing that 
 fighting and war and the field of honor are, and al- 
 waj's will be, greatly beloved and desired by private 
 soldiers. 
 
 There was no other entry of this boy's name. When 
 the professor had quite satisfied himself upon this 
 point he turned back to the first entry, and then became 
 aware of a note, in faded ink, now barely legible, 
 written in the margin. It was as follows, and he cop- 
 ied it exactly : 
 
 " '^'^ above ^ Saturday ^°* was a Roag in Grane; 
 he was bro't up in the fear of God yet Feared Him not; 
 taught his Duty, yet did it not; admonished without 
 stint of Rodd in Virtue, j^et still inclined to Vice : he 
 wns appd to the wheelwright — was skillful, yet indolent ; 
 notorious as a Poacher who could not be caught; a De- 
 ceiver of Maidens; a Tosspot and a Striker. Gom- 
 I)elled to leave the Parish to avoid Prison and the Lash 
 he went to London, Ldtronuni officiua. Was reported 
 to have been sent to His Majesty's Plantations in Vir- 
 ginia, whereof nothing certain is known. 
 
 This was the note which the professor read and cop- 
 
228 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 ied out, with misgivings that it would not prove accept- 
 able. Of course, he knew the story and quite under- 
 stood what this might mean. 
 
 The next day, nothing more remaining to be found 
 in the register, the professor examined the brasses and 
 tablets in the church, and paid a visit to the castle. 
 And when he had faithfully executed his commission, 
 he went away, amid the regrets of the villagers, who 
 had never before been entertained by so delightful and 
 surprising a stranger, and brought back his spoils. 
 
 " What are we to think," said Harry, after reading 
 this report. "'The Roag in Grane,' this wheelwright 
 by trade, who can he be but the grandfather of our 
 poor old friend?" 
 
 " I fear it must be so, " said Angela. " Saturday 
 Davenant. Remember the little book." 
 
 "Yes," said Harry, "the little book came into my 
 mind at once." 
 
 "Not a doubt," added the professor. "Why, it 
 stands to reason. The fellow found himself a long way 
 from England, among strangers, with no money and 
 only his trade. What was to prevent him from pre- 
 tending to be one of the family whose name he bore?" 
 
 " And at the same time, " said Harry, " with reserve. 
 He never seems to have asserted that he was the son 
 of Lord Davenant : he only threw out ambiguous words ; 
 he fired the imagination of his son ; he christened him 
 by the name of the lost heir ; he pretended that it was 
 his own Christian name, and it was not until they 
 found out that this was the hereditary name that the 
 claim was thought of. This poacher and striker seems 
 to have possessed considerable native talent." 
 
 "But what," asked Angela, "are we to do?" 
 
 "Let us do nothing, Miss Kennedy. We have our 
 secret, and we may keep it for the present. Meantime, 
 the case is hopeless on account of the absolute impossi- 
 bility of connecting the wheelwright with the man sup- 
 posed to have been drowned. Let them go on 'enjoy- 
 ing ' the title, ignorant of the existence of this unlucky 
 Saturday Davenant. " 
 
 So, for the present, the thing was hidden away, and 
 nothing was said about it. And though about this 
 time the Professor gave one or two entertainments in 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 229 
 
 the drawing-room, we cannot suppose that his silence 
 was bought, and it would be unjust to the noble pro- 
 fession of which he was a member to think that he 
 would let out the secret had not Miss Kennedy paid him 
 for their performance. Indeed, the Professor was an 
 extremely honorable man, and would have scorned to 
 betray confidence, and it was good to Miss Kennedy to 
 find out that an evening of magic and miracle would do 
 the girls good. 
 
 But a profound pity seized the heart of Angela. 
 These poor people who believed themselves to be entitled 
 to an English peerage, who were so mistaken, who 
 would be so disappointed, who were so ignorant, who 
 knew so little what it was they claimed — could not 
 something be done to lessen their disappointment, to 
 break their fall? 
 
 She pondered long over tliis difficulty. That they 
 would in the end have to return to their own country 
 M-as a thing about which there could be no doubt what- 
 ever ; that they should return with no knowledge what- 
 ever of the reality of the thing they had claimed ; what 
 it meant, what it involved, its splendors and its obli- 
 gations, seemed to her a very great pity. A little ex- 
 perience, she thought even a glimpse of the life led by 
 the best bred and most highly cultivated and richest 
 people in England would be of so much advantage to 
 them that it would show them their own unfitness for 
 the rank which they assumed and claimed. And pres- 
 ently she arrived at a project which she put into exe- 
 cution without delay. What this was you will pres- 
 ently see. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 i , 
 
 LORD JOCELYX S TROUBLES. 
 
 As the season advanced and the autumn deepened 
 into winter, Angela found that there were certain social 
 duties which it was imjxjssible altogether to escape. 
 The fiction of the country-house was good enough for 
 the general world, but for her more intimate friends 
 and cousins this would not do for long. Therefore, 
 
230 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 while she kept the facts of her present occupation and 
 place of residence a secret from all except Constance 
 Woodcote, now the unsympathizing, she could not 
 wholly shut herself off from the old circle. Among 
 others there was one lady whose invitations she was in 
 a sense bound to acceiDt. What her obligations were, 
 and who this lady was, belong in no way to this history 
 — that is to say, the explanation belongs to Angela's 
 simple chronicle of the old days, when she was only 
 Miss Messenger, the heiress presumptive of the great 
 brewery. Therefore, it need not concern us. Suffice 
 it to say that she was a lady in society, and that she 
 gave great dinners, and held other gatherings, and was 
 at all times properly awake to the attractions which the 
 3^oung and beautiful and wealth}^ Angela Messenger 
 lent to her receptions. 
 
 On this occasion Constance Woodcote, among others, 
 was invited to meet her old friend ; she came, but' she 
 was ungracious, and Angela felt, more than she had 
 expected, how great already was the gulf between the 
 old days of Newnham and her life of active, practical 
 work. Six months before such coldness w^ould have 
 hurt and pained her ; now she hardly felt it. Yet Con- 
 stance meant to demonstrate by a becoming frost of 
 manner how grievous was her disappointment about 
 those scholarships. Then there were half a dozen men 
 — unmarried men, men in society, men of clubs, men 
 who felt strongly that the possession of Miss Messen- 
 ger's millions might reconcile them to matrimony, and 
 were much interested by the possibility of an introduc- 
 tion to her, and came away disappointed because they 
 got nothing out of her, not even an encouragement to 
 talk; and everybody said that she was singularly cold, 
 distraite, and even embarrassed that evening; and 
 those who had heard that Miss Messenger was a 3'oung 
 lady of great conversational powers went away cyn- 
 ically supposing that any young lady with less than 
 half her money could achieve the same reputation at 
 the same cost of energy. The reason of this coldness, 
 this preoccupation, was as follows. 
 
 The dinner-party was large, and the conversation by 
 no means general. So far as Angela was concerned, it 
 was held entirely with the man who took her down, 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 231 
 
 and his name was Lord Jocelyn le Breton — a rugged- 
 faced man, with a pleasing manner and an agreeable 
 voice ; no longer young. He talked to her a good deal 
 in a light, irresponsible vein, as if it mattered very lit- 
 tle what he said so that it amused the young lady. He 
 discoursed about many things, principally about din- 
 ners, asking Angela what were her own views as to din- 
 ners, and expostulating with her feminine contempt for 
 the subject. " Each dinner," he said, " should be like a 
 separate and distinct work of art, and should be con- 
 trived for different kinds of wine. There should be a 
 champagne dinner, for instance, light, and composed 
 of many dishes, but some of these substantial; there 
 should be a claret dinner, grave and conscientious ; a 
 Burgundy dinner of few courses, and those solid; a 
 German wine dinner, in which only the simplest j?/a^es 
 should appear. But unto harmony and consistency in 
 dining we have not yet arrived. Perhaps, Miss Mes- 
 senger, you may be induced to bring your intellect to 
 bear upon the subject. I hear you took high honors 
 at Newnham lately." 
 She laughed. 
 " You do too much honor to my intellect. Lord Joce- 
 lyn. At Newnham they teach us political economy, 
 but they have not trusted us with the art of dining. 
 Do you know, we positively did not care much what we 
 had for dinner I" 
 
 " My ward, Harry, used to say — but I forget if you 
 ever met him." 
 
 " I think not. What is his name?" 
 
 " Well, he used to bear my name, and everybody 
 knew him as Harry le Breton ; but he had no right to 
 it, because he was no relation of mine, and so he gave 
 it up and took his own." 
 
 " Oh !" Angela felt profoundly uninterested in Mr. 
 Harrj' le Breton. 
 
 " Yes. And now you never will meet him. For he 
 is gone." Lord Jocelyn uttered these words in so sep- 
 ulchral a tone that Angela gave them greater signifi- 
 cance than they deserved. 
 
 " I am very sorry," she said. 
 
 "No, Miss Messenger, he is not dead. He i? only 
 
233 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 dead to society. He has gone out of the world ; he has 
 returned to — in fact, liis native rank in life." 
 
 Angela reddened. What could he mean? 
 
 " You interest me. Lord Jocelyn ? Do you say that 
 your ward has voluntaril}- given up society, and — and 
 — everything?" She thought of herself for the moment, 
 and also, but vaguely, of Harry Goslett. For although 
 she knew that tliis young man had refused some kind 
 of offer which included idleness, she had never con- 
 nected him in her mind quite with her own rank and 
 station. How could she? He was only a cabinet- 
 maker, whose resemblance to a gentleman she had 
 learned to accept without any further wonder. 
 
 " He gave up everything ; he laughed over it — he took 
 a header into the mob, just as if he was going to enjoy 
 the plunge. But did you not hear of it? Everybody 
 talked about it — the story got into the society journals, 
 and people blamed me for telling him the truth." 
 
 " I have not been in London much this year, there- 
 fore I heard nothing," said Angela. Just then the din- 
 ner came to an end. 
 
 " Will 5'ou tell me more about your ward. Lord Joce- 
 lyn?" she asked as she left him. His words had raised 
 in her mind a vague and uncertain anxiety. 
 
 Half an hour later he came to her side. The room by 
 this time was all full, and Angela was surrounded. But 
 she made room for Lord Jocelyn, and presently the 
 others dropped away and they could talk. A young 
 lady began, too, a long and very brilliant piece of music, 
 under cover of which eveiybody could talk. 
 
 " Do you really want to hear my trouble about 
 Harry?" he asked. "You look a very sympathetic 
 3^oung lady, and perhaps you will feel for me. You see 
 I brought him up in ignorance of his father, whom he 
 alwaj'S imagined to be a gentleman, whereas he was 
 onl}" a sergeant in a Line regiment. What is it, Miss 
 Messenger?" 
 
 For she became suddenly white in the cheek. Could 
 there be two Harrys, sons of sergeants, who had taken 
 this downward plunge? More wonderful than a pair 
 of Timothy Clitheroes. 
 
 " It is nothing. Lord Jocelyn. Pray go on. Your 
 adopted son, then " 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 233 
 
 " I had always resolved to tell him all about his peo- 
 ple when he was twenty-three. Who would have 
 thought, however, that he would take it as he did?" 
 
 " You forget that you have not told me what he did 
 do. If I am to sympathize you must tell me all." 
 
 " As far as the world knows, he went away on leave, 
 so to speak. Perhaps it is only on leave, after all. 
 But it is a long leave, and it looks more like desertion." 
 
 "You are mysterious, Lord Jocelyn." 
 
 "Are you curious, Miss Messenger?" 
 
 " Say I am sympathetic. Tell me as much as you 
 can about your ward." 
 
 Lord Jocelyn looked in his listener's face. Yes; 
 there was sym])ath3^ in it and interest, both, as phre- 
 nologists saj', largely develoijed. 
 
 " Then I will explain to you. Miss Messenger, how 
 the boy did this most remarkable and unexpected thing." 
 He paused a moment, considering. " Imagine a boy 
 whom I had taken away from his own people at three, 
 or thereabouts, so that he should never know anything 
 of them at all, or dream about them, or yearn, you 
 know, or anything of that kind — an orphan, too, with 
 nothing but an uncle Bunker — it is inconceivable !" 
 
 " But we do not get on," said Angela, in great impa- 
 tience; yet relieved to find from the reference to her 
 worthy friend, Bunker, that there was only one Harry. 
 " What is inconceivable?" 
 
 " I am con.'.ing to that. I gave the boy the best edu- 
 cation I could get for him ; . he was so eager and apt 
 that he taught himself more than he could be taught ; 
 if he saw anybody doing a thing well, he was never 
 satisfied till he could do it as well himself — not better, 
 mark 3'ou! a cad might have wanted to do it better; a 
 gentleman is content to do it as well as any — any other 
 gentleman. There is hardly anything he could not do; 
 there was nobody who did not love him ; he was a fa- 
 vorite in society ; he had hosts of friends ; nobod}' cared 
 who was his father: what did that matter? As I put 
 it to him, I said, 'Look at So-and-So and So-and-So, 
 who are their fathers? Who cares? AVho asks^' Yet 
 when he learned the truth, he broke away, gave up 
 all, and went back to his own relations — to White- 
 chapel !" 
 
234 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 Angela blushed again, and her lip trembled a little. 
 Then she said softl}^ : 
 
 " To Whitechapel ! That is A^erj^ interesting to me. 
 Because, Lord Jocelyn, I belong to Whitechapel my- 
 self." 
 
 " Do you?" She might as well have said that she 
 belonged to Seven Dials. In fact, much better, because 
 in his young days, his Corinthian days. Lord Jocelyn 
 had often repaired to Seven Dials to see noble sports- 
 men chez Ben Caunt, and rat-killing, and cock-fighting, 
 and many other beautiful forms of sport. " Do you 
 really? Do you belong to that remarkable part of 
 London?" 
 
 "Certainly. My grandfather — did you know him?" 
 
 Lord Jocelyn shook his head. 
 
 " He had the brewery, j'ou know. Messenger, Mars- 
 den & Company, in Whitechapel. He was born there, 
 and alwa^'s called himself a AVhitechapel man. He 
 seemed to be proud of it, so that in common filial respect 
 I, too, should be proud of it. I am, in fact, a White- 
 chapel granddaughter." 
 
 " But that does not seem to help my unlucky 
 Harry." 
 
 "It gives one a little more S5'mpathy, perhaps," she 
 said. " And that is, you know, so very useful a posses- 
 sion." 
 
 " Yes," but he did not seem to recognize its usefulness 
 as regards his ward. " Well, he went to Whitechapel 
 with a light heart. He would look round him, make 
 the acquaintance of his own people, then he would come 
 back again, and we would go on just as usual. At 
 least he did not exactly say this, but I understood him 
 so. Because it seemed impossible that a man who had 
 once lived in societj", among ourselves, and formed one 
 of us, could ever dream of living down there." An- 
 gela laughed. From her superior knowledge of " down 
 there," she laughed. 
 
 " He went away and I was left without him, for the 
 first time for twenty years. It was pretty dull. He 
 said he would give the thing a trial ; he wrote to me 
 that he was trying it; that it was not so bad as it 
 seemed, and yet he talked as if the experiment would 
 be a short one. I left him there. I went away for a 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 2m 
 
 cniise in the Mediterranean ; when I came home he re- 
 turned to me." 
 
 "He did return, then?" 
 
 " Yes, he came back one evening, a good deal changed, 
 1 should not have thought it possible for a boy to chani^e 
 so much in so short a time. He wasn't ill-fed; he 
 hadn't suffered any privation, apparently; but he was 
 changed : he was more thoughtful ; his smile and his 
 laugh were not so ready. Poor boy !" 
 
 Lord Jocelyn sighed heavily. Angela's sympathy 
 grew deeper, for he evidently loved the "boy." 
 
 "What had he done, tlien?" 
 
 " He came to say farewell to me ; ho thanked me, for 
 you know what a good honest lad would say ; and he 
 told me that he had an offer made to him of an unex- 
 pected nature which ho had determined to accept. You 
 see, he is a clever fellow with his fingers; he can play 
 and paint and carve, and do all sorts of things. And 
 among his various arts and accomplishments he knows 
 how to turn a lathe, and so he has become a joiner or 
 a cabinet-maker, and he told me that he has got an ap- 
 pointment in some great factor}' or works or something, 
 as a cabinet-maker in ordinary." 
 
 "What is his name?" 
 
 "Harry Goslett." 
 
 "Goslett, Goslett !" Here she blushed again, and 
 once more made play with the fan. " Has he got a re- 
 lation, a certain Mr. Bunker?" 
 
 "Why — yes — I told you, an uncle Bunker." 
 
 " Then I remember the name. And, Lord Joceh'n, 
 I hope you will be grateful to me, because I have been 
 the humble means of procuring him this distinguished 
 post. Mr. Bunker, in fact, was, or conceived that he 
 had been, useful to my grandfather, and was said to be 
 disapi^ointed at getting nothing by the will. There- 
 fore I endeavored to make some return by taking his 
 nephew into the House. That is all." 
 
 " And a great deal more than enough, because, Miss 
 Messenger, you have all out of your kindness done a 
 great mischief, for if you had not employed him I am 
 quite certain no one else woidd. Then he would have 
 to come back to me. Send him away. Do send him 
 away. Do send him away, Miss Messenger. There 
 
236 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 are lots of cabinet-makers to be had. Then he will 
 come back to societ}^, and I will present him to you, 
 and he shall thank you." 
 
 She smiled and shook her head. 
 
 "People are never sent away from the brewery so 
 long as they behave properly. But it is strange in- 
 deed, that your ward should voluntarily surrender all 
 the advantages of life and social position for the hard 
 work and poor pay of an artisan. Was it — was it af- 
 fection for his cousins?" She blushed deeply as she 
 put this question. 
 
 " Strange, indeed. When he came to me the other 
 night, he told me a long story about men being all alike 
 in every rank of life. I have noticed much the same 
 thing in the army ; of course he did not have the impu- 
 dence to say that women are all alike ; and he talked a 
 quantity of prodigious nonsense about living among his 
 own people. Presently, however, I got out of him the 
 real truth." 
 
 " What was that?" 
 
 " He confessed that he was in love." 
 
 "With a young lady of Whitechapel? This does 
 great credit to the excellent education you gave him, 
 Lord Jocelyn." She blushed for the fourth or fifth 
 time, and he wondered why, and she held her fan be- 
 fore her face. "But, perhaps," she added, "you are 
 wrong, and women of all ranks, like men, are the 
 same. " 
 
 " Perhaps I ought not to have told you this, Miss 
 Messenger. Now j'ou will despise him. Yet he had 
 the impudence to say that she was a lady — positively a 
 lady — this Whitechapel dressmaker." 
 
 " A dressmaker ! — oh !" She threw into her voice a 
 little of that icy coldness with which ladies are expected 
 to receive this kind of announcement. 
 
 " Ah ! now you care no more about him. I might 
 have known that j^our sympathy would cease directly 
 you heard all. He went into raptures over this young 
 milliner. She is beautiful as the day ; she is graceful, 
 accomplished, well-bred, well-mannered, a queen " 
 
 "No doubt," said Angela, still frozen. "But really, 
 Lord Jocelyn, as it is Mr. Goslett, the cabinet-maker, 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 237 
 
 and uot you, who is in love with this paragon, we may- 
 be spared her praises." 
 
 " And, which is more remarkable still, she won't have 
 anything to say to him." 
 
 " That is indeed remarkable. But perhaps as she is 
 the Queen of Dressmakers, she is looking for the King 
 of Cabinet- Makers." 
 
 "No doubt," said Lord Joceljni; "I think the music 
 is coming to an end. However, Miss Messenger, one 
 favor." 
 
 "A dozen, Lord Jocehm, if I can grant them." 
 
 " He refuses to take any help from me ; he lives on 
 work paid for at the rate of tenpence an hour. If you 
 will not send away — then — oh, then " 
 
 "Quick, Lord Jocehm, what is it?" 
 
 " Tax the resources of the brewerj-. Puton the odd 
 twopence. It is the gift of the Samaritan — make it a 
 BhilliLg an hour." 
 
 " I will, Lord Jocelyn — hush ! The music is just 
 over, and I hope that the dressmaker will relent, and 
 there will be a wedding in Stepney Church, and that 
 they will be happy ever after. O brave and loyal 
 lover I He gives up all, all" — she looked round the 
 room, the room filled with guests, and her great eyes 
 became limpid, and her voice fell to a murmur — " for 
 love, for love. Do you think. Lord Jocelyn, that the 
 dressmaker will continue to be obdurate? But perhaps 
 S'le does not know, or cannot suspect, what he has 
 thrown away — for her sake — happy dressmaker !" 
 
 'I think," said Lord Jocelyn afterward, "that if 
 Harry had seen Miss Messenger before he saw his dress- 
 maker we shouldn't have heard so much about the beau- 
 tiful life of a working-man. Why the devil couldn't I 
 wait? This girl is a Helen of Troy, and Harry should 
 have written his name Paris and carried her off, by 
 gad ! before Men elans or any other fellow got hold of 
 her. What a woman ! What a match it would have 
 been !" 
 
238 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 AN INVITATION. 
 
 Very shortly after the fatal discovery made by the 
 professor, Lord Davenant received the outside recogni- 
 tion, so to speak, of his rank. It is true that no one 
 witiiiii a mile of Stepne}' Green — that is, anywhere be- 
 tween Aldgate Pump and Bow Church — would have 
 had the hardihood to express a doubt on the validity of 
 a claim which conferred a lustre upon the neighbor- 
 hood; yet even Lord Davenant, not remarkable for 
 quickness of perception, was sharp enough to know 
 that recognition at Stepney is not altogether the same 
 thing as recognition at W estminster . He was now once 
 more tolerably comfortable in his mind. The agonies 
 of composition were over, thanks to his young friend's 
 assistance; the labor of transcription was finished; 
 he felt, in looking at the bundle of papers, all the dig- 
 nity of successful authorship; the case, in fact, was 
 now complete and ready for presentation to the Queen, 
 or to any one. Lord Chancellor, Prime Minister, Lord 
 Chamberlain, or American Minister, who would under- 
 take and faithfully promise to lay it before Her Maj- 
 esty. For his own part, brought up in the belief that 
 the British Lion habitually puts his heroic tail between 
 his legs when the name of America is mentioned, he 
 thought that the Minister of the States was the proper 
 person to present his case. Further, the days of fatness 
 were come again. Clara Martha, in some secret way 
 only known to herself, was again in command of mon- 
 ey ; once more bacon and tea, and bread and butter, if 
 not coffee, cream, and buckwheat cakes, with maple 
 syrup and hot compone — delicacies of his native land — 
 w^ere spread upon the board at eight in the morning ; 
 and again the succulent steak of Stepne}^, j'ielding to 
 none, not even to him of Fleet Street, appeared at stroke 
 of one ; and the noble lord could put up his feet and rest 
 the long and peaceful morning through, unreproached 
 by his consort. Therefore he felt no desire for any 
 change, but would have been quite content to go on for 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 239 
 
 ever enjoying his title among this simple folk, and care- 
 less about the splendors of his rank. How Clara Mar- 
 tha got the money he did not inquire. We, who know, 
 may express our fears that here was another glaring 
 violation of political economy, and that the weekly 
 honorarium received every Saturday by Lady Davenant 
 was by no means adequately accounted for by her 
 weekly work. Still her style was very fine, and there 
 were no more delicate workers in the association than 
 the little peeress with the narrow shoulders and the 
 bright eyes. 
 
 Not one word, mark you, spoken of Saturday Dave- 
 nant — that " Roag in Grane " and the professor as re- 
 spectful as if his lordshii^ had sat through thirty j'ears 
 of deliberation in the Upper House, and Mr. Goslett 
 humbly deferential to her ladj-ship, and in secret con- 
 fidential and familiar, even rollicking, with ni}' lord, 
 and Miss Kennedy respectfully thoughtful for their 
 welfare. 
 
 This serenity was troubled and dissipated by the arri- 
 val of a letter addressed to Lady Davenant. 
 
 She received it — a simple letter on ordinary note- 
 paper — with surprise, and opened it with some suspi- 
 cion. Her experience of letters was not of late happy, 
 inasmuch as her recent correspondence had been chietiy 
 with American friends, who reminded her how they 
 had all along t(jld her that it was no good expecting 
 that the Davenant claim would be listened to, and now 
 she saw for herself, and had better come home again 
 and live among the plain folk of Canaan, and praise 
 the Lord for making her husband an American citizen ; 
 with much more to the same effect, and cruel words 
 from nephew Nathaniel, who had no ambition, and 
 would have sold his heirship to the coronet for a few 
 dollars. 
 
 She looked first at the signature, and turned pale, 
 for it was from the mj'sterious young lady, almost di- 
 vine in the eyes of Stepney, because she was so rich. 
 Miss Messenger. 
 
 " Lord !" cried Mrs. Bormalack. " Do read it quick." 
 
 Her ladyship read it through ver}' slowl}*, much too 
 slowlj^ for her landlady's impatience. 
 
 Her pale cheeks flushed with pride and joy when she 
 
240 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 comprehended what the letter meant ; she drew herself 
 up straight, and her shoulders became so sloping that 
 the uneasy feeling about her clothes, already alluded to, 
 once more passed through Mrs. Bormalack's sympa- 
 thetic mind. 
 
 " It will be a change, indeed, for us," she murmured, 
 looking at her husband. 
 
 " Change?" cried the landlady. 
 
 "What change?" asked his lordship. " Clara Mar- 
 tha, I do not want any change ; I am comfortable here. 
 I am treated with respect, the place is quiet ; I do not 
 want to change." 
 
 He was a heavy man and lethargic — change meant 
 some kind of physical activity — he disliked movement. 
 
 His wife tossed her head with impatience. 
 
 " Oh," she cried, " he would rather sit in his armchair 
 than walk even across the green to get his coronet. 
 Shame upon him ! Oh ! Carpenter ! Shh !" 
 
 His lordship quailed and said no more. That allu- 
 sion to his father's trade was not intended as a sneer; 
 the slothfulness of his parent it was which the lady 
 hurled at his lordship's head. No one could tell, no 
 living writer is able to depict faithfully, the difficulties 
 encountered and overcome by this resolute woman in 
 urging her husband to action; how she had first to per- 
 suade him to declare that he was the heir to the extinct 
 title ; how she had next to drag him away from Canaan 
 City; how she had to bear with his moanings, lamen- 
 tations, and terrors, when he found himself actually on 
 board the steamer, and saw the land siowly disappear- 
 ing, while the great ship rolled beneath his unaccus- 
 tomed feet, and consequences which he had not foreseen 
 began to follow. These were things of the past, but it 
 had been hard to get him away even from Wellclose 
 Square, which he found comfortable, making allowance 
 for the disrespectful Dane; and now — but it must and 
 should be done. 
 
 "His lordship," said the little vroman, thinking she 
 had perhaps said too much, " is one of tliem who take 
 root wherever you set them down. Ho takes after his 
 grandfather, the Honorable Timothy Clithcroe. Set 
 himself down in Canaan City, and took root at once, 
 never wanted to go away. And the Davenants, I am 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 241 
 
 told, never left the village from the day they built their 
 castle there till the last lord died there. In other peo- 
 ple, Mrs. Bormalack, it might be called sloth, but in his 
 lordship's case we can only say that he is quick to take 
 root. That is all, ma'am. And when we move him, 
 it is like tearing him up by the roots." 
 
 " It is, " said his lordship, clinging to the arms of the 
 chair; "it is." 
 
 The letter was as follows, and Lady Davenant read 
 it aloud : 
 
 "Dear Lady Davenant: I have quite recently 
 learned that j'ou and Lord Davenant are staying at a 
 house on Stepney Green which happens to be my prop- 
 ertj. Otherwise, perhaps, I might have remained in 
 ignorance of this most interesting circumstance. I have 
 also learned that you have crossed the Atlantic for the 
 purpose of presenting a claim to the Davenant title, 
 which was long supposed to be extinct, and I hasten to 
 convey to you my most sincere wishes for j^our success. 
 
 " I am at this moment precluded from doing myself 
 the pleasure of calling upon you, for reasons with which 
 I will not trouble you. I hope, however, to be allowed 
 to do so before very long. Meantime, I take the liber- 
 ty of offering 3'ou the hospitality of my own house in 
 Portman Square, if you will honor me by accepting it, 
 as your place of residence during your stay in London. 
 You will perhaps find Portman Scjuare a central place, 
 and more convenient for you than Stepney Green, 
 which, though it possesses undoubted advantages in 
 healthful air and freedom from London fog, is 3'et not 
 altogether a desirable place of residence for a lady of 
 your rank. 
 
 " I am aware that in addressing 3'ou without the 
 ceremony of an introduction, I am taking what may 
 seem to j^ou a liberty. I may be pardoned on the 
 ground that I feel so deep an interest in your romantic 
 story, a.nd so much sympathy with your courage in 
 crossing the ocean to prosecute your claim. Such 
 claims as these are, j'ou know, jealously regarded and 
 sifted with the greatest care, so that there maj' be dif- 
 ficulty in establishing a perfectly made-cut case, and 
 one which shall satisfy the House of Lords as impreg- 
 16 
 
a43 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 nable to any attack. There is, however, such a thing 
 as a moral certainty, and I am well assured that Lord 
 Davenant would not have left his native country had 
 he not been convinced in his own mind that his cause 
 is a just one, and that his claim is a duty owed to his 
 illustrious ancestors. So that, whether he wins or 
 loses, whether he succeeds or fails, he must in either 
 case command our respect and our s^^mpath}'. Under 
 these circumstances I trust that I may be forgiven, 
 and that your ladj'ship will honor my poor house with 
 your presence. I will send, always provided that jou. 
 accept, my carriage for you on any day that you may 
 appoint. Your reply may be directed here, because all 
 letters are forwarded to me, though I am not, at the 
 present moment, residing at my own town-house. 
 
 " Believe me to remain, dear Lady Davenant, yours 
 very faithfully, 
 
 "Angela Marsden Messenger." 
 
 " It is a beautiful letter !" cried Mrs. Bormalack, 
 "and to think of Miss Messenger knowing that this 
 house is one of hers ! Why, she's got hundreds. Now, 
 I wonder who could have told her that 3'ou were here?" 
 
 "No doubt," said her lad3'ship, "she saw it in the 
 papers." 
 
 " What a providence that you came here ! If you 
 had stayed at Wellclose Square, which is a low place 
 and only fit for foreigners, she never would have heard 
 about you. Well, it will be a sad blow losing your 
 ladyship, but of course you must go. You can't refuse 
 such a noble offer; and though I've done my best, I'm 
 sure, to make his lordship comfortable, yet I know that 
 the dinner hasn't always been such as I could wish, 
 though as good as the money would run to. And we 
 can't hope to rival Miss Messenger, of course, in house- 
 keeping, though I should like to hear what she gives 
 for dinner." 
 
 "You shall, Mrs. Bormalack," said her ladyship; "I 
 will send j'ou w^ord myself, and I am sure we are very 
 grateful to you for all your kindness, and especiall}^ at 
 times when my husband's nephew, Nathaniel, who is 
 not the whole-souled and high-toned man that the heir 
 to a peerage ought to be " 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 243 
 
 "Don't sjDeak of it," interrupted the good landlady, 
 "don't speak of it, your ladyship. It will always be 
 my pride to remember that yout ladyship thought I did 
 my little best. But, then, with mutton at eleven-pence 
 ha'penny!" 
 
 The name of Portman Square suggested nothing at 
 all to the illustrious pair. It might just as well have 
 been Wellclose Square. But here was an outside rec- 
 ognition of them ; and from a very rich young lady, 
 who perhaps was herself acquainted with some of the 
 members of the Upper House. 
 
 "It is a proper letter," said Lady Davenant criti- 
 call}"; " a letter written in a becoming spirit. There's 
 many things to admire in England, but the best thing 
 is the respect to rank. Now, in our own city did they 
 respect his lordship for his family? Not a mite. The 
 boys drew pictures of him on the walls with a crown 
 on his head and a sword in his hand." 
 
 "Must we go, Clara Martha?" his lordship asked in 
 a tremulous voice. 
 
 " Yes, we must go ; we must show people that we are 
 ready to assume the dignity of the position. As for 
 my husband, Mrs. Bormalack" — she looked at him side- 
 wa3's while slie addressed the landlady — " there are times 
 when I feel that nothing but noble blood confers real 
 dignity" — his lordship coughed — "real dignity and a 
 determination to have your rights, and behavior ac- 
 cording." 
 
 Lord Davenant straightened his back and held up his 
 head. But when his wife left him he drooped it again 
 and looked sad. 
 
 Lady Davenant took the letter with her to show Miss 
 Kennedy. 
 
 "I shall never forget old friends, my dear," she said 
 kindly, when Angela had read it through, "never; and 
 your kindness in my distress I could not forget if I 
 tried." The tears stood in her eyes as she spoke. " We 
 aro standing now on the very tlireshold of Greatness; 
 this is the first step to Recognition ; a short time more 
 and my husband will be in his right place among the 
 British peers. As for myself, I don't seem to mind 
 any. Miss Kenned}'. It's for h^'m that I mind. Once 
 in his ov.m place, he will show the world what he is 
 
244 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 capable of. You only think of him as a sleepy old man, 
 who likes to put up his feet and shut his eyes. So he 
 is — so he is. But wait till he gets his own. Then you 
 will see. As for eloquence, now, I remember one 
 Fourth of July — but of course we were Americans 
 then." 
 
 " Indeed, Lady Davenant, we shall all be rejoiced if 
 you succeed. But do not forget Miss Messenger's warn- 
 ing. There is a moral success, and there is a legal suc- 
 cess. You may have to be contented with the former. 
 But that should be enough for you, and you would then 
 return to your own people with triumph." 
 
 " Aurelia Tucker," said her ladyship, smiling gently, 
 "will wish she hadn't taken up the prophesyin' line. 
 I shall forgive her, though envy is indeed a hateful 
 passion. However, we cannot iill have illustrious an- 
 cestors, though, since our own elevation, there's not a 
 man, woman, or child in Canaan City, except the 
 Dutchman, who hasn't connected himself with an Eng- 
 lish family, and the demand for Red Books and books 
 of the county families is more than you could believe, 
 and they do say that many a British peer will have to 
 tremble for his title." 
 
 "Come," said Angela, interrupting these interesting 
 facts, " come, 'Lady Davenant. " I knew beforehand of 
 this letter, and Miss Messenger has given me work in 
 anticipation of your visit." 
 
 She led the little lady to the showroom, and here, 
 laid on chairs, were marvels. For there were dresses 
 in silk and in velvet : dresses of best silk, moire antique, 
 brocaded silk, silk that would stand upright of itself, 
 without the aid of a chair-back, and velvet of the rich- 
 est, the blackest, and the most costly. There could be 
 no doubt whatever as to the person for whom these 
 dresses had been designed, because nobody else had 
 such narrow and such sloping shoulders. Never in her 
 dreams had her ladyship thought it possible that she 
 should wear such dresses. 
 
 " They are a present from Miss Messenger," said Miss 
 Kennedy. " Now, if you please, we will go into the tr}^- 
 ing-on room." 
 
 Then Lady Davenant discovered that these dresses 
 were trimmed with lace, also of the most beautiful and 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 245 
 
 delicate kind. She had sometimes seen lace during her 
 professional career, but she never possessed any, and 
 the sight of it created a kind of yearning in her heart 
 to have it on, actually on her sleeves and round her 
 neck. 
 
 When she dressed in her velvet with the lace trim- 
 ming, she looked a ver}^ stately little lady. When An- 
 gela had hung about her neck a heav}- gold chain with 
 a watch and seals ; when she had deftly added a touch 
 to her still luxuriant hair, and set in it a small aigrette 
 of brilliants ; when she had put on her a pair of gloves 
 and given her a large and beautifully painted fan, there 
 was no nobler-looking lady in the land, for all she was 
 so little. 
 
 Then Angela courtesied low and begged her ladyship 
 to examine the dress in the glass. Her ladj'ship sur- 
 veyed herself with an astonishment and delight impos- 
 sible to be repressed, although they detracted somewhat 
 from the dignit}- due to the dress. 
 
 " O Aurelia !" she exclaimed, as if in the joy of her 
 heart she could have wished her friend to share her 
 happiness. 
 
 Then Miss Kennedy explained to her that the velvet 
 and magnificent silk dresses were for the evening only, 
 while for the morning there were other black silk 
 dresses, with beautiful fur cloaks and things for car- 
 riage exercise, and all kinds of things provided, so that 
 she might make a becoming appearance in Portman 
 Square. 
 
 "As for his lordship," Miss Kennedy went on, "steps 
 have been taken to provide him also with garments due 
 to his position. And I think, Lady Davenant, if I may 
 venture to advise " 
 
 " My dear," said her ladyship, simply, "just tell me, 
 right away, what am I to do." 
 
 " Then you are to write to ]\Iiss Messenger and tell 
 her that you will be ready to-morrow morning, and 
 say any kind of thing that occurs to your kind heart. 
 And then you will have undisturbed possession of the 
 big house in Portman Square, with all its servants, 
 butler, coachman, footmen, and the rest of them at your 
 orders. And I beg — that is, I hope — that you will make 
 use of them. Remember that a nobleman's servant ex- 
 
246 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 pects to be ordered, not asked. Drive every day ; go 
 to the theatres to amuse yourself — I am sure, after all 
 this time, you want amusement." 
 
 "We had lectures at Canaan City," said her lady- 
 ship. " Shall we go to lectures?"' 
 
 " N — no. I think there are none. But j^ou should 
 go to concerts, if you like them, and to picture galler- 
 ies. Be seen about a good deal ; make people talk about 
 you, and do not press your case before you have been 
 talked about." 
 
 " Do you think I can persuade Timothy — I mean, his 
 lordship — to go about with me?" 
 
 "You will have the carriage, you know; and if he 
 likes he can sleep at the theatre; you have only to take 
 a private box — but be seen and talked about. " 
 
 This seemed ver}'- good advice. Lady Davenant lakl 
 it to her heart. Then she took off her magnificent a'oI • 
 vet and put on the humble stuff again, with a sigh. 
 Happily, it was the last daj^ she would wear it. 
 
 On returning to the boarding-house, she found her 
 husband in great agitation, for he too had been "try- 
 ing on," and he had been told peremptorily that the 
 whole of the existing wardrobe must be abolished, and 
 changed for a new one which had been provided for 
 him. The good old coat, whose sleeves were so shin}^, 
 whose skirts so curly, whose cuff's so worn, must be 
 abandoned; the other things, which long custom had 
 adapted to ever}" projection of his figure, must go too; 
 and, in place of them, the new things w^iich he had 
 just been trying on. 
 
 " There's a swallow-tail, Clara Martha, for evening 
 wear. I shall have to change my clothes, they tell me, 
 ever}' evening; and frock-coats to button down the 
 front like a congressman in a statue; and — O Clara 
 Martha, we are going to have a terrible time !" 
 
 "Courage, my lord," she said. "The end will re- 
 ward us. Only hold up your head, and remember that 
 you are enjoying the title." 
 
 The evening was rather sad, though the grief of the 
 noble pair at leaving their friends was shared by none 
 but their landlady, who really was attached to the little 
 l^ird-like woman, so resolute and full of courage. As 
 for the rest, they behaved as members of a happy fam- 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 247 
 
 ily are expected to behave — that is to say, they paid no 
 heed whatever to the approaching departure of two out 
 of their number, and Josephus leaned his head against 
 the wall, and Daniel Fagg plunged his hands into his 
 hair, and old Mr. Maliphant sat in the corner with his 
 pipe in his mouth and narrated bits of stories to him- 
 self, and laughed. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 LORD DAVENANT'S GREATNESS. 
 
 Probably no greater event had ever happened within 
 the memory of Stepne}^ Green than the arrival of Miss 
 Messenger's carriage to take away the illustrious pair 
 from the boarding-house. Mrs. Bormalack felt, vv^ith a 
 pang, when she saw the pair of graj'^s, with the coach- 
 man and footman on the box, actually standing before 
 her own door, for all to see, as if she had not thor- 
 oughly appreciated the honor of having a peer and his 
 consort residing under her roof, and paying every week 
 for board and lodging the moderate sum of — but she 
 could not bear to put it into words. Now, however, 
 they were going. • 
 
 His lordship, in his new frock-coat tightly buttoned, 
 stood, looking constrained and stiff, with one hand on 
 the table and the other thrust into his breast, like a cer- 
 tain well-known statue of Washington. His wife had 
 instructed him to assume this attitude. With him were 
 Daniel Fagg, the professor, and Harry, the rest of the 
 lioarders being engaged in their several occupations. 
 Mrs. Bormalack was putting the final touches to Lady 
 Davenant's morning toilet. 
 
 " If I was a lord, " said Daniel, " I should become a 
 great patron to discoverers. I would publish their 
 works for them." 
 
 •'I will, Mr. Fagg, I will," said his lordship; "give 
 me time to look around and see how the dollars come 
 in. Because, gentlemen, as Clara Martha — I mean her 
 ladyship — is not ready j'et, there is time for me to ex- 
 plain that I don't quite know what is to happen next, 
 nor where those dollars are to come from, unless it is 
 
248 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 from the Davenant estates. But I don't think, Mr. 
 Fagg, that we shall forget old friends. A man born to 
 a peerage, that is an accident, or the gift of Providence; 
 but to be a Hebrew scholar comes from genius. When 
 a man has been a school-teacher for near upon forty 
 years he knows what genius means — and it's skurse, 
 even in Amer'ca." 
 
 "Then, my lord," said Daniel, producing his note- 
 book, " I may put your lordship's name down for 
 
 how many copies?" 
 
 " Wal, Mr. Fagg, I don't care how many copies you 
 put my name down for, provided you don't ask for pay- 
 ment until the way is clear. I don't suppose they will 
 play it so low on a man as to give him his peerage 
 without a mite of income, even if it has to be raised by 
 a tax on something." 
 
 "American beef will have to be taxed," said Harry. 
 " Never fear, my lord, we will pull you through some- 
 how. As Miss Messenger said, 'moral certainty' is a 
 fine card to plaj^, even if the committee of the House of 
 Lords don't recognize the connection." 
 
 The professor looked guilty, thinking of that " Roag 
 in Grane," Saturda}^ Davenant, wheelwright, who went 
 to the American colonies. 
 
 Then her lad3'ship appealed complete and ready, 
 dressed in her black silk with a fur cloak and a mag- 
 nificent muff of sable — stately, gracious, and happy. 
 After her, Mrs. Bormalack, awed. 
 
 "I am ready, my lord," she said, standing in the 
 doorway. " My friends, we shall not forget those who 
 were hospitable to us, and kind in the days of our ad- 
 versity. Mr. Fagg, j'ou may depend upon us. You 
 hav3 his lordship's permission to dedicate your book to 
 his lordship. We sliall sometimes speak of your dis- 
 covery. The world of fashionable London shall hear 
 of your circles." 
 
 "Triangles, my lady," said Daniel, bowing. 
 
 "I beg 5^our pardon, Mr. Fagg; I ought to have 
 known, and the triangle goes with the fife and the drum 
 in all the militia regiments. Professor, if there is any 
 place in Portman Square wdiere an entertainment can 
 be held, we will remember 3-ou. Mr. Goslett — ah, Mr. 
 Goslett, we shall miss you very much. Often and often 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 249 
 
 has my husband said that, but for your own timely aid, 
 he must have broken down. What can we now do for 
 you, Mr. Goslett?" 
 
 Nothing could have been more generous than this 
 dispensing of patronage. 
 
 "Nothing," said Harry. "But I thank you all the 
 same." 
 
 " Perhaps Miss Messenger wants a cabinet made?" 
 
 "No, no," he cried hastily. "I don't want to make 
 cabinets for Miss Messenger. I mend the office stools 
 for the brewery, and I work — for — for Miss Kennedy," 
 he added, with a blush. 
 
 Lady Davenant nodded her head and laughed. So 
 hap})y was she that she could even show an interest in 
 something outside the case. 
 
 "A handsome couple," she said simply. "Yes, my 
 dear, go on working for Miss Kennedy, because she is 
 worth it — and now, my lord. Gentlemen, I wish you 
 farewell." 
 
 She made the most statel}', the most dignified obei- 
 sance, and turned to leave them ; but Harry sprang to 
 the front and offered his arm. 
 
 "Permit me. Lady Davenant." 
 
 It was extraordinary enough for the coachman to be 
 ordered to Stepney Gi'een to take up a lord — it w^as 
 more extraordinary to see that lord's noble lady falling 
 on the neck of an ordinary female in a black stuff gown 
 and an apron — namely, Mrs. Bormalack; and still more 
 wonderful to see that noble lady led to the carriage by 
 a young gentleman who seemed to belong to the place. 
 
 " I know him," said James, the footman, presently. 
 
 " Who is he?" 
 
 " He's Mr. Le Breton, nephew or something of Lord 
 Jocelyn. I've seen him about; and what he's doing 
 on Stepney Green the Lord only knows." 
 
 "James," said the coachman. 
 
 "John," said the footman. 
 
 "When you don't understand what a young gentle- 
 ntan is a-doin', what does a man of your experience 
 conclude?" 
 
 "John," said the footman, "3-ou are right as usual; 
 but I didn't see her." 
 
 There was a little crowd outside, and it was a proud 
 
250 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF 3IEN. 
 
 moment for Lady Davenant when she walked through 
 the lane (which she could have wished a mile long) 
 formed by the spectators, and took her place in the open 
 carriage, beneath the great fur rug. His lordship fol- 
 lowed with a look of sadness, or apprehension, rather 
 than triumph. The door was slammed, the footman 
 mounted the box, and the carriage drove off — one boy 
 called " Hooray !" and jumped on the curbstone. To 
 him Lord Davenant took off his hat. Another turned 
 catherine-wheels along the road, and Lord Davenant 
 took off his hat to him, too, with aristocratic impartial- 
 it}^ ; till the coachman flicked at him with his whip, 
 and then he ran behind the carriage and used language 
 for a quarter of a mile. 
 
 "Timothy," said her ladyship — "would that Aurelia 
 Tucker were here to see !'" 
 
 He only groaned : how could he tell what sufferings 
 in the shape of physical activity might be before him? 
 When Avould he be able to put uj) his feet again? One 
 little disappointment marred the complete joy of the de- 
 parture : it was strange that Miss Kennedy, who had 
 taken so m uch interest in the business — who had herself 
 tried on the dresses — should not have been there to see. 
 It was not kind of her, who was usually so ver}^ kind, 
 to be absent on this important occasion. They arrived 
 at Portman Square a little before one. Miss Messenger 
 sent them her compliments by her own maid, and hoped 
 they would be perfectly comfortable in her house, which 
 was placed entirely at their disposal; she was only 
 sorry that absence from town would prevent her from 
 personally receiving Lady Davenant. 
 
 The spaciousness of the rooms, the splendor of the 
 furniture, the presence of many servants, awed the sim- 
 ple little American woman. She followed her guide, 
 wdio offered to show them the house and led them into 
 all the rooms, the great and splendidly furnished draw- 
 ing-room, the dining-room, the morning-room, and the 
 library, without saying a word. Her husband walked 
 after her in the deepest dejection, hanging his head and 
 dangling his hands, in forgetfulness of the statuesque 
 attitude. He saw no chance whatever for a place of 
 quiet meditation. 
 
 Presently they came back to the morning-room — it 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 351 
 
 was a pleasant, sunny room ; not so large as the great 
 dining-room, nor so gaunt in its furniture, nor was it 
 hung with immense pictures of game and fruit, but 
 with light and bright water-colors. 
 
 " I should like," said her ladyship, hesitating, because 
 she was a little afraid that her dignity demanded that 
 they should use the biggest room of all — " I should like, 
 if we could, to sit in this room when we are alone." 
 
 "Certainl}^ my lady." 
 
 " We are simple people," she went on, trying to make 
 it clear why they liked simplicity ; " and accustomed to 
 a plain waj' of life — so that his lordship does not look 
 for the splendor that belongs to his position." 
 
 "No, my lady." 
 
 " Therefore, if we may use this room mostly, and — 
 and — keep the drawing-room for when we have com- 
 pany " She looked timidly at the grave young wo- 
 man who was to be her maid. 
 
 "Certainly, my lady." 
 
 " As for his lordship," she went on, " I beg he may be 
 undisturbed in the morning wdien he sits in the library 
 — he is much occupied in the morning." 
 
 "Yes, my lady." 
 
 "I think I noticed," said Lord Davenant, a little 
 more cheerfully, " as we walked through the library, a 
 most beautiful chair." He cleared his throat, but said 
 no more. 
 
 Tt en they were showm to their own rooms, and told 
 that luncheon would be served immediat^h^ 
 
 "And I hope, Clara Martha," said his lordship, when 
 they were alone, " that luncheon in this house means 
 something solid and substantial — fried oysters now, 
 with a beefsteak and tomatoes, and a little green corn 
 in the ear, I should like." 
 
 " It will be something, my dear, worth 5" of our rank. 
 I almost regret now that j'ou are a teetotaler — wine, 
 somehow, seems to belong to a title. Do 3'ou think that 
 you could break your vow and take one glass, or even 
 two, of wine — just to show that you are equal to the 
 position." 
 
 "No, Clara Martha," her husband replied with decis- 
 ion. " No — I will not break the pledge — not even for 
 a glass of old Bourbon." 
 
253 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 There were no fried oysters at that day's luncheon, 
 nor any green corn in the ear; but it was the best 
 square meal that his lordship had ever sat down to in 
 his life. Yet it was marred by the presence of an im- 
 posing footman, who seemed to be watching to see how 
 much an American could eat. This caused his lordship 
 to drop knives and upset glasses, and went very near 
 to mar the enjoyment of the meal. 
 
 After the luncheon he bethought him of the chair in 
 the li])rary, and retired there. It was indeed a most 
 beautiful chair — low in the seat, broad and deep, not 
 too soft — and there was a footstool. 
 
 His lordship sat down in this chair, beside a large 
 and cheerful fire, put up his feet, and surveyed the 
 room. Books were ranged round all the walls — books 
 from floor to ceiling. There was a large table with 
 many drawers, covered with papers, magazines, and 
 reviews, and provided with ink and pens. The door 
 was shut, and there was no sound save of a passing 
 carriage in the square. 
 
 " This," said his lordship " seems better than Stepney 
 Green; I wish Nathaniel \vere here to see me." 
 
 With these words upon his lips, he fell into a deep 
 slumber. 
 
 At half-past three his wife came to wake him up. 
 She had ordered the carriage and was ready and eager 
 for another drive along those wonderful streets which 
 she had seen for the first time. She roused him with 
 great difficulty, and persuaded him, not without words 
 of refusal, to come with her. Of course she was per- 
 fectly wide awake. 
 
 "This," she cried, once more in the carriage, "this 
 is London, indeed. Oh! to think we have wasted 
 months at Stepnej^, thinking that was town. Timo- 
 thy, we must wake up ; we have a great deal to see and 
 to learn. Look at the shops, look at the carriages. 
 Do tell ! It's better than Boston city. Now that we 
 have got the carriage we will go out every day and see 
 something; I've told them to drive past the Queen's 
 Paliice, and to show us where the Prince of Wales lives. 
 Before long we shall go there ourselves, of course, with 
 the rest of the nobility. There's only one thing that 
 troubles me." 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 253 
 
 "What is that, Clara Martha? You air thinkin', 
 perhaps, that it isn't in nature for them to keep the 
 dinners every day up to the same pitch of elevation?" 
 
 She repressed her indignation at this unworthy sug- 
 gestion. 
 
 '' No, Timothy ; and I hope your lordship will remem- 
 ber that in our position we can afford to despise mere 
 considerations of meat and drink, and wherewithal we 
 shall be clothed." She spoke as if pure Christianity 
 was impossible beneath their rank, and, indeed, she had 
 never felt so truly virtuous before. " No, Timothy, my 
 trouble is that we want to see everything there is to be 
 seen." 
 
 " That is so, Clara Martha. Let us sit in this luxu- 
 rious chaise and see it all. I never get tired o' sittin', 
 and I like to see things." 
 
 " But we can only see the things that cost nothing or 
 the outside things, because we've got no money." 
 
 " No monej' at all?" 
 
 " None ; only seven shillings and three-pence in cop- 
 pers." 
 
 This was the dreadful truth. Mrs. Bormalack had 
 been paid, and the seven shillings was all that remained. 
 
 " And, oh, there is so much to see ! We'd always in- 
 tended to run round some day, only we were too busy 
 with the case to find the time, and see all the shows 
 we'd heard tell of — the Tower of London and Westmin- 
 ster Abbey, and the monument and Mr. Spurgeou's 
 Tabernacle — but we never thought things were so grand 
 as this. When we get home we will ask for a guide- 
 book of London, and pick out all the things that are 
 open free." 
 
 That day they drove up and down the streets, gazing 
 at the crowds and the shops. When they got home 
 tea was brought them in the morning-room, and his 
 lordship, who took it for another square meal, requested 
 the loaf to be brought, and did great things with the 
 bread and butter — and having no footman to fear. 
 
 At half-past seven a bell rang, and presently Miss 
 Messenger's maid came and whispered that it was the 
 first bell, and would her ladyship go to her own room, 
 and could she be of any help? 
 
 Lady Davenant rose at once, looking, however, much 
 
254 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 surprised. She went to her own room, followed by her 
 husband, too much astonished to ask what the thing 
 meant. 
 
 There was a beautiful fire in the room, which was 
 very large and luxuriously furnished, and lit with gas 
 burning in soft-colored glass. 
 
 "Nothing could be more delightful," said her lady- 
 ship, "and this room is a picture. But I don't under- 
 stand it." 
 
 "Perhaps it's the custom," said her husband, "for 
 the aristocracy to meditate in their bedrooms." 
 
 "I don't understand it," she repeated. "The girl 
 said the first bell. What's the second? They can't 
 mean us to go to bed." 
 
 "They must," said his lordship. "Yes, we must go 
 to bed. And there will be no supper to-night. To- 
 morrow, Clara Martha, you must speak about it, and 
 say we're accustomed to later hours. At nine o'clock 
 or ten we can go with a cheerful heart — after supper. 
 But — well — it looks a soft bed, and I dare say I can 
 sleep in it. You've nothing to say, Clara Martha, be- 
 fore I shut my eyes. Because if you have, get it off 
 your mind, so's not to disturb me afterward." 
 
 He proceeded to undress in his most leisurely man- 
 ner, and in ten minutes or so was getting into bed. 
 Just as his head fell upon the pillows there was a knock 
 at the door. 
 
 It was the maid who, came to say that she had for- 
 gotten to tell her ladyship that dinner was at eight. 
 
 "What?" cried the poor lady, startled out of her dig- 
 nity. " Do you mean to say that we've got to have 
 dinner?" 
 
 "Certainly, my lady;" this young person was ex- 
 tremel}^ well behaved, and in presence of her masters 
 and mistresses and superiors knew not the nature of a 
 smile. 
 
 "My!" 
 
 Her ladA^ship standing at the door, looked first at the 
 maid without and then at her husband, whose eyes 
 were closed, and who Avas experiencing the first and 
 balmj^ influences of sweet sleep. She felt so helpless 
 that she threw away her dignity and cast herself upon 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 255 
 
 the lady's maid. "See now!" she said, "what is your 
 name, nw dear?" 
 
 "Campion, my lady." 
 " I suppose you've got a Christian name?" 
 " I mean that Miss Messenger always calls me Cam- 
 pion." 
 
 " Well, then, I suppose I must, too. We are simple 
 people. Miss Campion, and not long from America, 
 where they do things different, and have dinner at half- 
 past twelve and supper at six. And my husband has 
 gone to bed. What is to be done?" 
 
 That a gentleman should suppose bed possible at 
 eight o'clock in the evening, was a thing so utterly in- 
 conceivable that Campion could for the moment sug- 
 gest nothing. She only stared. Presently she ventured 
 to suggest that his lordship might get up again. 
 
 " Get up, Timothy ; get up this minute !" Her lady- 
 ship shook and pushed him till he opened his ej'es and 
 lifted his head. "Don't stop to ask questions, but get 
 up right away." Then she ran back to the door. 
 " Miss Campion !" 
 "Yes, my lady." 
 
 " I don't mind much about myself, but it might not 
 look well for his lordship not to seem to know'things 
 just exactly how they're done in England. So please 
 don't tell the servants. Miss Campion." 
 
 She laid her hand on the maid's arm, and looked so 
 earnest, that the girl felt sorrj- for her. 
 
 " No, my lady," she replied. And she kept her word, 
 so that though the servants all knew how the noble lord 
 and his lady had been brought from Stepney Green, 
 and how his lordship floundered among the plates at 
 lunch, and ate up half a loaf with afternoon tea, they 
 did not know that he went to bed instead of dressing 
 for dinner. 
 
 "And, Miss Campion, " she was now outside the door, 
 holding it ajar, and the movements of a heavv body 
 hastily putting on clothes could be distinctly heard, 
 "3-0U will please tell me, presently, what time they do 
 have things." 
 "Yes, my lady." 
 "Family praj-ers now? His lordship will lead, of 
 
256 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 course — a thing he is quite used to, and can do better 
 than most, having always " Here she stopped, re- 
 membering that there was no absolute necessity to ex- 
 plain the duties of a village schoolmaster. 
 
 " There are no family prayers, my lad}", and your 
 lad^'ship can have dinner or any other meal at any time 
 you please." 
 
 " His lordship's time for meals will be those of his 
 brother peers." 
 
 " Yes, iwy ladj'. Breakfast at ten?" 
 
 " Ten will do perfectly." It was two hours later than 
 their usual time and her husband's sufferings would be 
 very great. Still, everything must give way to the 
 responsibilities of the rank. 
 
 " Will your ladyship take luncheon at half-past one, 
 and tea at half -past five, and dinner at eight':'" 
 
 " Yes, now that we know them, these hours will suit 
 me perfectly. We do not in our own country take tea 
 before dinner, but after it. That is nothing, how- 
 ever. And supper?" 
 
 " Your ladyship can have supper whenever you want 
 it," replied the maid. She hesitated for a moment and 
 then went on. " It is not usual for supper to be served 
 at all" 
 
 " Oh ! then we must go without." 
 
 B}^ this time her husband was dressed, and, obedient 
 to instruction, he had put on his new dress-coat, with- 
 out, however, making any alteration in the rest of his 
 morning garments. The effect, therefore, when they 
 descended to the drawing-room would have been very 
 startling, but for the fact that there was nobody to see it. 
 
 If luncheon was a great meal, dinner was far more 
 magnificent and stately ; only thei-e were two footmen 
 instead of one, and his lordship felt that he could not 
 do that justice to the dinner which the dinner deserved, 
 because those two great hulking fellows in livery 
 watched him all the time. After dinner they sat in 
 the great drawing-room, feeling very magnificent, and 
 yet uncomfortable. 
 
 "The second dinner," said his lordship, in a half- 
 whisper, "made me feel, Clara Martha, that we did 
 right to leave Canaan City. I never before knew what 
 they really meant by enjoying a title, and I don't think 
 
ALL SORTS AND COXDITIOXS OF MEN. 257 
 
 I ever thoroughly enjoyed it before. The red mullet 
 was beautiful, and the little larks in paper baskets 
 made me feel a lord all over." 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. - 
 
 THE SAME SIGNS. 
 
 "This he has done for love." 
 
 When Angela returned to her dressmakery, it was 
 with these words ringing in her ears, like some refrain 
 which continually returns and will not be silenced. 
 
 " This he has done — for love. " 
 
 It was a great deal to do — a great deal to give up; 
 she fully realized, after her talk with Lord Jocelyn, how 
 much it was that he had given up — at her request. 
 What had she herself done, she asked, in comparison? 
 She had given money — an3'body could give monej''. 
 She had lived in disguise, under false pretences, for a 
 few months ; but she never intended to go on living in 
 the East End, after she had set her association on a 
 film basis. To be sure, she had been drawn on into 
 wider schemes, and could not retire until these, includ- 
 ing the Palace of Delight, were well started. But this 
 young man had given up all, cheerfully, for her sake. 
 Because she was a dressmaker, and lived at Stepney, 
 he would be a workman and live there as well. For 
 her sake he had given up for ever the life of ease and 
 culture which might have been his, among the gentle- 
 folk to whom he belonged ; for her sake he left the man 
 who stood to him in loco 2jarentis; for her sake he 
 gave up all things that are dear to j'oung men, and be- 
 came a servant. And without a murmur. She watched 
 him going to his work in the morning, cheerful, with 
 the sunshine ever in his face — in fact, sunshine lived 
 there — his head erect, his e3'es fearless, not repenting 
 at all of his choice, perhaps hopeful that in the long run 
 those impediments spoken of might be removed; in 
 that hope he lived. Should that hope be disappointed — 
 what then? Only to have loved, to have sacrificed so 
 much for the sake of love, Angela said to herself, think- 
 ing of something she had read, was enough. Then she 
 17 
 
258 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 laughed, because this was so silly, and the young man 
 deserved to have some reward. 
 
 Then, as a first result of this newly acquired knowl- 
 edge, the point of view seemed changed. Quite natu- 
 rally, after the first surprise at finding so much cidtiva- 
 tion in a working-man, she regarded him, like all the 
 rest, from her own elevated platform. In the same 
 way he, from his own elevation, had been, in a sense, 
 looking down upon herself, though she did not suspect 
 the fact. One might pause here, in order to discuss 
 how man}" kinds of people do consider themselves on a 
 higher level than their neighbors. My own opinion is 
 that every man thinks himself on so very high a plat- 
 form as to entitle him to consider the greater part of 
 mankind quite below him; the fact that no one else 
 thinks so has nothing to do with it. Any one, how- 
 ever, can understand how Angela would at first regard 
 Harry, and Harry the fair dressmaker. Further, that, 
 whatever acquaintance or intimacy grew up between 
 them, the first i7npression Avould always remain, with 
 the mental attitude of a slight superiority in both 
 minds, so long as the first impression, the first belief 
 as to the real facts, was not removed. Now that it was 
 removed on one side, Angela, for her part, could no 
 longer look down ; there was no superiority left, except 
 in so far as the daughter of a Whitechapel brewer might 
 consider herself of finer clay than the son of a sergeant 
 in the army, also of Whitechapel origin. 
 
 All for love of her. 
 
 The words filled her heart: they made her cheeks 
 burn and her eyes glow. It seemed so. great and noble 
 a thing to do; so grand a sacrifice to make. 
 
 She remembered her words of contempt when, in a 
 shamefaced, hesitating way, as if it was something 
 wrong, he had confessed that he might go back to a life 
 of idleness. Why, she might have known — she ought 
 to have known — that it was not to an ignoble life among 
 ignoble people that he would go. Yet she was so 
 stupid. 
 
 What a sacrifice to make ! And all for love of her ! 
 
 Then the flower of love sprang up and immediately 
 blossomed, and was a beauteous rose, ready for her 
 
ALL SORTS AXD CONDITIONS OF MEN. 2o9 
 
 lover to g-ather and place upon his heart. But as 3'et 
 she hardly knew it. 
 
 Yet she had known all along that Harry loved her. 
 He never tried to conceal his passion. "Why," she 
 said to herself, trying tt) understand the meaning of the 
 sudden change in herself — "' why, it only seemed to 
 amuse me ; the thing was ahsurd ; and I felt pity for 
 him, and a little anger because he was so presumptuous ; 
 and I was a little embarrassed for fear I had compro- 
 mised myself with him. But it wasn't absurd at all; 
 and he loves me, though I have no fortune. Oh, 
 heaven! I am a she-Dives, and he doesn't know it, and 
 he loves me all the same." 
 
 She was to tell him when the " impediments" were re- 
 moved. Why, they were removed alread}'. But 
 should she tell him? How could she dare to tell him? 
 No girl likes to do her own wooing ; she must be 
 courted; she must be won. Besides — perhaps — but 
 here she smiled — he was not so very much in love, after 
 all. Perhaps he would change; perhaps he would 
 grow tired and go home and desert her; perhaps he 
 would fall in love with some one else. And perhaps 
 Angela, the strong-minded student of Xewnham, who 
 would have no love or marriage, or anything of the 
 kind, in her life, was no stronger than any of her sisters 
 at the approach of Love the Unconquered. 
 
 She came back the evening after thnt dinner. Her 
 cheek had a new color upon it ; there was a new smile 
 upon her lips; there was a new softness in her eyes. 
 
 "You look so beautiful this evening," said Nelly. 
 " Have you been happ}^ while you were away?" 
 
 "I have heard something that has made me happier." 
 said Angela. " But you, dear Nelly, have not. Why 
 are your cheeks so pale, and what is the meaning of 
 the dark lines under your eyes?" 
 
 "It is nothing," the girl replied quickly. "I am 
 quite well." But she was not. She was nervous and 
 prec^ccupipd. There was something on her mind. 
 
 Then Harry came, and they began to pass the even- 
 ing in the usual way, practising their songs, with 
 music, and the little dance, without which the girls could 
 not have gone away happy. And Angela, for the first 
 
260 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 time, observed a thing which struck a chill to her 
 heart, and robbed her of half her joy. 
 
 Why had she never before discovered this thing? 
 Ah ! ignorant maiden, despite the wisdom of the schools. 
 Hypatia herself Avas not more ignorant than Angela, 
 who knew not that the chief quality of the rose of love 
 in her heart was to make her read the hearts of others. 
 Armed with this magic power, she saw what she might 
 have seen long before. 
 
 In the hasty glance, the quick flush, the nervous 
 trembling of her hands, poor Nelly betrayed her secret. 
 And by those signs the other girl, who loved the same 
 man, read that secret. 
 
 " O selfish woman !" said Angela's heart. " Is your 
 happiness to be bought at such a cost?" 
 
 A girl of lower nature might liaA^e been jealous. 
 Angela was not. It seemed to her no sin in ISTelh" that 
 she thought too much of such a man. But she pitied 
 her. Nor did she, as some women might have done, 
 suspect that Harry had trifled with her feelings. She 
 knew that he had not. She had seen them together, 
 day after day ; she knew what his bearing had always 
 been toward her, frank, courteous, and brotherly. He 
 called her by her Christian name; he liked her, her 
 presence was pleasant ; she was pretty, sweet, and win- 
 ning. No : she did not suspect him. And yet, what 
 should she say to the poor girl? How comfort her? 
 How reconcile her to the inevitable sorrow? 
 
 "Nelly," she whispered at parting, "if you are un- 
 happ3% my child, you must tell me what it is." 
 
 "I cannot," Nelly replied. "But oh! do not think 
 about me, Miss Kennedy; I am not worth it." 
 
 Perhaps she, too, had read those same signs and 
 knew what they meant. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 HARRY FINDS LIBERTY. 
 
 Mention has been made of the Stepnej'' Advanced 
 Club, where Dick Coppin thundered, and burning ques- 
 tions were discussed, and debates held on high political 
 points, and where more ideas were submitted and more 
 
ALL SORTS AXD CONDITIONS OF MEN. 2G1 
 
 projects set forth in a single year than in all the rest of 
 London in two 3'ears. The members of the Advanced 
 Club were mostly j'oung men, but there was a sj^rink- 
 ling among them of grizzled beards who remembered 
 '48 and the dreams of Chartism. They had got by this 
 time pretty well all they clamored for in their by-gone 
 da3'S, and when they thought of this, and remembered 
 how everything was to go well as soon as the five points 
 of the Charter were carried, and how everj'thing still 
 remained in the same upside-down, topsy-turvy, one- 
 sided, muddle-headed perverseness just as if those 
 points had not been carried, they became sad. Never- 
 theless, the habit of demanding remained, because the 
 reformer is like the daughter of the horse-leech, and 
 still cries for more. Yefrthey had less confidence than 
 of old in the reformer's great nostrum of destruction. 
 The younger men, of course, were quite sure, absolutely 
 sure, that with a little more upsetting and down-pulling 
 the balance would be set right, and a beautiful straight 
 level of universal happiness would be reached. 
 
 Angela heard, from time to time, of the meetings of 
 this club. Harry told her how his cousin Dick had 
 surpassed himself; how they were going to abolish 
 Crown, Church, and House of Lords, with landlordism, 
 law^'ers, established armies, pauperdom, Divesdom, 
 taxes, and all kinds of things which the hateful Tory 
 or that pitiful creature the moderate Liberal considers 
 necessary for the welfare of the state. And she knew 
 that Harry went there and spoke occasionally, and that 
 he had made in a quiet way some sort of mark among 
 the members. One evening, about this time, she met 
 Dick Coppin returning from his work, in which, unlike 
 his cousin, he did not disdain the apron nor the box of 
 tools. 
 
 "There's going to be a debate on Sunday," he said, 
 half shyly and half boastfully, "at the club. It's on 
 the abolition of the House of Lords. I am going to 
 speak, and if you like to come, you and one or two 
 of the girls, I'll pass j'ou in, and you will hear a thing 
 or two that will open your ej^es." 
 
 " That is very good of you, Mr. Coppin. I alwaj'S 
 like to have my eyes opened. Will there be many 
 speakers?" 
 
263 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 "There will be me," he replied with simple grand- 
 eur. " I don't think, when I've said my say, that there 
 will remain much more to be said by anybody. Cousin 
 Harry maj^ get up, perhaps " — his face assumed a little 
 uneasiness — " but no, I don't think he will find any 
 holes in me. I've got the facts; I've gone to the right 
 quarter to get 'em. No: he can't deny ni}'' facts." 
 
 "VeryweU, Mr. Coppin. Perhaps we will go to hear 
 you. But be very sure about your facts." 
 
 Angela said nothing about the proposed debate or her 
 intention of being present, but she learned from Harry 
 that there really was going to be a field-night, and that 
 Dick Coppin was expected to come out in more than 
 his usual strength. The informant said nothing about 
 his own intentions. Indeed, he had none, but he was 
 falling into the habit of spending an hour or two at the 
 club on Sunday evening before finishing off with the 
 girls; sometimes he spoke, but of tener he listened and 
 came away silent and reflected. The Advanced Club 
 offered ample material for one who knows how to re- 
 flect. Humanity is a grand subject, and, in fact, is 
 the only subject left for an epic poem. But perhaps the 
 action would drag. Here, Harry saw, was a body of 
 men, old and j-oung, all firmly persuaded that things 
 were wrong; that things might be made better, yet cast- 
 ing about blindly for a remedy, and crying aloud for 
 a leader. And those who desired to lead them had 
 nothing to offer but a stone instead of bread, ^he fact 
 that this 5'oung man did listen and reflect shows how 
 greatly he was changed from him whom we first met 
 in the prologue. Regular hours, simple living, reason- 
 ably hard work strengthened his nerves for anything ; 
 he was harder; the men with whom he talked were 
 rougher, and the old carelessness was gone. He kept 
 his gayety of heart, yet it was sobered ; he felt responsi- 
 ble. He knew so much more than the men around him 
 that he felt a consuming desire to set them right, but 
 could not, for he was tongue-tied ; he had not yet found 
 liberty, as the old preachers used to say ; when he felt 
 most strongly that the speakers were on a false track 
 he spoke most feebly ; he wanted to be a prophet, and 
 there were only confused ideas, blurred perceptions to 
 work upon. Now the first steps toward being a prophet 
 
ALL SORTS AND COXDITIOXS OF MEN. 2(53 
 
 — which is a most laudable ambition — is to see quite 
 clearly one's self and to understand what one means. 
 He could set a man right as to facts, he could shut up 
 a speaker and make the club laugh, but he could not 
 move them. As yet Harry was only in the position 
 occupied during a long life by the late prophet of Chel- 
 sea, inasmuch as he distinctly perceived the folly of 
 his neighbors, but could teach no way of wisdom. 
 This is a form of prophetical utterance which has never 
 possessed much weight with the people ; they want di- 
 rect teaching and a leader who knows what he means 
 and whither he would conduct them, if it be only in the 
 direction of one of those poor, old worn-out panaceas 
 once warranted to guarantee universal happiness, like 
 the ballot-box. Not that Harry grew miserable over 
 his failure to prophesy — not at all ; he only wished for 
 words of wisdom and power, and sat meanwhile with 
 his hands in his pockets and his hat pulled over his 
 ej^es like a minister in the House of Commons, while 
 the members of the club poured forth their frothy de- 
 clamation, each louder than his predecessor, trying to 
 catch the applause of an assembly which generally 
 shouted for the loudest. The times might be out of 
 joint, but Harry felt no inspiration as to the way of 
 setting them right; if a thing came to him he would say 
 it — if not, he v.ould wait. The great secret about wait- 
 ing is that while a man waits he thinks, and if he thinks 
 in solitude and waits long enough, letting words lie in 
 his brain and listening to ideas which come upon him, 
 sometimes singly and slovvdy, sometimes in crowds like 
 the fancies of a wakeful night, there presents itself an 
 idea at last which seizes upon him and holds him cap- 
 tive, and works itself out in his brain while he mechan- 
 ically goes on with the work, the rest, the toil, and the 
 pleasure of his daily life. Solitary work is favorable 
 to meditation; therefore, while Harry was shaping 
 things at his lathe undisturbed by no one, his brain was 
 at work. And a thought came to him which lay tliere 
 dimly perceived at first, but growing larger daily till it 
 filled his head and drew unto itself all his other thoughts, 
 so that everything he saw, or read, or heard, or medi- 
 tated upon, became like a rill or rivulet which goes to 
 swell a great river. And it was this thought, growing 
 
2M ALL SORTS AXD CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 into shape at last, which he proclaimed to the mem- 
 bers of the Advanced Club on the night of their great 
 debate. 
 
 It was not a large hall, but it was perfectly filled 
 with people; chiefly they were men and young men, 
 but among them were a good mmi}- women and girls. 
 Does it ever occur to the " better class" that the work of 
 woman's emancipation is advancing in certain circles 
 witli rapid strides? That is so, nevertheless ; and large, 
 if not pleasant, results may be expected in a few years 
 therefrom. It must be remembered that for the most 
 part the}' start perfectly free from any trammels of re- 
 ligion. It has been stated that the basis of all their 
 philosophy is, and always will be, the axiom that eveiy 
 one must get as much as possible for herself out of the 
 rather limited ration of pleasure supplied to humanity. 
 Whether that is true I know not. Angela watched 
 these women with curiosity ; they were mostly 3'oung, 
 and some of them were pretty, and there was absolutely 
 nothing to show that they thought differently from any 
 other women. Some of them had brought their work; 
 some were talking; tliey were not excited by the pros- 
 pect of the coming debate — they expected, in fact, noth- 
 ing more than they had already heard over and over 
 again. There v/as too much gas, the atmosphere was 
 already heavj^ and the walls already shiny, before the 
 meeting began. On the platform was a chair for the 
 chairman, with a table and a hammer and a decanter 
 of water and a glass. Angela sat far back against the 
 door, with Captain Sorensen and Nelly. She was si- 
 lent, wondering at these people and why they should 
 trouble themselves about the House of Lords, and 
 whether they never felt Sinj desire at all for the religion 
 which brings joy and happiness to so many suffering 
 lives. Presently she saw Harry walk slowly up the 
 middle aisle and take a place, for there was no chair, 
 on the steps which led to the platform. She was so far 
 back that he could not see her, for which afterward she 
 was glad. 
 
 The chairman, a man stricken in j^ears, with gray 
 hair and a grizzled beard, and one of those ex-Chartists 
 01 whom we have spoken, took the chair, hammered the 
 table, and opened the debate. He was a man of great 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 265 
 
 reputation, having been all his life an Irreconcilable, 
 and he was suspected of being a Socialist, and was cer- 
 tainly a Red Republican. He began in the usual way 
 by stating as an axiom that the people can do no wiong; 
 that to intrust the destinies of a nation to the People 
 is to insure its greatness; that Manhood is the only 
 rank — and so forth, all in capital letters with notes of 
 admiration. The words were strong, but they pro- 
 duced no effect, because the speech had been made be- 
 fore a great many times, and the people knew it by 
 heart. Therefore, though it was the right thing to 
 saj^, and the thing expected of a chairman, nobody paid 
 any attention. 
 
 The discussion, which was all one-sided, then began. 
 Two or three young men rose one after the other ; they 
 were listened to with the indulgence which is always 
 accorded to beginners. None of them made a point, or 
 said a good thing, or went outside the theories of un- 
 taught, if generous youth, and their ignorance was 
 such as to make Angela almost weep. 
 
 Then Dick Coppin mounted the platform, and ad- 
 vanced, amid the plaudits of the expectant audience. 
 He ran his fingers through his coarse, black hair, 
 straightened himself up to his full height of five feet 
 six, drank a little water, and then, standing beside the 
 chairman's table with his right hand resting upon it 
 when he was not waving it about, he began, slowly at 
 first, but afterward with fluent speech and strong 
 words, and a ringing voice, the harangue which he had 
 so carefully prepared. Of course, he condemned the 
 House of Lords tooth and nail ; it must be destro3'ed 
 root and branch ; it was a standing insult to the common 
 sense of the nation ; it was an effete and worn-out insti- 
 tution, against which the enlightenment of the age cried 
 out aloud ; it was an obstruction to Progress ; it was a 
 menace to the poeple ; it was a thing of the past ; it Avas 
 an enemy of the working-man ; it was a tyrant, who had 
 the will but not the power to tyrannize any longer; it 
 was a toothless old wolf, who could bark but could not 
 bite. Those free and enlightened men sitting before 
 him, members of the Advanced Club, had pronounced 
 its doom — therefore, it must go. The time had come 
 when the nation would endure no longer to have a 
 
2G0 ALL SORTS AXD COyDIlUOXS OF 3IEN. 
 
 privileged class, and would be mocked no more by the 
 ridiculous spectacle of hereditary legislators. 
 
 He pursued tliis topic with great freedom of language 
 and a great eloquence of a rough and uncultivated kind ; 
 his hearers, getting gradually warmed, interrupted him 
 by those plaudits which go straighf to the heart of the 
 born orator, and stir him to his strongest and his best. 
 
 Then he changed his line and attempted to show that 
 the families which compose the Upper House are them- 
 selves, as well as their institution, worn-out, used up, 
 and lost to the vigor which first pushed them to the 
 front. Where were now their fighting men? he asked. 
 Where were their orators'? Which among them all was 
 of any real importance to his party? Which of them 
 had in modern times done anything, proposed anything, 
 or thought of anything for the advancement of knowl- 
 edge or the good of the people? Not one able man, he 
 said, among them; luxury had ruined and corrupted 
 all; their blood was poisoned; they could drink and 
 eat; they could practise other luxurious habits, which 
 he enumerated with fidelity, lest there should be any 
 mistake about the matter; and then they could go to 
 the House reeling into it drunk with wine, and oppose 
 the Will of the People. 
 
 Then he turned from generalities to particulars, and 
 entertained his audience w^tli anecdotes gleaned, Heaven 
 knows how, from the private histories of many noble 
 families, tending to show the corruption into which the 
 British aristocracy' had fallen. These anecdotes were 
 received with that keenness which always awaits sto- 
 ries which show how wicked other people are, and what 
 are the newest fashions and hitherto unknown forms of 
 vice. Angela marvelled, on her part, to hear " scandal 
 about Queen Elizabeth" at Stepney. 
 
 Then, after an impeachment which lasted for half an 
 hour, he thundered forth an appeal — not at all novel to 
 his hearers, yet still effective, because his voice was 
 like a trumpet — to the men before him to rise in their 
 millions, their majest}', and their might, and to bear 
 the accursed thing down. 
 
 He sat down, at last, wiping his forehead, and ex- 
 hausted but triumphant. Never before had he so com- 
 pletely carried his audience with him; never before 
 
ALL SORTS AXD COXDITIOXS OF MEN. 267 
 
 had he obtained such flow of language, and such mas- 
 tery over his voice; never before had he reahzed so 
 fully that he was, he himself, an orator inferior to none. 
 As he sat down, while the men clapped their hands and 
 cheered, a vision of greatness passed before his mind. 
 He would be the Leader of the People ; the}- should look 
 to him as they had never yet looked to any man for 
 guidance. And he would lead them. Whither? But, 
 this, in the dream of the moment, mattered nothing. 
 
 A cold chill came over him as he saw his cousin 
 Harry leap lightly to the platform and take his place at 
 the table. For he foresaw trouble ; and all the more 
 because those of the audience who knew Gentleman Jack 
 laughed in expectation of that trouble. Fickle and fleet- 
 ing is the breath of popular favor ; onlj'- a moment be- 
 fore and they were cheering him to the skies ; now thej* 
 laughed because they hoped he was to be made to look 
 a fool. But the orator took heart, considering that his 
 facts were undeniable. 
 
 When the tumult had subsided, Harry, to everybody 
 astonishment, laid his hand upon his cousin's shoulder 
 — a gesture of approbation — and looked round the room, 
 and said quieth', but loud enough to be heard b}^ all : 
 
 "My cousin, Dick Coi^pin, can talk. That was a 
 very good speech of his, wasn't it?" 
 
 Voices were heard asking if he could better it. 
 
 "No," Harry replied,"! can't. I wish I could." 
 He took his place beside the table, and gazed for a few 
 moments at the faces below him. Angela observed that 
 his face was pale, though the carriage of his head was 
 brave. " I wish, " he repeated, " that I could. Because, 
 after all these fireworks, it is such a tame thing just to 
 tell you that there wasn't a word of sense in the whole 
 speech." 
 
 Here there were signs of wrath, but the general feel- 
 ing was to let the speaker have his say. 
 
 " Do you suppose— any of you — that Dick believes that 
 the Lords go rolling drunk to the House? Of course 
 he doesn't. Do you suppose that he thinks you such 
 fools as to believe it? Of course he doesn't. But then, 
 you see, Dick must have his fireworks. And it was a 
 first-rate speech. Do you suppose he believes the Lords 
 are a worn-out lot? Xot he. He knows better. And 
 
268 ALL SORTS AXD CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 if any of you feel inclined to think so, go and look at 
 them. You will find them as well set up as most, and 
 better. You can hear some of them in the House of 
 Commons, where you send them, you electors. Wher- 
 ever there are Englishmen working, fighting, or sport- 
 ing, there are some of those families among them. As 
 for their corruption, that's fireworks, too. Dick has 
 told you some beautiful stories which he challenged 
 anybody to dispute. I dare say they are all true. 
 What he forgot to tell you is that he has picked out 
 these stories from the last hundred and fifty years, and 
 expects you to believe that they all happened yesterday. 
 Shall we charge you, members of the club, with all the 
 crimes of the \Vhitechapel Road for a hundred years? 
 If you want to upset the House of L^ords, go and do it. 
 But don't do it with lies on your lij)s, and on false pre- 
 tences. You know how virtuous and moral you are 
 yourselves. Then just remember that the members of 
 the House of Lords are about as moral as you are, or 
 rather better. Abolish the House of Lords if you like. 
 How much better will you be when it is gone? You 
 can go on abolishing. There is the Church. Get it 
 disestablished. Think how much better you will all be 
 when the churches are pulled down. Yet you couldn't 
 stay away any more then than you do. You want the 
 Land Laws reformed. Get them reformed, and think 
 how much land you will get for yourselves out of that 
 reform. 
 
 " Dick Coppin says you have got the power. So you 
 have. He says the last Reform Bill gave it to you. 
 There he makes a mistake. You have always had the 
 power. You have always had all the power there is. 
 It is yours, because you are the people, and what the 
 people want they will have. Your power is your birth- 
 right. You are an irresistible giant, who has only to 
 roar in order to get what he wants. 
 
 "Well, why don't you roar? Because you don't 
 know what you do want. Because your leaders don't 
 know any more than yourselves ; because the}^ go bawl- 
 ing for things which will do you no good, and don't 
 know what it is you do want. 
 
 "You think that by making j^ourselves into clubs 
 and calling yourselves Radicals, you are getting for- 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 269 
 
 ward. You think that by listening to a chap like my 
 cousin Dick, who's a clever fellow and a devil for fire- 
 works, you somehow improve your own condition. 
 Did 3'ou ever ask yourselves what difference the form 
 i^i government makes? I have been in America where, 
 if anywhere, the people have it their own way. Do 
 you think work is more plentiful, wages better, hours 
 shorter, things cheaper in a republic? Do you think 
 the heels of your boots last any longer? If you do, 
 think so no longer. Whether the House of Lords, or 
 the Church, or the Land Laws stand or fall, that, my 
 friends, makes not the difference of a pennj'-piece to 
 any single man among us. You who agitate for their 
 destruction are generously giving your time and trouble 
 for things which help no man. And 3-et there are so 
 many things that can help us, 
 
 "It comes of 5"our cursed ignorance" (Harry was 
 warming up) — "I say, youi cursed ignorance. You 
 know nothing; you understand nothing of your own 
 country. You do not know how its institutions have 
 grown up ; why it is so prosperous ; why changes, when 
 they have to be made, should be made slowl}' and not 
 before they are necessary ; nor how you yourselves may 
 climb up, if you will, into a life above you, much hap- 
 pier, much more pleasant. You do not respect the old 
 institutions, because you don't know them; you desire 
 new things because 3'ou don't understand the old. Go 
 — learn — make your orators learn, and make them teach 
 you. And then send them to the House of Commons 
 to represent you. 
 
 " You think that governments can do everything for 
 you. You fools ! has any government ever done any- 
 thing for 3'oa? Has it raised jowr wages — has it 
 shortened your hours? Can it protect you against 
 rogues and adulterers? Will it ever try to better your 
 position? Never, never, never! — because it cannot. 
 Does any government ask what you want — what 3'ou 
 ought to want? No. Can it give you what you want? 
 No. 
 
 "Listen. You want clean streets and houses in 
 which decent folks can live. The government has ap- 
 pointed sanitary officers. Yet, look about 3-ou ! .Put 
 your heads in the courts of Whitechapel. What has 
 
270 ALL SOBTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 the sanitary officer done? Yon want strong and well- 
 built houses. There are government inspectors; yet, 
 look at the lath and plaster houses that a child could 
 kick over. You want honest food — all that you eat and 
 drink is adulterated. How does the government help 
 you there? 
 
 " You have the power — all the power there is. You 
 cannot use it, because you don't know how. You ex- 
 pect the government to use your power — to do your 
 work. My friends, I will tell you the secret. What- 
 ever you want done you must do for yourselves ! No 
 one else will do it for j^ou. You must agree that 
 such and such shall be done ; and then, be very sure, 
 you will get it done. 
 
 " In politics you are used as the counters of a game — 
 each side plays with you. Not for you, mind. You 
 get nothing, whichever side is in — you are the pawns. 
 
 " It is something, perhaps, to take even so much 
 part in the game; but, as 3'ou get nothing but the 
 honor, I am rather surprised at your going on with it. 
 And, if I might advise, it would be that we give that 
 game over, and play one by ourselves, in which there 
 really is something to be got. 
 
 " What we must play for is what we want. What 
 we have got to do is, to remember that when we say 
 we will have a thing — nobody can resist us. Have it 
 we must, because we are the masters. 
 
 " Now then, what do we want?" 
 
 Harry was quite serious by this time, and so were 
 the faces of those who listened — though there was a lit- 
 tle angry doubt on some of them. No one replied to 
 the* question. Some of the j^ounger men looked as if 
 they might, perhaps, have answered in the words of 
 the sailor — " More rum. " But they refrained, and pre- 
 served silence. 
 
 " What do we want? Has any one of you considered 
 what we do want? Let me tell you a few things. I 
 can't think of man}"; but I know a few that j^ou ought 
 to put first. 
 
 " You want your own local government — what every 
 little country town has, you have not. You want to 
 elect your ojvn aldermen, mayors, guardians, and 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 2T1 
 
 school-boards — be yourselves — be 3'ourselves. Get that 
 first, and abolish the House of Lords afterward. 
 
 "There is your food? You ought to get your beef 
 from America, at threepence a pound, and you are con- 
 tented to give a shilling. You ought to have j'our fish 
 at twopence a pound, and j^ou pay whatever they choose 
 to charge you. You drink bad beer, bad spirits, bad 
 tea, bad cocoa, bad coffee, because you don't know that 
 the things are bad and dear; and because you don't 
 understand that you have only got to resolve in order 
 to get all this changed. It is, you see, your cursed 
 ignorance. 
 
 " There are your houses ! The rich people — having 
 more knowledge than you, and more determination — 
 have found out how to build houses so as to prevent 
 fevers. You live in houses built to catch fever — fever- 
 traps! When you find out what you want, you will 
 refuse to live in such houses. You will refuse to let 
 anybody live in such houses. You will come out of 
 them — you will have them pulled down. 
 
 " When it comes to building up better houses, you 
 will remember that paid inspectors are squared by the 
 builders — so that the cement is mud and sand; and the 
 bricks are crumbling clay ; and the walls crack, and the 
 floors are shaky. Therefore you will be 3-our own in- 
 spectors. 
 
 "The Government makes us send our children to 
 boarding schools to be educated. That would be very 
 noble of the Government if they had first considered — ■ 
 Avhich nobody has — what sort of education a working- 
 man wants. As yet they have only got as far as spell- 
 ing. When a boy can spell they think he is educated. 
 Once it was all kings of Israel — now it is all spelling. 
 Is that what you want? Do you think it matters hnv/ 
 you spell, so that you know? Are you contented that 
 your children shall know nothing about this great 
 country — nothing of its wealth and people; nothing 
 of their duties as citizens; nothing of their own 
 trade? Shall they not be taught that theirs is the 
 power — that they can do what they like, and have what 
 they like, if they like? 
 
 " Do you resolve that the education of your children 
 shall be real, and it will become real; but don't look to 
 
272 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 Government to do it or it will continue to be spelling. 
 Find out the thing that you want, and send your own 
 men to the school-boards to get that thing done, 
 
 "Another thing that you want is pleasure — men can't 
 do without it. Can Government give you thatV They 
 can shut the public-houses at twelve — what more can 
 they do? But you — you do not know how to enjoy 
 yourselves. You don't know what to do. You can't 
 play music, nor sing, nor paint, nor dance — you can do 
 nothing. You get no pleasure out of life, and you 
 won't get it — even by abolishing everything. 
 
 " Take that simple question of a holiday. We take 
 ours, like the fools we are, all in droves, by thousands 
 and millions, on bank holiday's. Why do wc do that? 
 Why do we not insist on having our holidays at differ- 
 ent times in the year, without these monstrous crowds 
 which render enjoyment impossible? And why do we 
 not demand — what is granted to every little quill-driv- 
 ing clerk in the city — our fortnight every j^ear with 
 nothing to do, and drawing full pay? That is one of 
 your Avants, and you don't know it. The reform of the 
 land laws, my brothers, will not bring you one inch 
 nearer getting this want." 
 
 At this point the chairman nodded his head approv- 
 ingly. Perhaps he had never before realized how all 
 his life he had neglected the substance and swallowed 
 the shadow. The old man sat listening patiently with 
 his head in his hands. Never before had any workman 
 — any one of his own class — spoken like this young fel- 
 low, who talked and looked like a swell — though they 
 knew him for what he was. Pleasure ! Yes — he had 
 never consisted that life might have its delights. Yet, 
 what delights? 
 
 "There is another thing,- and the blackest of all." 
 Harry paused a moment : but the men were listening, 
 and now in earnest. 
 
 " I mean the treatment of your girls — your sisters 
 and 3'our daughters ! Men, you have combined together 
 and made j'our unions for yourselves — you have forced 
 upon your employers terms which nothing but combi- 
 nation would have compelled them to accept. You are 
 paid twice what you received- twenty years ago. You 
 go in broadcloth — you are well fed. You have money 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 273 
 
 in 3-our pocket. But you have clean forgotten the 
 girls. 
 
 •' Think of the girls. 
 
 " They have no protection but a Government act for- 
 bidding more than ten hours' work. Who cares for 
 a Government act? It is defied daily. Those who 
 frame these acts know very well that the}' are power- 
 less to maintain them ; because, my friends, the power 
 is with the people — you. If you resolve that an act 
 shall become a law, you make it so. Everything, in 
 the end, is by the people and through the people. 
 
 " You have done nothing for your girls — you leave 
 them to the mercies of employers, who have got to cut 
 down expenses to the last farthing. They are paid 
 starvation wages. They are kept in unwholesome 
 rooms. The}' are bound to the longest hours. They 
 are oppressed with fines. The girls grow up narrow- 
 chested, stooping, consumptive — they are used up 
 wholesale. And what do j'ou do for them. Nothing. 
 There are girls and women in this hall : can any one of 
 them here get up and say that the working-men have 
 raised a finger for them? 
 
 " The worst charge any man can bring against j'ou 
 is that you care nothing for your girls. 
 
 " Why, it is only the other day that a Dressmakers' 
 Association has been opened among you — 3'ou all know 
 where it is. You all know what it tries to do for the 
 girls. Yet, what single man among you has ever had 
 the pluck to stand up for his sisters who are working 
 in it?" 
 
 Then Harry stepped right to the edge of the platform 
 and spread out his hands, changing his voice. 
 
 "You are good fellows," he said, "and you've given 
 me fair play. There isn't a country in the world, ex- 
 cept Ireland, where I could have had this fair play. 
 Don't misunderstand me — I tell you, and I don't think 
 you knew it before, that the time has come when the 
 people should leave off caring much about the Govern- 
 ment, or expecting an}' good thing for themselves from 
 any government; because it can't be done in that way. 
 You must find out for yourselves what you want, and 
 then you must have that done. You must combine for 
 these things as you did for wages, and vou will get 
 18 
 
274 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 them. And if you spend half the energy in working 
 for yourselves that you have spent in working for 
 things that do j'ou no good you will he happy indeed. 
 
 "Your politics, I say again, will do nothing for you 
 — do you hear — nothing at all ; but yours is the power. 
 Let us repeat it again and again — all the power is yours. 
 Try what Government can do. Send Dick Copj)in into 
 Parliament — he's a clever chap — and tell him to do what 
 he can for j'ou. He will do nothing. Therefore, work 
 for yourselves, and by yourselves. Make out what 3'ou 
 Avant, and resolve to have it — nobody can prevent 3'ou. 
 The world is 3'ours to do what you like with. Here in 
 England, as in America, the working-man is master — 
 provided the working-man knows what he wants. The 
 first thing you want, I reckon, is good lodging. The 
 second, is good food. The third is good drink — good, 
 unadulterated beer, and plenty of it. The fourth is 
 good and sensible education. The fifth is holiday and 
 pleasure; and the last, which is also the first, is justice 
 for our girls. But don't be fools. I have been among 
 you in this club a good many times. It goes to my 
 heart every time I come to see so many clever men and 
 able men wasting their time in grievances which don't 
 hurt them, when they aj-e surrounded by a hundred 
 grievances which they have only to perceive in order to 
 sweep them awa3^ 
 
 " I am a Radical, like yourselves ; but I am a Social 
 Radical. As for your political jaw, it plaj's the game 
 of those who use you. Politics is a game of lying ac- 
 cusations and impossible promises. The accusations 
 make j'ou angry — the promises make you hopeful. But 
 you get nothing in the long run ; and j^ou never wilL 
 Because — promise what they inay — it is not laws or 
 measures that will improve our lot; it is by our own 
 resolution that it shall be improved. Hold out your 
 hands and take the things that are offered j^ou — every- 
 thing is yours if you like to have it. You are in a 
 beautiful garden filled with fruits, if you care to pick 
 them ; but you do not. You lie grubbing in the mud, 
 and crying out for what will do j^ou no good. Voices 
 are calling to 3'ou — they offer you such a life as was 
 never yet conceived by the lordliest House of Lords — 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 275 
 
 a life full of work, and full of pleasure. But you don't 
 hear — you are deaf. You are blind — you are ignorant." 
 
 He stopped ; a hoarse shout g-reeted his peroration. 
 Harry wondered for a moment if this was applause or 
 disapproval. It was the former. Then one man rose 
 and spoke. 
 
 ''Damn him!" he cried. Yet the phrase was used 
 in no condemnatory spirit; as when a mother addresses 
 her boy as a naughty little rogue-pogue. " Damn him ! 
 He shall be our next member." 
 
 "No," said Harry, clapping his cousin on the shoul- 
 der, " here is your next member ; Dick Coppin is 3'our 
 b( )y . He is clever — he is am bitious. Tell him what you 
 want, and he'll get it for 3-0U if any one can. But, O 
 men! find out what you want, and have it. Yours 
 — yours — yours is the power. You are the masters 
 of the world. Leave the humbug of Radicalism, and 
 Liberalism, and Torjism. Let dead politics bury their 
 dead — learn to look after your own interests. You are 
 the kings and lords of humanit3^ The old kings and 
 lords are no more — they are swept away! They are 
 only shadows of the past. With you are the sceptre 
 and the crown. You sit upon the throne, and when 
 you know how to reign, 3'ou shall reign as never 5-et 
 king was known to reign; hut Jirst find out what you 
 wauf." 
 
 He lightly leaped from the platform and stepped down 
 the hall — he had said his say, and was going. The 
 men laughed and shouted — half angry, half pleased, 
 but wholly astonished ; and Dick Coppin, with a burn- 
 ing cheek, sat humiliated yet proud of his cousin. 
 
 At the door Harry met Miss Kennedy, with Captain 
 Sorensen and Xell)\ 
 
 "We have heard j'our speech," said Angela, with 
 brightened eyes and glowing cheeks. " Oh, what did I 
 tell you? You can speak, you can persuade; j^ou can 
 lead. What a career — what a career lies before the 
 man who can persuade and lead !" 
 
276 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 THE FIGUREHEADS. 
 
 It was Sundaj' morning, after breakfast, and Harry 
 was sitting in the boarding-liouse common room, si- 
 lently contemplating his two fellow-boarders, Josephus 
 and Mr. Maliphant. The circle at Bormalack's was 
 greatly broken up. Not to speak of the loss of the il- 
 lustrious pair, Daniel Fagg had now taken to live en- 
 tirely among the dressmakers, except in the evenings, 
 when their music and dancing drove him away ; in fact, 
 he regarded the place as his own, and had so far for- 
 gotten that he took his meals there by invitation as to 
 criticise the dinners, which were always good, although 
 plain, and to find fault with the beer, which came 
 from Messenger's. Miss Kennedy, too, only slept at 
 the boarding-house, though b}' singular forgetfulness 
 she always paid the landlady every Saturday morning 
 in advance for a week's board and lodging. Therefore 
 Josephus and the old man for the most part sat in the 
 room alone, and were excellent company, because the 
 ill-used junior clerk never wanted to talk with an^^- 
 body, and the aged carver of figureheads never wanted 
 a listener. 
 
 Almost for the first time Harry considered this old 
 man, the rememberer of fag-ends and middle-bits of 
 anecdote, with something more than a passing curiosity 
 and a sense of irritation caused by the incongruity of 
 the creature. You know that whenever you seriously 
 address j'ourself to the study of a person, however in- 
 significant in appearance, that person assumes an im- 
 portance equal to anj- lord. A person, you see, is an 
 individual, or an indivisible thing. Wherefore, let us 
 not despise our neighbor. The ancient Mr. Maliphant 
 was a little, thin old man, with a few gray haii"S left, 
 but not many ; his face M^as inwrapped, so to speak, in 
 a pair of verj- high collars, and he wore a black silk 
 stock, not very rusty, for he had been in the reign of 
 the fourth George a dapper young fellow, and possessed 
 a taste in dress beyond the lights of Limehouse. But 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 277 
 
 this was in his nautical days, and before he developed his 
 natural genius for carving ship's figureheads. He had 
 no teeth left, and their absence great!}- shortened the 
 space between nose and chin, which produced an odd 
 elfect; he was closely shaven; his face was all covered 
 over like an ocean with innumerable wrinkles, crows- 
 feet, dimples, furrows, valleys, and winding water- 
 courses, which showed like the universal smile of an ac- 
 curate map. His forehead, when the original thatch 
 was thick, must have been rather low and weak; his 
 eyes were still bright and blue, though they wandered 
 wliile he talked ; when he was silent they had a far-off 
 look ; his eyebrows, as often happens with old men, had 
 grown bushy and were joined across the bridge ; when 
 his memory failed him, which was freauently the case, 
 they frowned almost as terribly as those of Daniel 
 Fagg; his figure was spare and his legs thin, and he sat 
 on one side of the chair with his feet twisted beneath 
 it; he never did anything, except to smoke one pipe at 
 night ; he never took the least notice of anybody ; when 
 he talked, he addressed the whole company, not any 
 individual; and he was affected by no man's happiness 
 or suffering. He had lived so long that he had no more 
 sympathy left; the world was nothing more to him; he 
 had no further interest in it ; he had gone bevond it 
 and out of it ; he was so old that he had not a friend 
 left who knew him when he was young ; he lived apart ; 
 he was, perforce, a hermit. 
 
 Harry remembered, looking upon this survival, that 
 the old man had once l)etrayed a knowledge of his fa- 
 tlier and of the early history of the Coppin and Messen- 
 ger families. He wondered now why he had not tried 
 to get more out of him. It would be"^a familv chronicle 
 of small beer, but there could be nothing,'^ probablv, 
 very disagreeable to learn about the career of the late 
 sergeant, his father, nor anything painful about the 
 course of the Coppins. On this Sunday morning, when 
 the old man looked as if the cares of the week were off 
 his mind, his memory should be fresh— clearer than on 
 a week-day. 
 
 In the happy family of boarders, none of whom pre- 
 tended to take the least interest in each other, nobody 
 ever spoke to Mr. Maliphant, and nobody listened when 
 
278 ALL SORTS AXD CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 lie sj^oke, except Mrs. Bormalack, who was bound by 
 rules of politeness, or took the least notice of his coming 
 or his going ; nobody knew how he lived or what he 
 paid for his board and lodging, or anything else about 
 him. Once, it was certain, he had been in the mercan- 
 tile marine. Now he had a "yard;" he went to his 
 yard every day ; it was rumored that in this 5"ard he 
 carved figureheads all day for large sums of money ; he 
 came home in the evening in time for supper; a fra- 
 grance, as of rum and water, generally accompanied 
 him at tliat time ; and after a pipe and a little more 
 grog, and a few reminiscences chopped up in bits and 
 addressed to the room at large, the old fellow would re- 
 tire for the night. A perfectly cheerful and harmless 
 old man, yet not companionable. 
 
 " Did you know my father, Mr. Maliphant?" asked 
 Harry, by way of opening up the conversation. " He 
 was a sergeant, you know, in the army." 
 
 Mr. Maliphant started and looked bewildered; he had 
 been, in imagination, somewhere off Cape Horn, and he 
 could not get back at a moment's notice. It irritated 
 him to have to leave his old friends. 
 
 "Your father, young gentleman?" he asked in a 
 vexed and trembling quaver. " Did I know your fa- 
 ther? Pray, sir, how am I to know that you ever had 
 a father?" 
 
 " You said, the other day, that you did. Think again. 
 My father, you know, married Caroline Coppin." 
 
 "Ay, ay — Caroline Coppin — I remember Caroline 
 Coppin. Oh, yes, sister, she was, to Bob — when Bob 
 was third mate of an East Indiaman ; a devil of a fellow 
 was Bob, though but a boy, and if living now, which 
 I must misdoubt, would be but sixty or thereabouts. 
 Everybody, young man, knew Bob Coppin,". . . . here 
 he relapsed into silence. When he spoke again, he 
 carried on aloud the subject of his thoughts — " below 
 he did his duty. Such a man, sir, was Bob Coppin." 
 
 " Thank you, Mr. Maliphant. I seem to know Bob 
 quite well from your description. And now he's gone 
 aloft, hasn't he? And when the word comes to pass all 
 hands, there will be Bob with a hitch of his trousers 
 and a kick of the left leg. But about my mother." 
 
 " Young gentleman, how am I to know that you were 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF iMEN. 270 
 
 born with a mother? Law, law ! One might as well'"- 
 
 Here his voice dropped again, and he finished the sen- 
 tence with the silent motion of his lips. 
 
 "Caroline Coppin, you know; your old friend." 
 
 He shook his head. 
 
 " No — oh, no ! I knew her when she was as high as 
 that table. My young friend, not my old friend, she 
 was. How could she be my old friend? She married 
 Sergeant Goslett, and he went out to India and — and — 
 something happened there. PerhajDS he was cast away. 
 As manj' get cast away in those seas. " 
 
 "Is that all you can remember about her?" 
 
 "I can remember," said the old man, "a wonderful 
 lot of things at times. You mustn't ask any man to 
 remember all at once. Not at his best, you mustn't, 
 and I doubt I am hardly at what j^ou ma}" call my tip- 
 top ripest — yet. Wait a bit, young man ; wait a bit. 
 I've been to a many ports and carved figureheads for a 
 many ships, and they got cast away, one after the other, 
 but dear to memory still, and paid for. Like Sergeant 
 Goslett. A handsome man he was, with curly brown 
 hair, like yours, young gentleman. I remember how 
 he sang a song in this very house when Caroline — or 
 was it her sister? — had it, and I forget whether it was 
 Bunker maiTied her sister or after Caroline's babj^ was 
 born, which was when the child's father was dead. A 
 beautiful evening we had. " 
 
 Caroline's hahy, Harry surmised, was himself. 
 
 " Where was Caroline's baby born?" Harry asked. 
 
 "Where should he be? Why, o' course, in his 
 mother's own house." 
 
 " Why should he be born in his mother's own house? 
 I did not know that his mother had a house." 
 
 The old man looked at him with pity. 
 
 "Young man," he said, "you know nothing. Your 
 ignorance is shameful." 
 
 "But why?" 
 
 "Enough said, young gentleman," replied Mr. Mali- 
 phant with dignity. " Enough said : youth should not 
 sport with age ; it doth not become gray hairs to — to " 
 
 He did not finish the sentence, except to himself, but 
 what lie did say was something emphatic and improv' 
 ing, because he shook his head a good deal over it. 
 
280 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIOAS OF MEN. 
 
 Presentl}" he got up and left the room. Harry- 
 watched him getting his hat and tying his muffler about 
 his neck. When things were quite adjusted the old 
 man feebly tottered down the steps. Harry took his 
 hat and followed him. 
 
 "May I walk with j'ou, sir?" he asked. 
 
 " Surely, surely !" Mr. Maliphant was surprised. " It 
 is an unusual thing for me to have a companion. 
 Formerly they came — ah — all the way from Rotherhithe 
 to — to — sing and drink Mdth me." 
 
 " Will you take my arm?" Harry asked. 
 
 The little old man, who wore black trousers and a 
 dress-coat out of respect of the day, but, although the 
 month was December, no great-coat — in fact he had 
 never worn a great-coat in all his life — was trotting 
 along with steps which showed weakness, but manifest 
 intention. Harry wondered where he meant to go. 
 He took the proffered arm, however, and seemed to get 
 on better for the support. 
 
 "Are you going to church, sir," asked Harry, when 
 they came opposite the good old church of Stepney, 
 with its vast acres of dead men, and heard the bells 
 ringing. 
 
 " No, young gentleman ; no, certainly not. I have 
 more important business to look after," 
 
 He quickened his steps, and they left the church be- 
 hind them. 
 
 "Church?" repeated Mr. Maliphant with severity. 
 " When there's property to look after the bells may ring 
 as loud as they please. Church is good for paupers and 
 rliurch- wardens. Where would the property be, do you 
 think, if I were not on the spot everyday to protect it?" 
 
 He turned off the High Street into a short street of 
 small houses neither better nor worse than the thou- 
 sands of houses around : it was a cul-de-sac, and ended 
 in a high brick wall, with a large gateway in the 
 middle, and square stone pillars, and a ponderous pair 
 of wooden gates, iron-bound as if they guarded things 
 of the greatest value. There was also a small wicket 
 beside it, which the old man carefully unlocked and 
 opened, looking round to see that no burglars followed. 
 
 Harry saw within a tolerably large yard, in the 
 middle of Avhich was a little house of one room. The 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 281 
 
 house was a most wonderful structure ; it was built ap- 
 parently of packing-cases nailed on four or eight square 
 posts ; it was furnished with a door, a window, and a 
 chimney, all complete; it was exactly like a doll's house, 
 only that it was rather larger, being at least six feet 
 high and eight feet square. The house was painted 
 green; the roof was painted red; the door blue; there 
 was also a brass knocker; so that in other respects it 
 was like a doll's house. 
 
 " Aha !" cried the old man, rul)bing his hands and 
 pointing to the house. " I built it, young man. That 
 is my house, that is ; I laid the foundations ; I put up 
 the w^alls ; I painted it. And I ver}- well remember 
 when it was. Let me see. Mr. Messenger, who was a 
 younger man than me by four years, married in that 
 year, or lost his son — I forget which" — (his voice low- 
 ered, and he went on talking to himself). "Caroline's 
 grandfather went bankrupt in the building trade; or 
 her father perhaps, who afterward made money and left 
 houses. And here I am still. This is my property, 
 young gentleman, and I come here every day to execute 
 orders. Oh ! yes" — he looked about him in mild kind 
 of doubt — " I execute orders. Perhaps the orders don't 
 come in so thick as they did. But here I am — ready 
 for work — always ready, and I see my old friends, too, 
 aha! They come as thick as ever, bless you, if the 
 orders don't. Quite a gathering in here some days." 
 Harry shuddered, thinking who these old friends might 
 be. " Sundaj-s and all I come here, and they come too. 
 A merry company !" 
 
 The garrulous old man opened the door of the little 
 house. Harry saw that it contained a cupboard with 
 some simple cooking utensils, and a fireplace, where 
 the proprietor began to make a hre, and one chair, and 
 a little table, and a rack with tools ; there were also one 
 or two pipes and a tobacco jar. 
 
 He looked about the yard. A strange place, indeed! 
 It was adorned, or rather furnished, with great ships' 
 figureheads, carved in wood, standing in rows and 
 circles, some complete, some lialf-finished, some just 
 b(>gun; so that here was a Lively Peggj' with rudi- 
 mentary features just emerging from her native wood, 
 and here a Saucj- Sal of Wapping still clothed in oak 
 
283 ALL SORTS AXD CONDITIOXS OF MEX. 
 
 up to her waist ; and here a Neptune, his crowned head 
 only as yet indicated, though the weather-beaten ap- 
 pearance of his wood showed that the time was long 
 since he was begun ; or a Father Thames, his god-like 
 face as yet showing like a blurred dream. Or there 
 were finished and perfect heads, painted and gilded, 
 waiting for the purchaser who never came. They stood, 
 or sat — whichever a head and shoulder can be said to 
 do — with so much pride, each so rejoicing in himself, 
 and so disdainful of his neighbor, in so haughty a si- 
 lence that they seemed human and belonging to the first 
 circles of Stepney ; Harry thought, too, that they eyed 
 him curiously, as if he might be the long-exj)ected ship- 
 owner come to buy a figurehead. 
 
 " Here is property, young man !" cried the old man ; 
 he had lit his fire now and came to the door, craning for- 
 ward and sjireading his hands, " Look at the beauties. 
 There's truth ! There's exjjression ! Mine, your g man, 
 all mine. Hundreds — thousands of pounds here, to be 
 protected." 
 
 " Do 5^ou come here every day?" Harry asked. 
 
 " Every day. The property must be looked after. " 
 
 "And do you sit here all day by 3'ourself?" 
 
 " Wh}^, who else should I sit with? And a man like 
 me never sits alone. Bless your heart, young gentle- 
 man, of a morning when I sit before the fire and smoke 
 a pipe, this room gets full of people. They crov.'d in, 
 they do. Dead people, I mean, of course. I know 
 more dead men than living. They're the best com- 
 pany, after all. Bob Coppin comes, for one." 
 
 Harry began to look about, wondering whether the 
 ghost of Bob might suddenly appear at the door. On 
 the whole he envied the old man his company of de- 
 parted friends. 
 
 "So you talk, " he said ; "you and the dead people?" 
 By this time the old man had got into his chair and 
 Harry stood in the doorwa}^, for there really was not 
 room for more than one in the house at the same time, 
 to say nothing of inconveniencing and crowding the 
 merry company of ghosts. 
 
 " You wouldn't believe," said the old man, "the talks 
 we have nor the yarns we spin, when we're here to- 
 gether." 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 283 
 
 "It must be a jovial time," said Harry. "Do they 
 drink y" 
 
 Mr, Maliphant screwed up his lips and shook his head 
 mysterioTisly. 
 
 "jSTot of a morning," he replied, as if in the evening 
 the old rollicking customs were still kept up. 
 
 " And you talk about old times — eh?" 
 
 " There's nothing else to talk about, as I know." 
 
 " Certainly not. Sometimes you talk about my — 
 about Caroline Coppin's father, I suppose. I mean the 
 one who made money, not the one who went bank- 
 rupt." 
 
 " HousevS, " said Mr. Maliphant ; " houses it was. " 
 
 " Oh !" 
 
 " Twelve houses there were, all his own. Two sons 
 and two daughters to divide among. Bob Coppin sold 
 his at once — Bunker bought 'em — and we drank up the 
 money down Poplar- way, him and me and a few friends 
 together, in a friendly and comfortable spirit. A fine 
 time we had, I remember. Jack Coppin was in his 
 father's trade and he lost his money ; speculated, he 
 did. Builders are a believin' people. Bunker got his 
 houses too. " 
 
 "Jack was my cousin Dick's father, I suppose," said 
 Harr}', " Go ahead, old boy. The family history is 
 reeling on beautifully. Where did the other houses 
 go?" 
 
 But the old man had gone ol¥ on another tack. " There 
 were inore Coppins," he said. "When I was a boy, to 
 be a Coj^pin of Stepney was a thing of pride. Jo- 
 sephus' father was church- ward en, and held up his 
 head." 
 
 "Did he, really?" 
 
 " If I hadn't the property to look after, I would show 
 5'ou liis tombstone in Stepney church-yard." 
 
 " That," said Harry, " would be a great happiness for 
 me. As for Caroline Coppin, now " 
 
 "She was a pretty maid, she was," the old man went 
 on. " I saw her born and brought up. And she mar- 
 ried a sojer." 
 
 " I know, and her three houses were lost, too, I sup- 
 pose?" 
 
 " Why sliould her houses bo lost, young man?" Mr. 
 
284 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 Maliphant asked with severity. "Houses don't run 
 away. This property doesn't run away. When she 
 died she left a bab}-, she did, and when the baby was 
 took — or was stolen — or something — Bunker said those 
 houses were his. But not lost. You can't lose a 
 house. You may lose a figurehead." He got up and 
 looked outside to see if his were safe. " Or a big drum. 
 But not a house." 
 
 " Oh !" Harry started. " Bunker said the hoLises were 
 his, did he?" 
 
 " Of course he did." 
 
 " And if the bab}' had not died, those houses would 
 still be the property of that baby, I suppose." 
 
 But Mr. Maliphant made no reply. He was now in 
 the full enjoyment of the intoxication produced by his 
 morning-pipe, and was sitting in his arm-chair with 
 his feet on the fender, disposed, apparentl}^ for silence. 
 Presently he began to talk, as usual, to himself. Nor 
 could he be induced, by a y leading questions, to re- 
 member anything more of the things which Harry 
 wanted him to remember. But he let his imagination 
 wander. Gradually the room became filled with dead 
 people, and he was talking with them. Nor did he 
 seem to know that Harry was with him at all. 
 
 Harry slipped quietly away, shutting the door after 
 him, so that the old man might be left quite alone with 
 the ghosts. 
 
 The yard, littered with wood, crowded with the fig- 
 ureheads, all of which seemed turning inquiring and 
 jealous ej'es upon the stranger, was silent and ghostly. 
 Thither came the old man every day, to sit before the 
 tire in his little red-and-green doll's house, to cook his 
 own beefsteak for himself, to drink his glass of grog 
 after dinner, to potter about among his carved heads, to 
 talk to his friends the ghosts, to guard his propert}^, 
 and to execute the orders which never came. For the 
 shipbuilders who had employed old Mr. Maliphant were 
 all dead and gone, and nobody knew of his yard any 
 more, and he had it all to himself. The tide of time 
 had carried away all his friends and left him alone; the 
 memory of him among active men was gone; no one 
 took any more interest in him, and he liad ceased to 
 care for anything : to look back was his only pleasure. 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 285 
 
 No one likes to die at any time, but who would wish to 
 grow so old? 
 
 And those houses. Why, if the old man's memory 
 was right, then Bunker had simply appropriated his 
 property. Was that, Harr}^ asked, the price for which 
 he traded the child awa}'? 
 
 He went straight away to his cousin Dick, who, 
 mindful of the recent speech at the club, was a little 
 disposed to be resentful. It fortunateh' takes two to 
 make a quarrel, however, and one of those two had no 
 intention of a family row. 
 
 " Never mind, Dick," he said in answer to an allusion 
 to the speech. " Hang the club. I want to ask you 
 about something else. Now, then. Tell me about your 
 grandfather. " 
 
 " I cannot. He died before I can remember. He 
 was a builder." 
 
 " Did he leave property?" 
 
 " There were some houses, I believe. My father lost 
 his share, I know. Speculated it away." 
 
 " Your uncle Bob. What became of his share?" 
 
 " Bob was a worthless chap. He drank everything, 
 so of course he drank up his houses." 
 
 " Then we come to the two daughters. Bunker mar- 
 ried one, and of course he got his wife's share. What 
 became of my mother's share?" 
 
 " Indeed, Harry, I do not know." 
 
 "Who would know?" 
 
 "Bunker ought to be able to tell you all about it. 
 Of course he knows." 
 
 "Dick," said Harry, "should you be astonished to 
 learn that the respectable uncle Bunker is a mighty 
 great rogue? But say nothing, Dick. Say nothing. 
 Let me consider how to bring the thing home to him." 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 THE professor's PROPOSAL. 
 
 When the professor called upon Angela that same 
 Sunday morning and requested an interview, she per- 
 ceived that something serious was intended. He had 
 on, as if for an occasion, a new coat with a flower in 
 
286 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 the buttonhole, a chrysanthemum. His face M^as ex- 
 tremely solemn, and his fingers, which alwaj's seemed 
 restless and dissatisfied unless they were making things 
 disappear and come again, were quite still. 
 
 Certainly, he had something on his mind. 
 
 The drawing-room had one or two girls in it, who 
 were reading and talking, though they ought to have 
 been in church — Angela left their religious duties to 
 their own consciences. But the dining-room was empty 
 and the interview was held there. 
 
 The professor had certainly made up in his own 
 mind exactly what was going to be said : he had dram- 
 atized the situation — a ver}' good plan if 3'ou are quite 
 sure of the replies ; otherwise, you are apt to he put out. 
 
 "Miss Kennedy," he began, with a low voice, "allow 
 me, first of all, to thank 3'ou' for your great kindness 
 during a late season of depression." 
 
 "I am very glad it is a late season," said Angela; 
 " that means, I presume, that the depression has passed 
 away." 
 
 "Quite, I am glad to say; in fact," the professor 
 laughed cheerfull}', " I have got engagements from now 
 to nearly the end of April in the country, and am in 
 treaty for a West- End engagement in May. Industry 
 and application, not to speak of talent, will make their 
 way in the long run. But I hope I am none the less 
 grateful to j^ou for your loan — let me call it a loan — 
 when things were tight. I assure you, Miss Kennedy, 
 that the run into the country, after those parish regis- 
 ters, was as good as a week's engagement, simple as 
 it looked, and as for that Saturday night for your 
 girls " 
 
 " O Professor, we were agreed that it should appear 
 to be given b}" you for nothing." 
 
 " ISTever mind what it was agreed. You know very 
 well what was paid for it. Now, if it hadn't been for 
 that night's performance and that little trip into the 
 country, I verily believe they would have had to send 
 for a nice long box for me — a box that can't be palmed, 
 and I should have gone off in it to a country where 
 perhaps they don't care for conjuring." 
 
 " In that case, professor, I am very glad to have been 
 of help." 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 287 
 
 "And so," be went on — following the programme lie 
 had laid down in his own mind—" And so 1 came here 
 to-day to ask if your interest in conjuring could be 
 stimulated to a professional height." 
 
 "Really, I do not know. Professional? You 
 mean " 
 
 " Anybody can see that 3'ou've showed an interest in 
 the subject beyond what is expected or found in wom- 
 en. What I came here to-day for is to ask whether you 
 like the conjurer well enough to take to conjuring';'" 
 
 Angela laughed and was astonished, after being told 
 by Daniel Fagg that he would honor her by making 
 her his wife, but for certain reasons of age. Now, hav- 
 ing became hardened, it seemed but a small thing to 
 receive the offer of a conjurer, and the proposal to join 
 the profession. 
 
 " I think it must be the science, professor, " she said ; 
 "yes, it must be the science that I like so much. Not 
 the man who exhibits his skill in the science. Yes, I 
 think of your admirable science. " 
 
 "Ah," he heaved a deep sigh, "j^ou are quite right, 
 miss ; science is better than love. Love ! What sort of 
 a thing is that, when you get tired of it in a month? 
 But science fills up all 3'our life: people are always 
 learning — always. " 
 
 " I am so glad, professor, that I can agree with you 
 entirely." 
 
 "Which makes me bolder," he said, "because we 
 could bo useful to each other, without pretending to be 
 in love, or any nonsense of that sort." 
 
 " Indeed. Now, I shall be very pleased to be useful 
 to 3'ou without, as you saj', any foolish pretence or 
 nonsense." 
 
 " The way is this: yon can play, can't \'0u?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "And sing?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Did you ever dance in tights?" 
 
 "No, i never did that." 
 
 "Ah, well — it's a pity; but one can't expect every- 
 thing. And no doubt you'd take to it easy. They all 
 do. Did you ever sing on the stage — at a music-hall, I 
 mean?" 
 
288 ALL SORTS AND COXDITIOXS OF ]\IEN. 
 
 "No; I never did." 
 
 " There was a chap — but I suppose he was a liar — 
 said you used to siug under an electric light at the Can- 
 ter bary, with a character dance, and a topical song, 
 and a kick-up at the finish." 
 
 "Yes, professor. I think that 'chap' must certainly 
 be written down a liar. But go on." 
 
 " I told him he was, and he offered to fight me for 
 half a crown. When 1 said I'd do it, and willingly, for 
 a bob, he went away. I think he's the fellow Harry 
 Goslett knocked down one night. Bunker put him up 
 to it. Bunker doesn't like you. Never mind him. 
 Look here, now." 
 
 " I am looking as hard as I can." 
 
 " There's some things that bring the money in, and 
 some that don't. Dressmaking don't; conjurin' does." 
 
 " Yet you yourself, professor " 
 
 "Why," he asked, "because I am only four-and- 
 twenty, and not much known as j'et. Give me time; 
 wait. Lord ! to see the clumsy things done by the men 
 who've got a name. And how they go down ; and a 
 child would spot the dodge ! Now, mark my words — 
 if 3"ou go in with me, there's a fortune in it." 
 
 " For 3'our sake, I am glad to hear it ; but it must be 
 without me." 
 
 " It is for your sake that I tell you of it." 
 
 He was not in love at all. Love and science have 
 never yet really composed their differences; and there 
 was not the least dropping of his voice, or any sign of 
 passion in his speech. 
 
 " For your sake," he repeated. " Because, if you can 
 be got to see your way as I see it, there's a fortune for 
 both of us." 
 
 " Oh !" 
 
 " Yes : now, miss, listen. Conjuring, like most 
 things, is makin' believe and deceivin'. What we do 
 is, to show you one thing and to do another. The only 
 thing is, to do it so quick that it shan't be seen even by 
 the few men who know how it is done. No woman yet 
 was ever able to be a conjurer, which is a rum thing, 
 because their fingers do prettj' for music, and lace- 
 work, and such. But for conjurin', they haven't the 
 mind. You want a man's brain for such work." 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 289 
 
 " I have always," said Angela, "felt what pQor, weak 
 things we are, compared witli men." 
 
 " Yes, you are," continued the professor gallantly. 
 " But you do have your uses in the world — most things 
 have. Now, as a confederate or assistant, there's no- 
 body like a woman. They do what the}' are told to do. 
 They are faithful over the secrets. They learn their 
 place on the platform and they stay there. Some pro- 
 fessors carry about a boy with them. But you can't 
 place any real trust in a bo)' ; he's always up to tricks, 
 and if you wallop him — likely as not, next night he'll 
 take and spoil jour best trick out of revenge. Some 
 have a man to help, but then he learns the secrets and 
 tries to cut you out; but with a woman j'ou're always 
 pretty safe. A daughter's best; because then you 
 pocket all the money 3-ourself . But a wife is next best 
 so long as she keeps steady and acts on the square." 
 
 " I never thought of it before, " said Angela, " but I 
 suppose it is as you say, and the real object for which 
 women were created must have been the assistance of 
 conjurers." 
 
 " Of course, " said the professor, failing to see the 
 delicate sarcasm of this remark — "of course. What 
 better thing could they do? Why, here you sit slaving 
 all day long, and all the year round ; and what are you 
 the better for it? A bare living — that's all you get out 
 of it. Whether you go into shops, behind a bar, or 
 into the workroom, it's the same story — a bare living. 
 Look at the conjurin' line now: you live in splendor; 
 j'ou go on the stage in a most beautiful costume — silks 
 and satins, gold and spangles ; tights, if you like. You 
 travel about the country free. You hear the people 
 clapping their hands whenever you go in ; and believ- 
 in' that you do it all yourself. You've got nothing to 
 do but just what you are told, and that's your life — 
 with pockets full of money, and the proud consciousness 
 that you are making 5'our fortune." 
 
 " It certainly seems very beautiful to look at ; are 
 there no drawbacks?" 
 
 "None," answered the enthusiast. "It's the best 
 
 profession in the world — there's no danger in it. 
 
 There's no capital required. All it wants is cleverness. 
 
 That's why I come to you ; because you are a real clever 
 
 19 
 
290 ALL SORTS AXD CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 girl, and what's more, j'ou're good-looking — it is not 
 always that looks and brains go together." 
 
 "Very well, professor. Let us come to the point — 
 what is it you want me to doV" 
 
 " I want you. Miss Kennedy, to go about the country 
 with me. You shall be my assistant; you shall plaj' 
 the piano, and come on dressed in a pink costume — 
 which generally fetches at an entertainment. Nothing 
 to say; and I will teach you by degrees all the dodges, 
 and the way it's done you will learn. You'll be sur- 
 prised when you find how easy it is, and yet how you 
 can't do it. And when you hear the people telling 
 what they saw, and you know just exactly what they 
 could have seen if they'd had their eyes in their heads, 
 you'll laugh — you will." 
 
 " But I'm afraid I can't think " 
 
 " Don't raise difficulties, now," he spoke persuasively. 
 " I am coming to them directly. I've got ideas in my 
 head which I can't carry through without a real, clever 
 confederate. And you must be that confederate. Elec- 
 tricity: now" — he lowered his voice, and whispered — • 
 "none of the conjurers have got a battery at work. 
 Think of new feats of marvel and magic never before 
 considered possible; and done secret by electricity. 
 What a shame — what a cruel shame, to have let the 
 world get hold of electricity ! Why, it ought to have 
 been kept for conjurers. And telephones — again, what 
 a scope there is in a good telephone ! You and me to- 
 gether. Miss Kennedy, could knock up an entertainment 
 as nobody ever yet dreamed of. If yow could dance a 
 bit it would be an advantage. But, if you won't, of 
 course, we must give it up. And, as to the dressmak- 
 ing rubbish, why in a week you will be wondering how 
 in the world you ever came to waste your time upon it 
 at all, while such a chance was going about in the 
 world. Not that I blame you for it; not at all. It was 
 your ignorance kept you out of it, and your good luck 
 threw you in the way of it." 
 
 " That may be so. But still, I am not sure " 
 
 "I haven't done yet. Look here! I've been turning 
 the thing over in my own mind a good bit. The only 
 way I can think of for such a girl as you to go about 
 the country with a show is for you to be married to the 
 
ALL SORTS AXD CONDITIONS OF MEN. 291 
 
 showman — so I'll marry you before we start, and then 
 we shall he comfortable and happy, and read}' for the 
 fortune to come in. And you'll be quite sure of your 
 share in it." 
 
 " Thank 3'ou, professor." 
 
 " Very good, then ; no need for thanks. I've got en- 
 gagements in the country for over three months. We'll 
 marry at once, and you can spend that time in learn- 
 ing." 
 
 Angela laughed. Were women of "her class," she 
 thought, so easily won, and so unceremonious!}^ wooed? 
 Were there no preliminary advances, soft speeches, 
 words of compliment and flattery? 
 
 "I've been laying out a plan," the professor went on, 
 " for the most complete thing you ever saw ! Never be- 
 fore attempted on any stage ! Marvelous optical illu- 
 sion. Hush — electricity !" [He said this in a stage 
 whisper.] " You are to be a fairy. Stale old business, 
 isn't it? But it always pays. Silk stockin 'sand gauze, 
 with a wand. I'm Sinbad the Sailor, or Robinson 
 Crusoe. It doesn't matter what; and then 3'ou " 
 
 " Stay a moment, professor" — she laid her hand upon 
 his arm — " you have not waited for my answer. I can- 
 not, unfortunately, marry you ; nor can I go about the 
 countr}' with j'ou; nor can I possibly become your con- 
 federate and assistant." 
 
 "You can't marry me? Why not, when I offer you 
 a fortune?" 
 
 "Not even for fortune." 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 "Well, for many reasons. One of them is that I 
 cannot leave mj- dressmaking — rubbish, as it seems to 
 you. That is, indeed, a sufficient reason." 
 
 " Oh !" — his face becoming sad — " and I set my heart 
 upon it I The very first time I saw you I said to my- 
 self, 'There's a girl for the business — never was such 
 a girl!' And to think you're thrown away on a dress- 
 making business. Oh! it's too bad! and that you're 
 contented with your lot, humble as it is, when I offer 
 to make you an artist, and to give you a fortune. 
 That's what cuts me to the quick — that you should be 
 contented." 
 
 "I am very much ashamed of myself,'' said Angela, 
 
292 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 with contrition ; " but, you see, ^yhat you ask is impos- 
 sible." 
 
 "And I only made up my mind last night that I 
 would marry you, if nothing else would do." 
 
 " Did you — poor professor ! I am quite sorry for 
 you ; but you should never marrj^ a woman unless you 
 are in love with her. Now it's quite clear that you are 
 not in love with me." 
 
 *' Love ! I've got my work to think of." 
 
 " Then good-morning, professor. Let us part friends, 
 if I cannot accept your offer." 
 
 He took her offered hand with reluctance, and in sor- 
 row more than in anger. 
 
 "Do you really understand," he asked, "what you are 
 throwing away? Fame and fortune — nothing less." 
 
 She laughed, and drew back her hand, shaking her 
 head. 
 
 " Oh, the woman's a fool !" cried the professor, losing 
 his temper, and slamming the door after him. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 CAPTAIN COPPIN. 
 
 It was at this time that Tom Coppin, Captain Cop- 
 pin of 'the Salvation Army, paid his only visit to An- 
 gela, that visit that caused so much sensation among 
 the girls. 
 
 He chose a quiet evening early in the week. "Why 
 he came has never been quite clear. It was not curi- 
 osity, for he had none ; nor was it a desire to study the 
 kind of culture which Angela had introduced among 
 her friends, for he had no knowledge of, or desire for, 
 culture at all. Nor does the dressmakers' workshop 
 aft'ord a congenial place for the exercise of that soldier's 
 gifts. He came, perhaps, because he was passing on 
 his wa}" from a red-hot pra3^er meeting to a red-hot 
 preaching, and he thought he would see the place which 
 among others, the Advanced Club for instance, was 
 keeping his brother from following in his own steps, 
 and helping him to regard the world, its pleasures and 
 pursuits, with ej'es of affection. One knows not what 
 
ALL SORTS AXD CONDITIONS OF MEN 293 
 
 he expected to find or what he proposed by going there, 
 because the things he did find completely upset all his 
 expectations, if he had any. Visions, perhaps, of the 
 soul-destroying dance, and the red cup, and the loud 
 laughter of fools, and the talk that is as the crackling 
 of thorns, were in his mind. 
 
 The room was occupied, as usual, with the girls, An- 
 gela among them. Captain Sorensen was there too; 
 the girls were quieth^ busy, for the most part, over 
 " their own" work, because, if they would go fine, they 
 must make their own fineries ; it was a frosty night, 
 and the fire was burning clear ; in the most comfortable 
 chair beside it sat the crippled girl of whom we know ; 
 the place was hers by a sort of right ; she was gazing 
 into the flames, listening lazily to the music — Angela 
 had been playing — and doing nothing, with content- 
 ment. Life was so sweet to the child when she was 
 not suffering pain, and was warm, and was not hungry, 
 and was not hearing complaints, that sl»e wanted noth- 
 ing more. Nelly, for her part, sat with hands folded 
 pensively, and Angela w-ondered what, of late days, it 
 was that seemed to trouble her. 
 
 ^ Suddenly the door opened, and a man, dressed in a 
 tight uniform of dark cloth and a cap of the same, with 
 " S. S." upon it, like the Lord Mayor's gold chain, stood 
 before them. 
 
 He did not remove his cap, but he looked round the 
 ro(5m, and presently called in a loud, harsh voice. : 
 
 " Which of you here answers to the name of Ken- 
 nedy?" 
 
 "I do," replied Angela; "my name is Kenned3^ 
 What is yours, and why do you coine here?" 
 
 " My name is Coppin. My work is to save souls. I 
 tear them out of the yqtj clutches and claws of the 
 devil ; I will have them ; I leave them no peace luitil I 
 have won them ; I cry aloud to them ; I shout to them ; 
 I pray for them ; I sing to them ; I seek them out in 
 their hiding-places, even in their dens and courts of 
 sin; there are none too far gone for my work; none 
 that I will let go once I get a grip of them; once my 
 hand is on them out they must come if the devil and all 
 his angels were pulling them the other way. For my 
 strength is not of myself ; it is " 
 
294 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 "But wh}' do you come here?" asked Angela. 
 
 The man had the same black hair and bright eyes as 
 his brother; the same strong voice, although a long 
 course of street-shouting had made it coarse and 
 rough ; but his ej'es Avere brighter, his lips more sensi- 
 tive, his forehead higher ; he was like his brother in all 
 respects, jei so unlike that, while the Radical had the 
 face of a strong man, the preacher had in his the inde- 
 finable touch of weakness which fanaticism always 
 brings with it. Whatever else it was, however, the 
 face w^as that of a man terribly in earnest. 
 
 "I have heard about j'ou," he said. "You are of 
 those who cry peace when there is no peace ; you entice 
 the 5'oung men and maidens who ought to be seeking 
 pardon and j^reaching repentance, and you destroy their 
 souls with dancing and music. I come here to tell you 
 that you are one of the instruments of the devil in this 
 wicked town." 
 
 " Have you really come here, jMr. Coppin, on purpose 
 to tell me that?" 
 
 " That," he said, " is part of my message." 
 
 "Do you think," asked Angela, because this was al- 
 most intolerable, " that it is becoming a preacher like 
 3'ourself to invade a quiet and private house in order to 
 insult a woman?" 
 
 "Truth is not insult," he said. "I come here as I 
 would go to a theatre or a singing-hall or any soul- 
 destroj^ng place. You shall hear the plain tnith. 
 With 3'our music and 5^our dancing and your pleasant 
 ways, you are corrupting the souls of many. My 
 brother is hardened in his unrepentance since he knew 
 you. My cousin goes on laughing, and dances over 
 the verv pit of destruction, through you. These 
 girls ^" 
 
 "Oh!" cried Rebekah, who had no sympathy w^ith 
 the Salvation Armj^, and felt herself an authority when 
 the religious question was touched, " they are all mad. 
 Let him go awa^^" 
 
 "I would," replied the captain, "that you were half 
 as mad. Oh ! I know you now ; I know you snug pro- 
 fessors of a Saturday religion " 
 
 "Your mission," Angela interrupted, "is not, I am 
 sure, to argue about another sect. Come, Mr. Coppin, 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 29r) 
 
 now that you have told us who you are and what is 3'our 
 profession and why you come here, you might like to 
 preach to us. Do so, if you will. We were sitting 
 here quietly when you came, and you interrujjt noth- 
 ing. So that, if it would really make you feel any hap- 
 pier, you may preach to us for a few minutes." 
 
 He looked about him in hesitation. This kind of 
 preaching was not in his line: he loved a vast hall with 
 a thousand faces looking at him ; or a crowd of turbu- 
 lent roughs ready to answer the Message with a volley 
 of brickbats; or a chance gathering of unrepentant sin- 
 ners in a wide thoroughfare. He could lift up his 
 voice to them ; but to preach in a quiet room to a dozen 
 girls was a new experience. 
 
 And it was not the place which he had expected. 
 His brother, in their last interview, had thrown in his 
 teeth this house and its doings as offering a more rea- 
 sonable solution of life's problems than his own. " You 
 want ever3"body," he said, "to join you in singing and 
 preaching every day ; what should we do when there 
 was nobod}^ left to preach at? Now, there, what they 
 say is, 'Let us make ourselves comfortable.' There's a 
 deal in that, come to think of. 
 
 " Look at those girls now : while you and your Happy 
 Elizas are trampin' in the mud with your flag and your 
 procession, and gettin' black eyes and brickbats, they 
 are singin' and laughin' and dancin', and makin' what 
 fun they can for themselves. It seems to me, Tom, 
 that if this kind of thing gets fashionable you and your 
 army will be played out." 
 
 Well, he had come to see this place, which had of- 
 fered pleasure instead of repentance, as a method of 
 improving life. They were not laughing and singing 
 at all; there were no men present except one old gentle- 
 man in a blue coat with brass buttons. To be sure, he 
 had a fiddle lying on a chair beside him. There was 
 no indication whatever of the red cup, and no smell of 
 tobacco. Now, pleasure without drink, tobacco, and 
 singing had been in Tom's unregenerate days incom- 
 prehensible. "I would rather," said Dick, "see an 
 army of IVIiss Kennedy's girls than an army of Hallelu- 
 jah Polls." Yet they seemed perfectly quiet. "Make 
 'em happy, Tom, first," said Dick, who was still think- 
 
296 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 ing over Harry's speech as a possible point of depar- 
 ture. Happiness is not a word in the dictionary of men 
 like Tom Coppin ; they know what it means ; they know 
 a spree ; they understand drink ; they know miserj^ be- 
 cause it is all round them — the misery of hunger, of 
 disease, of intemperance, of dirt, of evil temper, of vio- 
 lence; the misery which the sins of one bring all, and 
 sins of all upon each. Indeed, we need not go to 
 Whitechapel to find out misery. But they know not 
 happiness. For such as Captain Coppin there is, as 
 an alternative for miserj", the choice of glory. What 
 they mean by glory is ecstasy, the rapture, the myste- 
 ries of emotional religion ; he, the}^ believe, is the most 
 advanced who is most often hysterical ; Dick, like many 
 of his followers, yearned honestly and unselfishly to ex- 
 tend this raptiu'e which he himself so often enjoyed : 
 but that there should be any other wa}' out of the mis- 
 ery save by way of the humble stool of conviction, was 
 a thing which he could not understand. Happiness, 
 calm, peace, content, the sweet enjoyment of innocent 
 recreation — these things he knew nothing of; they had 
 not come his way. 
 
 He had come ; he had seen ; no doubt the moment his 
 back was turned the orgy would begin. But he had 
 delivered his message : he had warned the young wom- 
 an who had led the girls — that calm, cold woman who 
 looked at him with curiosity and was so unmoved by 
 what he said : he might go. With his whole heart he 
 had spoken and had so far moved no one except the 
 daughter of the Seventh-Day Independent — and her only 
 a little. This kind of thing is verj-' irritating. Sup- 
 pose you were to put a red-hot poker into a jug of water 
 without producing any steam or hissing at all, how, 
 as a natural philosopher, would 3'ou feel? 
 
 "You may preach to us, if you like," said Miss Ken- 
 nedy. 
 
 She sat before him, resting her chin upon her hand. 
 He knew that she was beautiful, although women and 
 their faces, graces, and sweet looks played no part at 
 all in his thoughts. He felt, without putting the thing 
 into words, that she was beautiful. Also, that she re- 
 garded him with a kind of contempt, as well as curios- 
 ity ;■ also, that she had determined not to be moved by 
 
ALL SORTS AND COXDITIOXS OF MEN. 297 
 
 anything he might say; also, that she relied on her 
 own inliuence over the girls. And he felt for a moment 
 as if his trusty arms were dropping from his hands and 
 his whole armor was slipping from his shoulders. ISTot 
 her beauty; no, fifty Helens of Troy would not have 
 moved this young apostle ; but her position as an im- 
 pregnable outsider. For against the curious outsider, 
 who regard captains in the Salvation Army only as so 
 many interesting results of growing civilization, their 
 officers are powerless indeed. 
 
 If there is any real difference between the working- 
 man of England and the man who does other work, it 
 is that the former is generally emotional and the latter 
 is not. To the man of emotion things cannot be stated 
 too strongly ; his leader is he wlio has the greatest com- 
 mand of adjectives ; he is singularly open to the charm 
 of eloquence ; he likes audacity of statement ; he likes 
 to be moved by wrath, pity, and terror ; he has no eye 
 for shades of color; and when he is most moved he 
 thinks he is most right. It is this which makes him 
 so angry with the people who cannot be moved. 
 
 Angela was one of those persons who cannot be 
 moved by the ordinary methods. She looked at Tpm 
 as if he was some strange creature, watching what he 
 did, listening to what he said, as if she was not like 
 unto him. It is not quite a fair way of describing An- 
 gela's attitude of mind ; but it is near enough ; and it 
 represents what passed through the brain of the Salva- 
 tion captain. 
 
 _ " Will you preach to us?" she repeated the third 
 time. 
 
 He mechanically opened his hymn-book, 
 
 "Number three hundred and sixty-two," he said 
 quietly. 
 
 He sang the hj-mn all by himself, at the top of his 
 voice, so that the windows rattled, to one of those rous- 
 ing and popular melodies which hare been pressed into 
 the service of the army ; it was, in fact, " Molly Dar- 
 ling," and the people at Stepney Green asked each other 
 in wonder if a meeting of the Salvation Armv was 
 actually being held at Miss Kennedy's. 
 
 When he had finished his hymn he began to preach. 
 
 He stammei-ed at first, because the surroundings were 
 
298 ALL SORTS AXD COXDITIOXS OF 2IEX. 
 
 strange; besides, the cold, curious eyes of Miss Ken- 
 nedy chilled him. Presently, however, he recovered 
 self-possession, and began his address. 
 
 There is one merit, at least, possessed by these preach- 
 ers; it is that of simplicity. Whatever else they may 
 be, they are always the same; even the words do not 
 vary while there is but one idea. 
 
 If you want to influence the dull of comprehension, 
 such as the common donkey, there is but one way pos- 
 sible. He cannot be led, or coaxed, or persuaded; he 
 must be thwacked. Father Stick explains and makes 
 apparent, instantly, what the logic of all the schools 
 has failed to prove. In the same way, if you wish to 
 awaken the spiritual emotions among people who have 
 hitherto been strange to them, your chance is not by 
 argument, but by appeals, statements, prophecies, 
 threats, terrors, and pictures, which, in fact, doexactlj^ 
 correspond, and produce the same effect as Father 
 Stick ; they are so many knock-down blows ; they be- 
 labor and they terrif3^ 
 
 The preacher began : the girls composed themselves 
 to listen, with the exception of Rebekah, who went on 
 with her work ostentatiously, partly to show her disap- 
 proval of such irregular proceedings and j^artly as one 
 who, having got the truth from an independent source, 
 and being already advanced in the narrow way, had no 
 occasion for the captain's persuasion. 
 
 It is one thing to hear the voice of a street preacher in 
 his own church, so to speak, that is, on the curbstone, 
 and quite another thing to hear the same man and the 
 same person in a quiet room. Tom Coppin had only 
 one sermon, though he dressed it up sometimes, but not 
 often, in new words. Yet he was relieved of monot- 
 ony by the earnestness which he poured into it. He 
 believed in it, himself ; that goes a long way. Angela 
 began by thinking of the doctrine, but presently turned 
 her attention to the preacher, and began to think Avhat 
 manner of man he was. Personally he was pale and 
 thin, with strong black hair, like his brother, and his 
 eyes were singularly bright. 
 
 Here was a man of the people: self-taught; pro- 
 foundlj" ignorant as to the many problems of life and 
 its solutions; filled, however, v\ith that noble sympathy 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 299 
 
 which makes prophets, poets, martyrs; wholly pos- 
 sessed of faith in his narrow creed, owning no author- 
 ity of church or priest ; helieving himself under direct 
 Divine guidance, chosen and called, the instrument of 
 merciful Heaven to drag guilty souls from the pit ; con- 
 sciously standing as a servant, da}'" and night, before a 
 Throne which other men regard afar off or cannot see 
 at all; actually living the life of hardship, privation, 
 and ill-treatment, which he preached; for the sake of 
 others, enduring hardness, poverty, contumely; taking 
 all these things as part and parcel of the day's work; 
 and, in the name of duty, searching into corners and 
 holes of this great town for the vilest, the most hard- 
 ened, the most depraved, the most blinded to a higher 
 life. 
 
 This, if 3'ou please, is not a thing to be laughed at. 
 What did Wesley more? What did Whitfield? Nay, 
 what did Paul? 
 
 They paid him for his services, it is true ; they gave 
 him five-and-tweuty shillings a week; some of this 
 great sum he gave away ; the rest provided him with 
 poor and simple food. He had no pleasures or joys of 
 life; he had no recreations; he had no hope of any 
 pleasures ; some of the officers of his army — being men 
 and women as well as preachers — loved each other and 
 were married : but this man had no thought of any such 
 thing, he, as much as any monk, was vowed to the ser- 
 vice of the Master, without rest or holiday, or an}- other 
 joy than that of doing the work that lay before him. 
 
 A great pity and sympathy filled Angela's heart as 
 she thought of these things. 
 
 The man before her was for the moment a prophet ; 
 it mattered nothing that his creed was narrow, his 
 truths only half truths, his doctrine commonplace, his 
 language in bad taste, his manner vulgar ; the faith of 
 the man covered up and hid these defects; he had a 
 message to mankind; he was delivering that message; 
 to him it was a fresh, new message, never before in- 
 trusted to any man ; he had to deliver it perpetually, 
 even though he went in starvation. 
 
 Angela's heart softened as she realized the loyalty of 
 the man. He saw the softening in her eyes and 
 thought it was the first sign of conviction. 
 
300 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 But it was not. 
 
 Meantime, if Angela was thinking of the preacher, 
 the girls, of course with the exception of Rebekah, 
 were trembling at his words. 
 
 Suddenly — the unexpected change was a kind of rhe- 
 torical trick which often proved effective — the preacher 
 ceased to denounce and threaten, and spoke of pardon 
 and peace ; he called upon them in softer voice, in ac- 
 cents full of tears and love, to break down their pride, 
 to hear the voice that called them. . . . We know well 
 enough what he said, only we do not know how he said 
 it. Angela looked about the room. The Captain sat 
 with his hands on his knees, and his face dutifully 
 lifted to the angle which denotes attention; his expres- 
 sion was unmoved ; evidently, the captain was not open 
 to conviction. As for the girls, they might be divid- 
 ed into classes. They had all listened to the threats 
 and the warnings, though they had heard them often 
 enough before ; now, however, some of them seemed as 
 if thoy were impatient, and as if with a little encour- 
 agement they could break into scoffing. But others 
 were crying, and one or two were steadfastly regarding 
 the speaker, as if he had mesmerized them. Among 
 these was Nelly. Her eyes were fixed, her lips were 
 parted, her breathing was quick, her cheek was pale. 
 
 Great and wonderful is the power of eloquence ; there 
 are few orators ; this ex-printer, this uneducated man 
 of the ranks was, like his brother, born with the gift 
 that is so rare. He should have been taken away and 
 taught, and kept from danger, and properly fed and 
 cared for. And now it is too late. They said of him 
 in his connection that he was blessed in the saving of 
 souls : the most stubborn, the most hardened, when they 
 fell under the magic of his presence and his voice, were 
 broken and subdued; what wonder that a weak girl 
 should give waj^? 
 
 When he paused he looked round ; he noted the faces 
 of those whom he had mesmerized ; he raised his arm ; 
 he pointed to Nelly and beckoned her, without a word, 
 to rise. 
 
 Then the girl stood up as if she could not choose but 
 obey. She moved a step toward him ; in a moment she 
 would have been at his feet, with sobs and tears, in the 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. ^01 
 
 passion of self-abasement which is so dear to the reviv- 
 alist. But Angela broke the spell. She sprang toward 
 her, caught her in her o^vn arms, and passed her hand 
 before her eves. 
 
 " Ne% !" she said gently. " Is^elly, dear. " 
 
 The girl sank back in her chair, and buried her face 
 in her hands. But the moment was gone, and Captain 
 Coppin had lost his recruit. 
 
 They all breathed a deep sigh. Those who had not 
 been moved looked at each other and laughed; those 
 who were, dried their eyes and seemed ashamed. 
 
 "Thank you," said Angela to the preacher. "You 
 have preached very well, and I hope your words will 
 help us on our way, even though it is not quite your 
 way." 
 
 " Then be of our way. Cease from scofifing." 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 " No, I do not scoff, but I cannot join your way. 
 Leave us now, Mr. Coppin. You are a brave man. 
 Let us reverence courage and loyalty. But we will 
 have no more sermons in this room. Good-night." 
 
 She offered him her hand, but he would not take it, 
 and with a final warning, addressed to Angela in par- 
 ticular and the room in general, he went as he bad 
 come, without greeting or word of thanks. 
 
 " These Salvation people, " said Rebekah, " are all 
 mad. If people want the way of truth there's the 
 chapel in Redman's Row, and father's always in it 
 every Saturday." 
 
 "What do you say. Captain Sorensen?" asked An- 
 gela. 
 
 " The Church of England," said the captain, who had 
 not been moved a whit, " says that two sacraments are 
 necessary. I find nothing about stools of repentance. 
 Come, Nelly, my girl, remember that you are a Church- 
 woman." 
 
 "Yet," said Angela, "what are we to say when a 
 man is so brave and true, and when he lives the life? 
 Nelly dear — girls all — I think that religion should not 
 be a terror but a great calm and a trust. Let us love 
 each other and do our work and take the simple happi- 
 ness that God gives, and have faith. What more can 
 
303 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 we do? To-night, I think, we cannot dance or sing, 
 but I will play to you." 
 
 She played to them — grand and solemn music — so 
 that the terror went out of their brains, and the hard- 
 ening out of their hearts, and next day all was forgot- 
 ten. 
 
 In this manner and this once did Tom Coppin cross 
 Angela's path. Now he will cross it no more, because 
 his work is over. If a man lives on less than the bare 
 necessaries in order to give to others ; if he does the 
 Avork of ten men ; if he gives himself no rest any day in 
 the week, what happens to that man when tj'phus seizes 
 him? 
 
 He died, as he had lived, in glory, surrounded by 
 Joj^ful Jane, Hallelujah Jem, Happy Polly, Thankful 
 Sarah, and the rest of them. His life has been narrated 
 in the " War Cry;" it is specially recorded of him that 
 he was always "on the mountains," which means, in 
 their language, that he was a man of strong faith, free 
 from doubt, and of emotional nature. 
 
 The extremely wicked and hardened family, consist- 
 ing of an old woman and half a dozen daughters, for 
 whose soul's sake he starved himself and thereby fell 
 an easy prey to the disease, have nearly all found a 
 refuge in the workhouse, and are as hardened as ever, 
 though not so wicked, because some kinds of wicked- 
 ness are not allowed in that place of virtue. Therefore 
 it seems almost as if poor Tom's life has been fooled 
 awa}'. According to a philosophy which makes a 
 great deal of noise just now, every life is but a shadow, 
 a dream, a mocker3% a catching at things impossible, 
 and a waste of good material, ending with the last 
 breath. Then all our lives are fooled awa.y, and why 
 not Tom's as well as the rest? But if the older way of 
 thinking is, after all, right, then that life can hardly 
 have been wasted which was freely given — even if the 
 gift was not accepted — for the advantage of others. 
 Because the memory and the example remain, and e\^- 
 ery example — if boys and girls could only be taught this 
 copy-book truth — is like an inexhaustible horn, always 
 filled with precious seed. 
 
ALL SORTS AXD COXDITIOXS OF 2IEN. 303 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 BUNKER AT BAY. 
 
 Harry was thinking a good deal about the old man's 
 strange story of the houses. There was, to be sure, lit- 
 tle dependence to be placed in the rambling, disjointed 
 statements made by so old a man. But, then, this state- 
 ment was so clear and precise. There were so many 
 children — there were so many houses (three for each 
 child), and he knew exactly what became of all those 
 houses. If the story had been told by a man in the 
 prime of life, it could not have been more exact and de- 
 tailed. But what were the houses — where were they? 
 And how could he prove that they were his own? 
 
 What did Bunker get when he traded the child 
 away ? 
 
 Harry had always been of opinion that he got a sum 
 of money down, and that ho was now ashamed of the 
 transaction, and would fain have it remain unknown. 
 This solution accounted, or seemed to account, for his 
 great wrath and agitation when the subject was men- 
 tioned. Out of a mischievous delight in making his 
 uncle angry, Harry frequently alluded to this point; 
 but the story of the houses was a better solution still. 
 It accounted for Mr. Bunker's agitation as well as his 
 wrath. But his wrath and his terror appeared to Harry 
 to corroborate very strongly the old man's story. And 
 the longer he thought about it the more strongly he be- 
 lieved it. 
 
 Harry asked his landlady whether, in her opinion, if 
 Mr. Maliphant made a statement, that statement was 
 to be accepted as true? 
 
 Mrs. Bormalack replied that as he never made any 
 statement, except in reference to events long since 
 things of the past, it was impossible for her to say 
 whether they were true or not; that his memory was 
 clean gone for things of the present — so that of to-day 
 and yesterday he knew nothing; that his thoughts were 
 always running on the old days; and that when he 
 could be heard right through, without dropping his 
 
304 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 voice at all, he sometimes told very interesting and cu- 
 rious things. His board and lodging were paid for 
 him by his grandson, a most respectable gentleman, 
 and a dockmaster; and that as to the old man's busi- 
 ness he had none, and had had none for many years, 
 being clean forgotten — although he did go every day to 
 his yard, and stayed there all day long. 
 
 Harry thought he would pay him another visit. Per- 
 haps something more would be remembered. 
 
 He went there again in the morning. 
 
 The street, at the end of which was the yard, was as 
 quiet as on the Sunday, the children being at school 
 and the men at work. The great gates were closed and 
 locked, but the small side-door was unlocked. When 
 he opened it all the figureheads turned quickly and 
 anxiously to look at him. At least Harry declares they 
 did, and Spiritualists wall readily believe him. Was 
 ho, they asked, going to take one of them away and 
 stick it on the bow of a great ship, and send it up and 
 down upon the face of the ocean to the four corners of 
 the world. Ha ! They were made for an active life. 
 They pined away in this inactivity. A fig for the dan- 
 gers of the deep ! From Saucy Sal to Neptune they all 
 asked the same question in the same hope. Harrj' 
 shook his head, and they sighed sadly and resumed 
 sadly their former positions, as they were, eyes front, 
 waiting till night should fall and the old man should 
 go, and they could talk with each other. 
 
 "This," thought Harry, "is a strange and ghostly 
 place." 
 
 You know the old and creepy feeling caused by the 
 presence, albeit unseen, of ghosts. One may feel it 
 anywhere and at all times — in church, at a theatre, in 
 bed at night — by broad daylight — in darkness or in twi- 
 light. This was in the sunshine of a bright December 
 day — the last days of the year 1881 were singularly 
 bright and gracious. The place was no dark chamber 
 or gloomy vault, but a broad and open yard, cheerfully 
 decorated with carved figureheads. Yet, even here, 
 Harry experienced the touch of ghostliness. The place 
 was so strange that it did not astonish him at all to see 
 the old man suddenly appear in the door of his doll's 
 house, waving his hand and smiling cheerily, as one 
 
ALL SORTS AXD CONDITIONS OF MEN. 305 
 
 who speeds tlie j^arting guest. The salutations were 
 not intended for Harrj-, because Mr. Maliphant was 
 not looking at him. 
 
 Presently he ceased gesticulating, became suddenly 
 serious (as happens to one when his friend's back is 
 turned, or he has vanished), and returned to his seat bj' 
 the fire. 
 
 Harry softly followed, and stood before him waiting 
 to be recognized. 
 
 The old man looked up at last, and nodded his head. 
 
 " Been entertaining your friends, Mr. Maliphant?" 
 
 "Bob was here, only Bob. You have just missed 
 Bob," he replied. 
 
 " That's a pity — never mind. Can j^ou, my ancient, 
 carry your memor}^ back some twenty years ? You did 
 it, you know, last Sundaj^ for me." 
 
 "Twenty years? Ay, ay — twenty years. I Vv^as only 
 sixty-five or so then. It seems a long time until it is 
 gone — twenty years ! Well, young man, twenty years 
 —why, it is only yesterday !" 
 
 " I mean to the time when Caroline Coppin, you know 
 your old friend Caroline, was married." 
 
 " That was twenty years before, and more ; when 
 William the Fourth died and Queen Victoria (then a 
 
 young thing) came long to reign over us " His voice 
 
 sank, and he continued the rest of his reminiscence to 
 himself. 
 
 " But Caroline Coppin?" 
 
 " I'm telling you about Caroline Coppin, only j^ou 
 won't listen." 
 
 There was nothing more to be got out of him. His 
 recent conversation with Bob's spirit had muddled him 
 for the day, and he mixed up Caroline with her mother 
 or grandmother. He relapsed into silence, and sat with 
 his long pipe unfilled in his hand, looking into the fire- 
 place; gone back in imagination to the past. As the 
 oLl man made no sign of conversation, but rather of a 
 disposition to " drop off" for a few minutes, Harry 
 began to look about the room. On the table lay a bun- 
 dle of old letters. It was as if the living and the dead 
 liad been reading thein together. 
 
 HaiTV took them uj) and turned them over, wonder- 
 ing what secrets of long ago were contained in those 
 20 
 
306 ALL SORTS AND COXDITIOXS OF MEN. 
 
 yellow papers, with their faded ink. The old man's 
 eyes were closed — he took no heed of his visitor; and 
 Harry standing at the table began shamelessly to read 
 the letters. They were mostly the letters of a young 
 sailor addressed to one apparently a good deal older 
 than himself — for they abounded in such appellations 
 as "my ancient," "venerable," "old salt," and so forth. 
 But the young man did not regard his correspondent 
 with the awe which ago should inspire, " but rather as 
 a gay and rollicking spirit who would sympathize with 
 the high- jinks of younger men, even if he no longer 
 shared in them, and who was an old and still delighted 
 treader of those flowery paths which are said by mor- 
 alists to be planted with the frequent pitfall and the 
 crafty trap. "The old man," thought Harr}^ "must 
 have been an admirable guide to youth, and the disci- 
 ple was apt to learn." 
 
 Sometimes the letters were signed " Bob, " sometimes 
 "R. Coppin," sometimes "R. C." Harr}-, therefore, 
 surmised that the writer was no other than his own 
 uncle Bob, whose ghost he had just missed. 
 
 Bob was an officer on board of an East Indiaman, 
 but he spoke not of such commonplace matters as the 
 face of the ocean or the voice of the tempest. He only 
 wrote from port, and told what things he had seen and 
 done, what he had consumed in ardent drink. The let- 
 ters Avere brief, which seemed as well, because if liter- 
 ary skill had been present to dress up effectively the sub- 
 jects treated, a literary monument might have been 
 erected, the like of which the world has never seen. 
 
 It is, indeed, a most curious and remarkable circum- 
 stance that even in realistic Prance the true course of 
 the prodigal has never been faithfull}^ described. Now 
 the great advantage formerly possessed by the sailor — 
 an advantage cruelly curtailed b}^ the establishment of 
 "homes," and the introduction of temperance — was, 
 that he could be and was a prodigal at the end of every 
 cruise; while the vo3'"age itself was an agreeable inter- 
 val provided for recovery, recollection, and anticipation. 
 
 "Bob, Uncle Bob, was a flyer," said Harry. "One 
 should be proud of such an uncle. With Bob and 
 Bunker and the bankrupt builder, I am indeed pro- 
 vided." 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 307 
 
 There seemed nothing in the letters which bore upon 
 the question of his motlier's property, and he was going 
 to put them down again, when he lighted upon a torn 
 fragment on which he saw in Bob's big handwriting 
 the name of his cousin Josephus. 
 
 " Josephus, my cousin, that he will . . . (here a break in 
 the continuity) . . . 'nd the safe the bundle . . . (another 
 break) . . . for a lark. Josephus is a square-toes. I hate a 
 man who wont' drink. He will . . (another break) if he 
 looks there. Your health and song, shipmate. — R. C." 
 
 He read this fragment two or three times over. 
 What did it mean? Clearly nothing to himself. 
 
 "Josephus is a square-toes." Very likely. The 
 prodigal Bob was not. Quite the contrary — he was a 
 young man of extremely mercurial temperament. 
 " Josephus, my cousin, that he will . . . 'nd the safe the 
 bundle. " He put down the paper, and without waking 
 the old man he softly left the room and the jjlace, shut- 
 ting the door behind him ; and then he forgot imme- 
 diately the torn letter and its allusion to Josephus, He 
 thought next that he would go to Bunker and put the 
 question directly to him. The man might be terrified 
 — might show confusion — might tell lies. That would 
 matter little ; but if he showed his hand too soon Bunker 
 might be put upon his guard. Well, that mattered lit- 
 tle — what Harry hoped was, rather to get at the truth 
 than to recover his houses. 
 
 " I want," he said, finding his uncle at home, and en- 
 gaged in his office drawing up bills — " I want a few 
 words of serious talk with you, my uncle." 
 
 " I am busy ; go away — I never want to talk to you. 
 I hate the very sight of j'our face." 
 
 He looked indeed as if he did — if a flushing cheek 
 and an angiy glare of the ejxs are any sign. 
 
 " I am not going away until you have answered my 
 questions. As to your hatred or your affection, that 
 does not concern me at all. Now will you listen, or 
 shall I wait?" 
 
 " To get rid of you the sooner," growled Bunker, " I 
 will listen now. If I was twenty years 3'ounger I'd 
 kick you out." 
 
 •' If you were twenty years younger, there might, 
 it is true, be a fight. Now then?" 
 
308 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 " Well, get along — m}" time is valuable." 
 
 " I have several times asked you what you got for 
 me when you sold me. You have on those occasions 
 allowed j'ourself to fall into a rage, which is really dan- 
 gerous in so stout a man. I am not going to ask you 
 that question any more." 
 
 Mr. Bunker looked relieved. 
 
 " Because, you see, I know now what you got. " 
 
 Mr. Bunker turned very pale. 
 
 " What do you know?" 
 
 "I know exactl}^ what you got when I was taken 
 away. " 
 
 Mr. Bunker said nothing ; yet there was in his eyes 
 a look as if a critical moment long expected had at last 
 arrived, and he waited. 
 
 " When my mother died and you became my guard- 
 ian, I was not left penniless." 
 
 " It's a lie — you were." 
 
 " If I had been, j-ou would have handed me over to 
 your brother-in-law, Coppin, the builder; but I had 
 property." 
 
 " You had nothing. " 
 
 " I had three houses — one of those houses is, I be- 
 lieve, that which has been rented from you, by Miss 
 Kennedy. I do not know yet where the other two are ; 
 but I shall find out." 
 
 "You are on a wrong tack," said his uncle; "now I 
 know why you wouldn't go away. You came here to 
 ferret and fish, did 5:ou? You thought you were en- 
 titled to propert}^ did you? Ho! — you're a nice sort o' 
 chap to have house property, ain't you? Ha! ho!" 
 But his laughter was not mirthful. 
 
 "Let me point out," Harry went gravely on, "what 
 it is you have done. The child wdiom you kept for a 
 year or two was heir to a small estate, bringing in, I 
 suppose, about eighty or a hundred pounds a year. 
 We will say that you were entitled to keep that money 
 in return for his support ; but when that child was car- 
 ried away and adopted you said nothing about the prop- 
 erty. You kept it for yourself, and you have received 
 the rents jeav after year, as if the house belonged to 
 you. Shall I go on, and tell you what judges and law- 
 yers and police people call this sort of conduct?" 
 
ALL SORTS AXD COyDITIOXS OF MEX. 309 
 
 "Where's 3-oiir proofs?" asked the other— his face 
 betraying his emotion. " Where's your proofs?" 
 
 " I have none yet— I am going to search for those 
 proofs." 
 
 " You can't find them — there are none. Now, young 
 man, you have had your say, and you can go. Do you 
 hear? You can go." 
 
 "You deny, then, that the houses were mine?" 
 
 "If you'd come to me meek and lowly— as is your 
 humble station in life— I would ha' told 5-ou the history 
 of those houses. Yes, your mother had them, same as 
 her brothers and her sister. Where are they now? 
 I've got 'em all— I've got 'em all. How did I get 'em? 
 By lawful and honorable purchase — I bought 'em. Do 
 you want proofs? You shan't have any proofs. If you'd 
 behaved humble you should ha' seen those proofs. Now 
 you may go away and do your worst. Do you hear ? You 
 may do your worst." 
 
 He shook his fist in Harry's face. His words were 
 brave, but his voice was shaky and his lips were trem- 
 bling. 
 
 " i don't believe 5'ou, " said Harry. " I am certain that 
 you did not buy my houses. There was no one left to 
 care for my interests, and you took those houses." 
 
 " This is the reward," said Bunker, " for nussin' of this 
 child for nigh upon three years. Who would take an 
 orphan into his bosom? But it was right, and I'd do 
 it again. Yes. I'd do it again." 
 
 "I don't doubt you," the ungrateful nephew replied, 
 " especially if that other orphan had three substantial 
 houses, and there was nobody but yourself to look after 
 him." 
 
 " As for your proofs, go and look for them. When 
 you ye found 'em, bring 'em to me— you and your 
 proofs. -^ J 
 
 Harry laughed. 
 
 "I shall find them, "he said; "but I don't know where 
 or when. Meantime you will go on as vou do now- 
 thinking continually that thev may be ^found. You 
 Avuii t be able to sleeji at night— vou will dream of po- 
 lice courts. ^ ou will let your thoughts run on hand- 
 cufts— you will take to drink. You will have no pleas- 
 ure in your life. You will hasten your end ; you will " 
 
310 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 Here he desisted ; for his uncle (dropping into his chair) 
 looked as if he was about to swoon. 
 
 " Remember, I shall find these proofs some daj'. A 
 hundred a year, for twenty years, is two thousand 
 pounds. That's a large sum to hand over; and then, 
 there is the interest. Upon my word, my uncle, you 
 will have to begin the world again." 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 MR. bunker's letter. 
 
 Two days after this Angela received a wonderful 
 letter. It was addressed to Miss Messenger, and was 
 signed Benjamin Bunker, It ran as follows : 
 
 " Honored Miss : As an old and humble friend of 
 your late lamented grandfather, whose loss I can never 
 recover from, nor has it yet been made up to me in any 
 way" — Angela laughed — " I venture to address the fol- 
 lowing lines in secrecy and confidence, knowing that 
 what ought not to be concealed should be told in the 
 proper quarter, which is you, miss, and none other. 
 
 " Everybody in these parts knows me ; everybody 
 knows Bunker, your grandfather's right-hand man; 
 wherefore what I write is with no other design than to 
 warn you and to put you on your guard against the de- 
 ceitful, and such as would abuse your confidingness, 
 being but young — ay, yes, and therefore ignorant of 
 dodges, and easy to come round. 
 
 " You have been come round, and that in such a 
 shameful way that I cannot bear myself any longer, and 
 must take the liberty of telling you so, being an old and 
 confidential adviser. Your grandfather used to say 
 that even the brewery wouldn't be where it is now if it 
 hadn't been for me, not to speak of the house property, 
 which is now a profitable investment, with rents reg- 
 ular and respectable tenants, whereas before I took it in 
 hand the houses were out of repair, the rents backward, 
 and the tenants too often such as would bring discredit 
 on any estate. I therefore beg to warn you against 
 two persons — young, I am sorry to say, which makes 
 
ALL SORTS AM) COXDITIOyS OF HEX. 311 
 
 it worse, because it is only the old who should be thua 
 depraved — whom you have benefited and they are un- 
 worthy of it. 
 
 *■ One of them is a certain Miss Kennedy, a dress- 
 maker, at least she saj'S so. The other is — I write this 
 with a blush of indignant shame — my own nephcAv, 
 whose name is Harry Goslett." 
 
 " Bunker !" murmured Angela. " Is this fair to 3-our 
 own tenant and your own nephew?" 
 
 " As regards my nephew, you have never inquired 
 about him, and it was out of 3'our kindness and a desire 
 to mark your sense of me, that you gave him a berth 
 in the brewery. That young man, miss, who calls 
 himself a cabinet-maker and doesn't seem to know that 
 a joiner is one thing and a cabinet-maker another, now 
 dfjes the joinery for the brewery, and makes, I am told, 
 as much as tAvo pounds a week, being a handy chap. 
 If 3-0U asked me first, I should have told you that he is 
 a lazy, indolent, free and easy, disrespectful, dangerous 
 young man. He has been no one knows where; no one 
 knows where he has worked, except that he talks about 
 America; he looks like a betting man; I believe he 
 drinks of a night; he has been living like a gentleman, 
 doing no work, and I believe, thougTi up to the present 
 I haven't found out for certain, that he has been in 
 trouble and knows what is a convict's feelings when the 
 ke}" is turned. Because he is such a disgrace to the 
 family, for his mother was a Coppin and came of a re- 
 spectable Whitechapel stock, though not equal to the 
 Bunkers or the Messengers, I went to him and offered 
 him five-and-twenty pounds out of my slender stock to 
 go away and never come back any more to disgrace us. 
 Five-and-twenty pounds I would have given to save 
 Messenger's brewery from such a villain." 
 
 "Bunker, Bunker!" murmured Angela again. 
 
 " But he wouldn't take the money. You thought to 
 do me a good turn and you done yourself a bad one. I 
 don't know what mischief he has already done in the 
 brewery, and perhaps he is watched ; if so it may not 
 yet be too late. Send him about his business. Make 
 
312 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 him go. You can then consider some other way of 
 making it up to me for all that work for your grand- 
 father whereof you now sweetly reap the benefit. 
 
 " The other case, miss, is that of the young woman, 
 Kennedy by name, the dressmaker." 
 
 " What of her, Bunker?" asked Angela. 
 
 " I hear that you are givin' her your custom, not 
 knowing, maybe, the kind of woman she is nor the 
 mischief she's about. She's got a house of mine on 
 false pretences." 
 
 "Really, Bunker," said Angela, "you are too bad." 
 
 " Otherwise I wouldn't let her have it, and at the end 
 of the year out she goes. She has persuaded a lot of 
 foolish girls, once contented with their lowly lot and 
 thankful for their wages and their work, nor inclined 
 to grumble when hours were long and work had to be 
 done. She has promised them the profits, and mean- 
 time she feeds them up so that their eyes swell out with 
 fatness. She gives them short hours, and sends them 
 out into the garden to play games. Games, if you 
 please, and short hours for such as them. In the even- 
 ing it's worse, for then the}' play and sing and dance, 
 having young men to caper about with them, and you 
 can hear them half a mile up the Mile End Road, 30 
 that it is a scandal to Stepney Green, once respectable, 
 and the police will probably interfere. Where she came 
 from, who she was, how she got her money, we don't 
 know. Some say one thing, some say another ; what- 
 ever they say it's a bad way. The worst is that when 
 she smashes, as she must, because no ladies who respect 
 virtue and humble-mindedness with contentment will 
 employ her, that the other dressmakers and shops 
 will have nothing to do with her girls, so that what 
 will happen to them no one can tell. 
 
 " I thought it right, miss, to give you this infor- 
 mation, because it is certain that if you withdraw your 
 support from these two undeserving people, they must 
 go awaj^, which as a respectable Stepne}- man, I unite 
 in wishing may happen before long, when the girls 
 
ALL SORTS AXD COyDITIOXS OF MEX. ai3 
 
 shall go on again as before and leave off dancing and 
 singing to the rich, and be humble and contented with 
 the trust to which they were born. 
 
 " And as regards the kindness you were meditating 
 toward me, miss, I think that I may say that none of 
 my nephews— one of whom is a Radical, and another 
 a captain in the Salvation Army — deserves to receive 
 any benefits at your hands, the least of all that villain 
 v.-ho works in the brewery. Wherefore, it may take 
 the form of something for myself. And it is not for me 
 to tell you, miss, how much that something ought to 
 be for a man in years, of respectable station, and once 
 the confidential friend of your grandfather, and pre- 
 vented thereby from saving as much as he had other- 
 wise a right to expect. 
 
 " I remain, miss, your humble servant, 
 
 "Benjamin Bunker." 
 
 "This," said Angela, "is a very impudent letter. 
 How shall we bring him to book for it?" 
 
 When she learned, as she speedily did, the great m3's- 
 tery about the houses and the Coppin propeity, she be- 
 gan to understand the letter, the contents of which she 
 kept to herself for the present. This was perhaps wise, for 
 the theory implied rather than stated in the letter, that 
 both should be ordered to go, for if one only was turned 
 oat of work both would stay. This theory made her 
 smile and blush, and pleased her, insomuch that she 
 was not so angry as she might otherwise have been, and 
 should have been, with the crafty double-dealer who 
 wrote the letter. 
 
 It happened that IVIr. Bunker had business on Step- 
 ney Green that morning, while Angela was reading 
 the letter. She saw him from the window, and could 
 not resist the temptation of inviting him to step in. 
 He came, not in the least abashed, and with no tell-tale 
 signal of confusion in his rosy cheeks. 
 
 "Come in, Mr. Bunker," said Angela. "Come in; 
 I want five minutes' talk with vou. This wav, please, 
 where Ave can be alone." 
 
 She led him into the refectory, because Daniel Fagg 
 was in the drawing room. 
 
 "I have been thinking, Mr. Bunker," she said, "how 
 
314 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 very, very fortunate I was to fall into such hands as 
 yours, when I came to Stepney. " 
 
 " You were, miss, j^ou were. That was a fall, as 
 one may say, which meant a rise." 
 
 " I am sure it did, Mr. Bunker, You do not often 
 come to see us, but I hope you approve of our plans." 
 
 "As for that," he replied, "it isn't my business. 
 People come to me and I put them in the wa}^ How 
 they run in the way is not my business to inquire. As 
 for 3"ou and your girls, now, if you make the concern 
 go, you may thank me for it. If you don't, why, it 
 isn't my fault." 
 
 " A-^ery well put, indeed, Mr. Bunker. In six months 
 the first year, for which I paid the rent, will come to an 
 end." 
 
 " It will." 
 
 " We shall then have to consider a fresh agreement. 
 I was thinking, Mr. Bunker, that, seeing how good a 
 man you are, and how generous, you would like to 
 make your rent, like the wages of the girls, depend upon 
 the profits of the business. " 
 
 "What?" he asked. 
 
 Angela repeated her proposition. 
 
 He rose, buttoned his coat, and put on his hat. 
 
 "Rent depend on profits? Is the girl mad? Rent 
 comes first and before anything else. Rent is even 
 before taxes; and as for rates — but you're mad. My 
 rent depend on profits! Rent, miss, is sacred. Re- 
 member that. " 
 
 " Oh !" said Angela. 
 
 "And what is more," he added, "people who don't 
 pay up get sold up. It's a Christian duty to sell 'em 
 up. I couldn't let ofi" my own nephews." 
 
 " As for one of them, you would like to sell him up, 
 would you not, Mr. Bunker?" 
 
 "I would," he replied truthfully. "I should like to 
 see him out of the place. You know what I told you 
 when you came. Have nothing to do, I said, with that 
 chap. Keep him at arm's length, for he is a bad lot. 
 Now you see what he has brought you to. Singin', 
 dancin', playin', laughin', every night; respectable 
 ladies driven away from your shop ; many actually kept 
 out of the place ; expenses doubled ; all through him. 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF 3IEN. 815 
 
 What's more — bankruptcy ahead ! Don't I know that 
 not a lady in Stepney or Mile End comes here? Don't 
 I know that you depend upon your West End connec- 
 tion? When that goes, where are you? And all for 
 the fiake of that pink and white chap ! Well, when one 
 goes, the other'll go too, I suppose. Rent out of profits, 
 indeed ! No, no, Miss ; it'll do you good to learn a lit- 
 tle business, even if 3'ou do get sold up." 
 
 " Thank 3'ou, Mr. Bunker. Do you know, I do not 
 think youAvill ever have the pleasure of selling me up?" 
 
 She laughed so merrily that he felt he hated her quite 
 as much as he hated his nephew. Why, six months 
 before, no one laughed in Stepney at all ; and to think 
 that any one should laugh at him, would have been an 
 impossible dream. 
 
 "You laugh," he said gravely, "and yet you are on 
 the brink of I'uin. Where's your character? Wrapped 
 up with the character of that 3"oung man. Where's 
 jour business! Drove away — by him. You laugh. 
 Ah! I'm sorr}^ for you, miss, because I thought at one 
 time you were a plain-spoken, honest sort of young wom- 
 an; if I'd ha' known that you meant to use my house 
 — mine, the friend of all the respectable tradesmen — 
 for such wicked fads as now disgrace it, I'd never ha' 
 taken you for a tenant." 
 
 "Oh yes, you would, Mr. Bunker." She laughed 
 again, but not merrily this time. " Oh j^es — you 
 would. You forget the fittings and the furniture, the 
 rent paid in advance, and the half-crown an hour for 
 advice. Is there anj'thing, I should like to know, that 
 you would not do for half a crown an hour?" 
 
 He made no reph'. 
 
 " Why, again, do you hate your nephew? What 
 injury have you done him that you should bear him 
 such 'ill will?" 
 
 This, which was not altogether a shot in the dark, 
 went straight to Mr. Bunker's heart. He said nothing, 
 but put on his hat and rushed out. Clearly these two, 
 between them, would drive him mad. 
 
316 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 PROOFS IN PRINT. 
 
 "It is quite finished now,'" said Daniel Fagg, blot- 
 ting the last page. 
 
 When he began to live with the dressmakers, An-, 
 gela, desiring to find him some employment, had sug- 
 gested that he should rewrite the whole of his book, and 
 redraw the illustrations. It was not a large book, 
 even though it was stuffed and padded with readings 
 of inscriptions and tablets. An ordinary writer would 
 have made a fair copy in a fortnight. But so careful 
 an author as Daniel, so anxious to present his work 
 perfect and unassailable, and so slow in the mere me- 
 chanical art of writing, wanted much more than a fort- 
 night. His handwriting, like his Hebrew, had been 
 acquired comparatively late in life; it was therefore 
 rather ponderous, and he had never learned the art of 
 writing half a word and leaving the other half to be 
 guessed. Then there were the Hebrew words, which 
 took a great deal of time to get right; and the equi- 
 lateral triangles, which also caused a considerable 
 amount of trouble. So that it was a good six weeks 
 before Daniel was ready with a fair copy of his manu- 
 script. He was almost as happy in making this tran- 
 script as he had been with the original document; per- 
 haps more so, because he was now able to consider his 
 great discovery as a whole, to regard it as an architect 
 may regard his finished work, and to touch up, orna- 
 ment, and improve his translations. 
 
 "It is quite complete," he repeated, laying the last 
 page in its place and tapping the roll affectionately. 
 " Here you will find the full account of the two tables 
 of stone and a translation of their contents, with notes. 
 What will they say to that, I wonder?" 
 
 "But how," asked Angela — "how did the tables of 
 stone get to the British Museum?" 
 
 Mr. Fagg considered his reply for a while. 
 
 "There are two ways," he said, "and I don't know 
 which is the right one. For either they were brought 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 317 
 
 here when we, the descendants of Ephraim, as every- 
 body knows, landed in England, or else they were 
 brought here by Phoenician traders after the Captivity. 
 However, there the}-- are, as anybody may see with the 
 help of my discovery. As for the scholars, how can 
 they see anything? Wilful ignorance, miss, is their 
 sin: pride and wilful ignorance. You're ignorant 
 because you are a woman, and it is j'our nature too. 
 But not to love darkness !" 
 
 "No, Mr. Fagg. I lament my ignorance." 
 " Then there's the story of David and Jonathan, and 
 the history of Jezebel and her great wickedness, and 
 the life and death of King Jehosbaphat, and a great 
 deal more. Now read for the first time from the arrow- 
 headed character — so called — by Daniel Fagg, self- 
 taught scholar, once shoemaker in the colony of Vic- 
 toria, discoverer of the Primitive Alphabet and the 
 Universal Language." 
 
 " That is, indeed, a glorious thing to be able to say, 
 Mr. Fagg." 
 
 " But now it is written, what next?" 
 " You mean how can jou get it printed?" 
 "Of course — that's what I mean," he replied almost 
 angrily. " There's the book and no one will look at it. 
 Haven't I tried all the publishers? What else should 
 I mean?" 
 
 The old disappointment, kept under and forgotten 
 during the excitement of re- writing the book, was mak- 
 ing itself felt again. How much further forward was 
 he — the work had been finished long before. All he 
 had done the last six weeks was to write it afresh. 
 
 " I've only been wasting my time here," he said quer- 
 ulously. " I ought to have been up and about. I 
 might have gone to Oxford, where, I am told, there 
 are young men who would, perhaps, give me a hearing. 
 Or, there's Cambridge — where the}" have never heard 
 of ni}" discovery. You've made me waste six weeks 
 and more." 
 
 Angela forbore to ask him how he would have lived 
 during those six weeks. She replied softh' : " Nay, 
 Mr. Fagg; not wasted the time. You were overworked ; 
 you wanted rest. Besides, I think, we may find a plan 
 to get this book published." 
 
818 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 "What plan— how?" 
 
 " If you would trust the manuscript to mj^ hands. 
 Yes, I know well how precious it is, and what a dread- 
 ful thing it would be to lose it. But you have a copy, 
 and you can keep that while I take the other." 
 
 " Where are you going to take it?" 
 
 " I don't know yet — to one of the publishers, I sup- 
 pose." 
 
 He groaned. 
 
 '• I have been to every one of them — not a publisher 
 in London but has had the offer of my book. They 
 won't have it, any of them. Oh, it's their loss — I 
 know that. But what is it to me?" 
 
 "Will you let me try — will you trust me with the 
 manuscript?" 
 
 He reluctantly and jealously allowed her to take 
 awa}' the precious document. When it was out of his 
 hands he tried to amuse himself with the first copy, but 
 found no pleasure in it at all ; because he thought con- 
 tinually of the scorn which had been hurled upon him 
 and his discovery. He saw the heads of departments, 
 one after the other, receiving him politel}^ and listening 
 to what he had to say. He saw them turning impatient 
 — interrupting him, declining to hear any more — refer- 
 ring him to certain books in which he would find a 
 refutation of his theories ; and finally refusing even to 
 see him. 
 
 Never was discoverer treated with such contempt — • 
 even the attendants at the Museum took their cue from 
 the chiefs, and received his advances with scorn. 
 Should they waste their time — the illiterate — in listen- 
 ing unprofitably to one whom the learned Dr. Birch 
 and the profound Mr. Newton had sent away in con- 
 tempt? Better sit in the spacious halls, bearing the 
 wand of office and allowing the eyelids to fall gently, 
 and the mind to wander away among pleasant past- 
 ures, where there was drink with tobacco. Then there 
 were the people who had subscribed. Some of them 
 were gentlemen connected with Australia. They had 
 tossed him the twelve-and-sixpence in the middle of 
 his talk, as if to get rid of him. Some of them had 
 subscribed in pity for his poverty — some persuaded by 
 his importunity. There was not one among them all 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 319 
 
 (he reflected with humiliation) who subscribed because 
 he believed. Stay — there was this ignorant dress- 
 maker. One convert out of all to whom he had ex- 
 plained his discovery ; one, only one. 
 
 There have been many religious enthusiasts — proph- 
 ets, preachers, holders of strange doctrines — who have 
 converted women so that they believed them inspired 
 of heaven. Yet these men made other converts ; where- 
 as he (Fagg) had but this one, and she was not in love 
 with him, because he was old now and no longer 
 comely. This was a grand outcome of that Australian 
 enthusiasm ! 
 
 That day Mr. Fagg was disagreeable, considered as 
 a companion. He found fault with the dinner, which 
 was excellent, as usual. He complained that the beer 
 was thick and flat ; whereas it sparkled like champagne, 
 and was as clear as a bell. He was cross in the after- 
 noon, and wanted to prevent the child who sat in the 
 drawing-room from practising her music; and he went 
 out for his w^alk in a dark and gloomy mood. 
 
 Angela let him have his querulous way unrebuked, 
 because she knew the cause of it. He was suffering 
 from that dreadful, hopeless anger which falls upon the 
 unappreciated. He was like some poet, who brings out 
 volume after volume, yQt meets with no admirers, and 
 remains obscure. He was like some novelist who has 
 produced a masterpiece — which nobod}' will read — or 
 like some actor (the foremost of his age) who depletes 
 the house ; or like a dramatist, from whose acted works 
 the public fly ; or like a man who invents something 
 which is to revolutionize things. Onlj^ people prefer 
 their old way ! 
 
 Good heavens! Is it impossible to move this vast 
 inert mass called the world? Why, there are men who 
 can move it at their will — even by a touch of their little 
 finger — and the unappreciated with all their efforts 
 cannot make the slightest imjiression. This, from 
 time to time, makes them go mad ! and at such periods 
 they are unpleasant persons to meet. They growl at 
 their clubs, they quarrel with their blood relations — 
 they snarl at their wives, the}^ grumble at their servants ! 
 
 Daniel was having such a fit. 
 
 It lasted two whole days, and on the second Rebekah 
 
320 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 took upon herself to lead him aside and reprove him for 
 the sin of ingratitude — because it was very well known 
 to all that the nv:n would have gone to the Vv'orkhouse 
 but for Miss Kennedy's timely help. 
 
 She asked him sternly v>^hat he had done to merit that 
 daily bread which was given him without a murmur? 
 And what excuse he could make for his bad temper and 
 his rudeness toward the woman who had done so much 
 for him? 
 
 He had no excuse to make — because Rebekah would 
 not have understood the true one — v\'herefore she bade 
 him repent and reform, or he \vould hear more from 
 her. This threat frightened him, though it could not 
 remove his irritation and depression ; but, on the third 
 day, sunshine and good cheer and hope, new hope and 
 enthusiasm, returned to him. For Miss Kennedy 
 announced to him with many smiles that a publisher had 
 accepted his manuscript; and that it had already been 
 sent to the printers. 
 
 " He will publish it for you," she said, "at no cost to 
 yourself. He will give you as many copies as you 
 wish to have for presentation among your friends and 
 among your subscribers. You will like to send copies 
 to your subscribers, will you not?" 
 
 He rubbed his hands and laughed aloud. 
 
 " That," he said, " will prove that I did not eat up the 
 subscriptions." 
 
 "Of course," — Angela smiled, but did not contradict 
 the proposition — " of course, Mr. Fagg. And if ever 
 there was any doubt in your own mind about that 
 money it is now removed, because the book will be in 
 their hands; and all they wanted was the book." 
 
 "Yes, 3'es; and no one will be able to say — you 
 know what. Will they?" 
 
 " No, no; you will have proofs sent you." 
 
 "Proofs," he murmured, "proofs in print! — will they 
 send me proofs soon?" 
 
 " I believe you will have the whole book set up in a 
 few weeks." 
 
 " Oh, the whole book ! My book set up in print?" 
 
 "Yes. And if I were you, I would send an an- 
 nouncement of the work b}^ the next mail to your Aus- 
 tralian friends. Say that your discovery has at length 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 321 
 
 assumed its final shape, and is now ripe for publication, 
 alter being laid before all the learned societies of Lon- 
 don ; and that it has been accejjted by Messrs. , the 
 
 well-known publishers, and will be issued almost as 
 soon as this announcement reaches Melbourne. Here 
 is a slip that I have prepared for j^ou." 
 
 He took it with glittering, eyes and stammering voice. 
 The news seemed too good to be true. 
 
 " Now, Mr. Fagg, that this has been settled, there is 
 another thing which 1 should like to propose for your 
 consideration. Did jou ever hear of that great Roman 
 who saved his country in a time of peril, and then went 
 back to the plough?" 
 
 Daniel shook his head. 
 
 " Is there any Hebrew inscription about him?" he 
 asked. 
 
 " Not that I know of. What I mean is this : When 
 your volume is sent, Mr. Fagg — when you have sent it 
 triumphantly to all the learned societies and all your 
 subscribers, and all the papers and everywhere (includ- 
 ing 3'our Australian friends), because the publisher will 
 let you have as many copies as you please — would it not 
 be a graceful thing, and a thing for future historians 
 to remember, that you left England at the moment of 
 your greatest fame, and went back to Australia to take 
 up — your old occupation? " 
 
 Daniel never had considered the thing is this light, 
 and showed no enthusiasm at the proposal. 
 
 '■ When your friends in Victoria prophesied fortune 
 and tame, Mr. Fagg, they spoke out of their hopes and 
 their pride in you. Of course, I do not know much 
 about these things. How should I? Yet I am quite 
 certain that it takes a long time for a learned discovery 
 to make its way. There are jealousies — j-ou have ex- 
 perienced them — and unwillingness to admit new things. 
 You have met with that, too ; and reluctance to unlearn 
 old things. Whv, j^ou have met with that as well." 
 
 "I have," he said, "I have." 
 
 " As for granting a pension to a scholar — or a title, 
 or anj'thing of that sort — it is really never done. So 
 that you would have to make your own living if you 
 remained here." 
 21 
 
322 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF 3IEN. 
 
 " I thought that when the book was published people 
 would buy it." 
 
 Angela shook her head. 
 
 " Oh, no ! That is not the kind of book which is 
 bought — very few people know anything about inscrip- 
 tions. Those who do will go to the British Museum 
 and read it there — one copy will do for all." 
 
 Daniel looked perplexed. 
 
 ''You do not go back empty-handed," she said. 
 " You will have a fine stor}^ to tell of how the great 
 scholars laughed at 3-our discovery, and how you got 
 about and told people, and they subscribed, and jowt 
 book was published, and how you sent it to all of them 
 — to show the mistake they had made — and how the 
 English people have got the book now, to confound the 
 scholars ; and how your mission is accomplished, and 
 you are at home again — to live and die among your 
 own people. It will be a glorious return, Mr. Fagg. I 
 envy you the landing at Melbourne — your book under 
 your arm. You will go back to 3'our old township — ■ 
 you will give a lecture in the schoolroom on your stay 
 in England, and your reception. And then you will 
 take your old place again and follow your old calling, 
 exactly the same as if you had never left it, but for the 
 honor and reverence which people will pay you !" 
 
 Daniel cooed like a dove. 
 
 " It may be," the siren went on, " that people will pay 
 pilgrimages to see you in your old age. They will come 
 to see the man who discovered the Primitive Alphabet 
 and the Universal Language. They will say: 'This 
 in Daniel Fagg — the great Daniel Fagg, whose unaided 
 intellect overset and brought to confusion all the schol- 
 ars, and showed their learning was but vain pretence; 
 w^ho proved the truth of the Scriptures by his reading 
 of tablets and inscriptions ; and who returned when he 
 had finished his task, wirh the modesty of a great mind, 
 to his simple calling. '" 
 
 "I will go," said Daniel, banging the table with his 
 fist; " I will go as soon as the book is ready," 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 333 
 
 CHAPTER XXXV. 
 
 THEN we'll keep COMPANY. 
 
 After the celebrated debate on the abolition of the 
 Lords, Dick Coppin found that he took for the moment 
 a greatly diminished interest in burning political ques- 
 tions. He lost, in fact, confidence in himself, and went 
 about with hanging head. The Sunday evening meet- 
 ings were held as usual, but the fiery voice of Dick the 
 Radical was silent, and people wondered. This was 
 the effect of his cousin's address upon him. As for the 
 people, it had made them laugh, just as Dick's had 
 made them angry. They came to the Hall to get these 
 little emotions, and not for any jjersonal or critical in- 
 terest in the matter discussed ; and this was about all 
 the effect produced by them. 
 
 One evening the old Chartist who had taken the 
 chair met Dick at the club. 
 
 "Come out," he said, "come out and have a crack 
 while the boys wrangle." 
 
 They walked from Redman's Lane, where the club 
 stands, to the quiet side pavement of Stepney Green, 
 deserted now because the respectable peoj^le were all in 
 church, and it was too cold for the lounging of the 
 more numerous class of those who cannot call them- 
 selves respectable. The ex-Chartist belonged, like Dan- 
 iel Fagg, to the shoemaking trade in its humbler lines. 
 The connection between leather and Socialism, Chart- 
 ism, Radicalism, Atheism, and other things detrimen- 
 tal to old institutions, has frequentl}' been pointed out, 
 and need not be repeated. It is a reflecting trade, and 
 the results of meditation are mainly influenced by the 
 amount of knowledge the meditation brings with it. 
 In this respect the Chartist of thirty years ago had a 
 great advantage over his successors of the present day, 
 for he had read. He knew the works of Owen, of Hol- 
 yoke, and of Cobbett. He understood something of 
 what he wanted, and why he wanted it. The proof of 
 which is that they have got all they wanted, and we 
 still survive. 
 
324 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 When next the people make up their minds that they 
 want another set of things they will probably get them, 
 too. 
 
 "Let us talk," he said. "I've been thinking a bit 
 about that chap's speech the other night — I wanted an 
 answer to it." 
 
 " Have you got one?" 
 
 " It's all true what he said — first of all, it's true. 
 The pinch is just the same. Whether the Liberals are 
 in or the Tories, Government don't help us. Why 
 should we help them?" 
 
 " Is that all your answer?" 
 
 " Wait a bit, lad — don't hurry a man. The chap 
 was right. We ought to co-operate and get all he said, 
 and a deal more; and once we do begin, mind you, 
 there'll be astonishment — because you see, Dick, my 
 lad, there's work before us. But we must be educated; 
 we must all be got to see what we can do if we 
 like. That chap's clever noAV, though he looks like a 
 swell." 
 
 "' He's got plenty in him. But he'll never be one of 
 us." 
 
 " If we can use him, what matter whether he is one 
 of us or not? Come to that — who is 'us'? You don't 
 pretend before me that you call yourself one of the com- 
 mon workmen, do you? That does for the club; but, 
 between ourselves, whj", man ! you and me, we're lead- 
 ers. We've got to think for 'em. What I think is — 
 make that chap draw up a plan, if he can, for getting 
 the people to work together — for we've got all the power 
 at last, Dick. We've got all the power. Don't forget 
 when we old 'uns are dead and gone, who done it for 
 you." 
 
 He was silent for a moment. Then he went on : 
 
 "We've got what we wanted — that's true; and we 
 seem to be no better off — that's true, too. But we are 
 better off, because we feel that every man has his share 
 in the rule of the nation. That's a grand thing. We 
 are not kept out of our vote — we don't see, as Ave used 
 to see, our money spent for us without having a saj^. 
 That's a very grand thing, which he doesn't understand, 
 nor you neither, because you are too young. Every- 
 thing we get, which makes us feel our power more, is 
 
ALL SORTS AXD COXDITTOXS OF MEX. 325 
 
 good for us. The chap was right ; but he was wrong 
 as well. Don't give up politics, lad." 
 
 " What's tiie good if nothing comes?" 
 
 " There's a chance now for the working-man, such as 
 he has never had before in history. You are the lad 
 to take that chance. I've watched you, Dick, since 
 5'ou first began to come to the club — there's life in you. 
 Lord ! I watch the young fellows one after the other. 
 The}" stamp and froth, but it comes to nothing. You're 
 different — you want to be something better than a bel- 
 lows ; though your speech the other night came pretty 
 nigh to the bellows kind." 
 
 " Well, what is the chance?" 
 
 " The House, Dick. The working-men will send you 
 there, if j'ou can show them that you've got something 
 in you. It isn't froth they want — it's a practical man, 
 with knowledge. You go on reading, go on speaking, 
 go on debating. Keep it up. Get your name known ; 
 don't demean yourself. Get reported; and learn all 
 that there is to learn. Once in the House, Dick, if you 
 are not afraid " 
 
 "I shall not be afraid." 
 
 " Humph ! Well, we shall see. Well, there's your 
 chance. A working-man's candidate — one of ourselves. 
 That's a card for you to play; but not so ignorant as 
 3'our mates. Eh? Able (if 3'ou want) to use the swell's 
 sneerin' talk — so's to call a man a liar, without sa^'in' 
 the words. To make him feel like a fool and a whipped 
 cur, with just showing your white teeth ! Learn them 
 ways, Dick — they'll bo useful." 
 
 "But if," said the young man doubtfulh', "if I am 
 to keep on debating, what subjects shall we take up at 
 the club?" 
 
 " I should go in for practical subjects. Say that the 
 club is ready to vote for the alx^lition of the Lords and 
 the Church, and reform of the land laws when the time 
 comes. You haven't got the choice of subjects that we 
 had. Lord! what with rotten boroughs and the black 
 Book of Pensions, and j'ounger sons, and favoritism in 
 the service, why, our hands were full." 
 
 " What practical subjects?" 
 
 " Wh}-, them as your cousin talked about. There's 
 the wages of the girls — there's food and tish and drink. 
 
326 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 There's high rent — there's a world of subjects. You 
 go, and find out all about them. Give up the rest for a 
 spell, and make yourself master of all these questions. 
 If 5'ou do, Dick, I believe your fortune is made." 
 
 Dick looked doubtful — it seemed disheartening to be 
 sent back to the paltry matter of wages, prices, and so 
 on, when he was burning to lead in something great. 
 Yet the advice was sound. 
 
 "Sometimes I think, Dick," the old man went on, 
 " that the w^orking-man's best friend would be the swells, 
 if they could be got hold of. Thej^'ve got nothing to 
 make out of the artisan. They don't run factories, nor 
 keep shops. They don't care, bless 3'ou, how high his 
 wages are. Why should they? They've got their 
 farmers to pay the rent ; and their houses, and their 
 money in the funds. What does it matter to them? 
 They're well brought up, most of them — civil in their 
 manner, and disposed to be friendly if you're neither 
 standoffish nor familiar; but know yourself, and talk 
 accordin'." 
 
 " If the swells were to come to us, we ought to go to 
 them — remember that, Dick. Very soon there will be 
 no more questions of Tory and Liberal ; but only what 
 is the best thing for us. You play your game by the 
 newest rules. As for the old ones, they've seen their 
 day." 
 
 Dick left him; but he did not return to the club. 
 He communed beneath the stars, turning over these and 
 other matters in his mind. 
 
 " Yes, the old man was right. The old indignation 
 times Avere over. The long list of crimes which the 
 political agitator could bring against King, Church, 
 Lords, and Commons thirty, forty, fifty years ago, are 
 useless now. They only serve to amuse an audience not 
 too critical. 
 
 He was ashamed of what he had himself said about 
 the Lords. Such charges are like the oratory of an ex- 
 minister on the stump — finding no accusation too reck- 
 less to be hurled against his enemies. 
 
 He was profoundly ambitious. To some men, situ- 
 ated like himself, it might have been a legitimate and 
 sufficient ambition to recover by slow degrees and thrift, 
 and in some trading way, the place in the middle class 
 
ALL SOR'n'S AXD fOXDlTlOyiS OF MEN. 327 
 
 from which the Coppins had fallen. Not so to Dick 
 Coppin — he cared ver}' little about the former greatness 
 of the Coi^pins, and the position once occupied by Cop- 
 pin the builder (his father), before he went bankrupt. 
 He meant secretly something very much greater for 
 himself. He would be a member of Parliament — he 
 would be a working-man's member. There have al- 
 ready been half a dozen working-men's members in the 
 House. Their success has not hitherto been marked, 
 probably because none of them have shown that they 
 know what they want — if, indeed, they want anything. 
 Up to the last few days Dick simplj" desired in the ab- 
 stract to be one of them; only, of course, a red-hot 
 Radical — an Irreconcilable. 
 
 Now, however, he desired more. His cousin's words 
 and the Chartist's words fell on fruitful soil. He per- 
 ceived that to become a power in the House one must 
 be able to inform the House on the wants — the pro- 
 gramme of his constituents — what tliey desire, and 
 mean to have. Dick always mentally added that 
 clause, because it belongs to the class of speech in which 
 he had been brought up — "and we mean to have it." 
 You accompany the words with a flourish of the left 
 hand, which is found to be more effective than the right 
 for such purposes. They don't really mean to have it, 
 whatever it may be. But with their audiences it is 
 necessary to put on the appearance of strength before 
 there arises any confidence in strength. Disestablishers 
 of all kinds invariably mean to have it, and the phrase 
 is, perhaps, getting played out. 
 
 Dick went home to his lodgings and sat among his 
 books, thinking. He was a man who read. For the 
 sake of being independent, he became a teetotaler — so 
 that, getting good wages, he was rich. He would not 
 marry, because he did not want to be encumbered. He 
 bought such books as he thought would be useful to 
 him, and read them, but no others. He was a man of 
 energy and tenacity, whose chief fault was the entire 
 absence as yet of sympathy and imagination — if these 
 could be supplied in any way, Dick Coppin's course 
 would be assured. For with them would come play of 
 fancy, repartee, wit, illustration, and the graces as well 
 as the strength of oratory. 
 
328 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 He went on Monday evening to see Miss Kennedy. 
 He would find out from her, as a beginning, all that 
 she could tell him about the wages of women. 
 
 " But I have told 3"ou," she said, " I told you all the 
 first night jon came here — have you forgotten? Then, 
 I suppose, I must tell you again," 
 
 The first time he was only bored with the story, be- 
 cause he did not see how he could use it for his own 
 purposes — therefore he had forgotten the details. 
 
 She told him the sad story of woman's wrongs, which 
 go unredressed while their sisters clamor for female 
 suflPrage and make school boards intolerable by their 
 squabljles. The women do but copy the men ; therefore, 
 Avhile the men neglect the things that lie ready to their 
 hand and hope for things impossible, under new forms 
 of government, what wonder if the women do the 
 like? 
 
 This time Dick listened, because he now understood 
 that a practical use might be made out of the informa- 
 tion. He was not a man of highly sensitive organiza- 
 tion, nor did he feel any indignation at the things An- 
 gela told him, seeing that he had grown up among these 
 things all his life, and regarded the inequalities of 
 wages and work as part of the bad luck of being born 
 a woman. But he took note of all, and asked shrewd 
 questions and made suggestions. 
 
 *■" If," he said, " there's a hundred women asking for 
 ten places, of course the governor '11 give them to the 
 cheapest. " 
 
 " That, " replied Angela, " is a matter of course as 
 things now are. But there is another way of consider- 
 ing the question. If we had a Woman's Trade Union, 
 as v,'e shall have before long, where there are ten places 
 only ten women sliould be allowed to a]3ply, and just 
 wages be demanded." 
 
 ""How is that to be done?" 
 
 '' My friend, you have yet a great deal to learn." 
 
 Dick reddened and replied rudely, that if he had, he 
 did not expect to learn it from a woman. 
 
 "' A great deal to learn," she repeated gently. " Above 
 all, you have got to learn the lesson which your cousin 
 began to teach you the other night, the great lesson of 
 finding out what you want and then getting it for your- 
 
ALL SORTS AXD CONDITIONS OF MEN 321) 
 
 selves. Governments are nothing ; you must help your- 
 selves; you must combine." 
 
 He was silent. The girl made him angry, yet he 
 was afraid of her because no other woman he had ever 
 met spoke as she did or knew so much. 
 
 "Combine," she repeated. "Preach the doctrine of 
 combination ; and t^ach us the purposes for which we 
 ought to combine." 
 
 The advice was just what the cobbler had given. 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Coppin" — her voice was as winning as her 
 eyes were kind and full of interest — " 3'ou are clever ; 
 you are persevering; you are brave; you have so splen- 
 did a voice ; you have such a natural gift of oratory, 
 that you ought to become — you must become — one of 
 the leaders of the people." 
 
 Pride fell prone, like Dagon — before these words. 
 Dick succumbed to the gracious influence of a charm- 
 ing woman. 
 
 " Tell me," he said, reddening, because it is humiliat- 
 ing to seek help of a girl, " tell me what I am to do." 
 
 " You are ambitious, are you not?" 
 
 "Yes," he replied coldly, "I am ambitious. I don't 
 tell them outside," he jerked his thumb over his shoul- 
 der to indicate the Advanced Club, " but I mean to get 
 into the 'Ouse — I mean the House." One of his little 
 troubles was the correction of certain peculiarities of 
 speech common among his class. It was his cousin who 
 first directed his attention to this point. 
 
 " Yes : there is no reason wh}' you should not get into 
 the House," said Angela. "But it would be a thou- 
 sand pities if vou should get in j'et." 
 
 "Why should I wait, if they will elect me?" 
 
 " Because, Mr. Coppin, you must not try to lead the 
 people till you know whither j^ou would lead them : be- 
 cause you must not pretend to represent the people till 
 you have learned their condition and their wants ; be- 
 cause 5'ou must not presume to offer yourself till you 
 are prepared with a programme." 
 
 " Yet plenty of others do. " 
 
 "They do; but what else have they done?" 
 
 " Only tell me — then — tell me what to do. Am I to 
 read?" 
 
 " No ; you have read enough for the present. Rest 
 
3;J0 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 your eyes from books; open them to the world; see 
 things as they are. Look out of this window. What 
 do you see?" 
 
 "Nothing; a row of houses; a street; a road." 
 
 " I see, besides, that the houses are mean, dirty, and 
 void of beauty : but I see more. I see an organ player ; 
 on the curbstone the little girls are dancing; in the 
 road the ragged boys are playing. Look at the freedom 
 of the girls' limbs; look at the careless grace of the 
 children. Do you know how clever they are? Some 
 of them, who sleep where they can and live as they can, 
 can pick pockets at three, go shop-lifting at four, plot 
 and make conspiracies at five; see how they run and 
 jump and cHmb. " 
 
 " I see them. They are everywhere. How can we 
 help that?" 
 
 " You would leave these poor children to the Govern- 
 ment and the police. Yet I think a better way to re- 
 deem these little ones is for the working-men to resolve 
 together that they shall be taken care of, taught, and 
 apprenticed. Spelling, v/hich your cousin says consti- 
 tutes most of the School Board education, does not so 
 much matter. Take them off the streets and train them 
 to a trade. Do you ever walk about the streets at night? 
 Be your own police and make your streets clean. Do 
 you ever go into the courts and places where the dock 
 laborers sleep? Have a committee for every one such 
 street or court, and make them decent. When a gang 
 of roughs make the pavement intolerable, you decent 
 men step off and leave them to the policeman, if he 
 dares interfere. Put down the roughs yourselves with 
 a strong hand. Clear out the thieves' dens, and the 
 drinking shops ; make roughs and vagabonds go else- 
 where, lam always about among the people ; they are 
 full of sufferings which need not be ; there are a great 
 many workers — ladies, priests, clergymen — among them 
 trying to remove some of the suffering. But why do 
 you not do this for j^ourselves? Be your own almoners. 
 I find everywhere, too, courage and honesty, and a de- 
 sire for better things. Show them how their lot may 
 be alleviated." 
 
 "But I don't know how," he replied, humbly. 
 
 "You must find out, if you would be their leader. 
 
ALL SORTS AyD C'OXDITIONS OF MEN. 331 
 
 And you must have sympatli}-. Never was there yet a 
 leader of the people who did not feel with them as they 
 feej." 
 
 This saying was too hard for the young man, who 
 had, he knew, felt hitherto only for himself. 
 
 " You say what Harry sa3^s. I sometimes think " 
 
 he stopped short, as if an idea had suddenly occurred to 
 him. "Look here, is it true that you and Harry are 
 keeping company?" 
 
 " No, we are not," Angela replied with a blush. 
 
 " Oh ! I thought you were. Is it off, then?" 
 
 " It never was — more — on — than it is at present, Mr. 
 Coppin." 
 
 " Oh !" he looked doubtful. " Well," he said, " I sup- 
 pose there is no reason why a girl should tell a lie about 
 such a simple thing." He certainly was a remarkably 
 rude voung man. " Either you are, or you ain't. 
 That's it, isn't it? And you ain't?" 
 
 "We are not," said Angela, with a little blush, for 
 the facts of the case were, from one point of view, 
 against her. 
 
 " Then if you are not — I dou't care — though it's 
 against my rules, and I did say I would never be both- 
 ered with a woman. . . . Look here — you and me 
 will." 
 
 " Will what?" 
 
 "Will keep company," he replied firmly. "Oh! I 
 know it's a great chance for you — but tlien, you see, 
 you ain't like the rest of 'em, and you know things, 
 somehow, that may be usef id — thougli how you learned 
 'em, nor where you came from, nor what's j^our char- 
 acter — there — I don't care, we'll keep company!" 
 
 "Oh!" 
 
 "Yes; we'll begin next Sunday. You'll be useful to 
 me, so that the bargain is not all one side." It was 
 not till afterward that Angela felt the full force of this 
 remark. " As for getting married, there's no hurr}- ; 
 we'll talk about that when I'm member. Of course it 
 would be silly to get married now." 
 
 " Of course, " said Angela. 
 
 " Let's get well up the tree first. Lord help you ! 
 how could I climb, to say nothing o' you, with a round 
 half-dozen o' babies at my heels?" 
 
333 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 " But, Mr. Coppin," she said, putting aside these pos- 
 sibilities, " I am sorry to say that I cannot possibly keep 
 company with jou. There is a reason — I cannot tell 
 you what it is — but you must put that out of your 
 thoughts." 
 
 " Oh!" his face fell, " if you won't, you won't. Most 
 girls jump at a man who's in good wages and a tem- 
 perance man, and sought after, like me. But — there — 
 if you won't, there's an end. I'm not going to waste 
 my time cryin' after any girl." 
 
 "We will remain friends, Mr. Coppin?" She held out 
 her hand. 
 
 " Friends? what's that? We might ha' been pals — I 
 mean partners." 
 
 " But I can tell you all I think ; I can advise you in 
 my poor way still, whenever you please to ask my ad- 
 vice, even if I do not share your greatness. And be- 
 lieve me, Mr. Coppin, that I most earnestly desire to 
 see you not only in the House, but a real leader of the 
 people, such a leader as the world has never yet beheld. 
 To begin with, you will be a man of the very people. " 
 
 " Ay !" he said, " one of themselves !" 
 
 " A man not to be led out of his way by flatterers." 
 
 "No," he said with a superior smile, "no one, man 
 or woman, can flatter me." 
 
 " A man who knows the restless unsatisfied yearnings 
 of the people, and what they mean, and has found out 
 how they may be satisfied." 
 
 "Ye — yes!" he replied, doubtfully, "certainly." 
 
 " A man who will lead the people to get wha^* is good 
 for themselves and by themselves, without the help of 
 Government." 
 
 And no thunders in the Commons? No ringing de- 
 nunciation of the Hereditary House? Nothing at all 
 that he had looked to do and to say? Call this a leader- 
 ship? But he thought of the Chartist and his new 
 methods. By different roads, said Montaigne, we ar- 
 rive at the same end. 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 333 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 
 WHAT WILL BE THE END? 
 
 The end of the year drew near — the end of that last 
 year of '81, which, whatever its shortcomings, its burn- 
 ing heat of July and its wretched rain of August, went 
 out in sweet and gracious sunshine, and a December 
 like unto the April of a poet. 
 
 For six months Angela had been living among her 
 girls. The place was become homelike to her. The 
 workwomen were now her friends — her trusted friends. 
 The voice of calumny about her antecedents was silent, 
 unless it was the voice of Bunker. The Palace of De- 
 light (whose meaning was as yet unknown and unsus- 
 pected, was rising rapidly, and indeed was nearly com- 
 plete — a shell which had to be filled with things beauti- 
 ful and delightful, of which Angela did not trust her- 
 self to speak. She had a great deal to think of in those 
 last days of the year '81. The dressmaking was noth- 
 ing — that went on. There was some local custom, and 
 more Avas promised. It seemed as if (on the soundest 
 principles of economy) it would actually pa\\ There 
 was a verj^ large acquaintance made at odd times among 
 the small streets and mean houses of Stepney. It was 
 necessary to visit these people and to talk with them. 
 
 Angela had nothing to do with the ordinary channels 
 of charity. She would help neither curate nor Sister of 
 Mercy, nor Bible-woman. Why, she said, do not the 
 people stand shoulder to shoulder and help themselves? 
 To be sure, she had the great advantage over profes- 
 sional visitors that she was herself only a work-woman, 
 and was not paid for any services; and, as if there was 
 not alread}' enough to make her anxious, there was that 
 lover of hers. 
 
 Were she and Harry keeping company? Dick Cop- 
 pin asked this question; and Angela (not altogether 
 truthfullj-) said that they were not. What else were 
 they doing, indeed? No word of love now. Had he 
 not promised to abstain? Yet she knew his past — she 
 knew what he had given up for her sake, believing her 
 
334 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 only a poor dressmaker; all for love of her, and she 
 could not choose but let her heart go forth to so loyal 
 and true a lover. Many ladies, in many tales of chiv- 
 alry, have demanded strange services from their lovers : 
 none so strange as that asked by Angela when she 
 ordered her lover not only to pretend to be a cabinet- 
 maker, and a joiner, but to work at his trade and to 
 live by it. Partly in self-reproach — partly in admira- 
 tion — she watched him going and coming to and from 
 the Brewer}^ where he now earned (thanks to Lord 
 Jocelyn's intervention) the sum of a whole shilling an 
 hour. For there was nothing in his bearing or his talk 
 to show that he repented his decision. He was always 
 cheerful, always of good courage — more, he was always 
 in attendance on her. It was he who thought for 
 her ; invented plans to make her evenings attractive ; 
 brought raw lads (recruits in the army of culture) from 
 the Advanced Club and elsewhere, and set them an 
 example of good manners ; and was her prime minister, 
 her aide-de-camp, her chief vizier. 
 
 And the end of it all — nay, the thing itself being so 
 pleasant, why hasten the end? And, if there was to 
 be an end, could it not be connected with the opening of 
 the Palace? Yes. When the Palace was ready to open 
 its gates then would Angela open her arms. 
 
 For the moment it was the sweet twilight of love — the 
 half-hour before the dawn. The sweet uncertainty, 
 when all was certainty. And, as yet, the palace was 
 only just receiving its roof. The fittings and decora- 
 tions, the organ and the statues, and all, had still to be 
 put in. When everything was read}", tlien — then — 
 Angela would somehow, perhaps, find words to bid her 
 lover be happy, if she could make him happ3^ 
 
 There could be but one end. 
 
 Angela came to Whitechapel incognito — a princess 
 disguised as a milkmaid ; partly out of curiosity, partly 
 to try her little experiment for the good of work-girls, 
 with the gayety and light heart of youth — thinking that 
 before long she would return to her old place, just as 
 she had left it. But she could not. Her old views of 
 life were changed, and a man had changed them. More 
 than that — a man whose society, whose strength, whose 
 counsel had become necessarv to her. 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 335 
 
 "Who," she asked herself, "would have thought of 
 the Palace except hiniV Could I, could any woman? 
 I could have given away money — that is all. I could 
 have been robbed and cheated; but such an idea — so 
 grand, so simple; it is a man's, not a woman's. When 
 the Palace is completed; when all is ready for the open- 
 ing, then " And the air became musical with the 
 
 clang and clash of wedding bells — up the scale, down 
 tlie scale; in thirds, in fifths; with triple bob-majors 
 and the shouts of the people, and the triumphant strains 
 of a wedding march. 
 
 How could there be any end but one? — seeing that 
 not only did this young man present himself nearly ev- 
 ery evening at the drawing-room, when he was recog- 
 nized as the director of ceremonies or the leader of the 
 cotillon or deviser of sports, from an acting proverb 
 to a madrigal ; but that later the custom was firmly es- 
 tablished that he and Angela should spend their Sun- 
 days together. When it rained, they went to church 
 together, and had readings in the drawing-room in the 
 afternoon, with, perhaps, a little concert in the even- 
 ing, of sacred music, to which some of the girls would 
 come. If the day was sunny and bright, there were 
 many places where they might go — for the East is 
 richer than the West in pretty and accessible country 
 places. They would take the tram along the Mile End 
 Road, past the delightful old church of Bow, to Star- 
 ing Stratford, with its fine town-hall and its round 
 dozen of churches and chapels ; a town of 50, 000 people, 
 and quite a genteel place, whose residents preserve the 
 primitive custom of fetching the dinner-beer them- 
 selves from its native public-houses on Sunday, after 
 church. At Stratford there are a good many ways open 
 if you are a good walker, as Angela was. 
 
 You may take the Romford road, and jiresently turn 
 to the left and find yourself in a grand old forest (only 
 there is not much of it left) called Hainault Forest. 
 When you have crossed the Forest you get to Chigwell ; 
 and then, if you are wise, you will take another six 
 miles (as Angela and Harr}^ generalh' did) and get to 
 Epping, where the toothsome steak may be found, or 
 haply the simple cold beef — not to be despised after a 
 fifteen miles' walk — and so home by tram. Or you 
 
836 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 may take the Northern road at Stratford, and walk 
 through Lej^tonstone and Woodford; and, leaving Ep- 
 ping Forest on the right, walk along the bank of the 
 River Lea till 3'ou come to Waltham Abbey, where 
 there is a church to be seen, and a cross and other mar- 
 vels. Or you may go still further afield and take train 
 all the way to Ware, and walk through country roads 
 and pleasant lanes, if you have a map, to stately Hat- 
 field, and on to St. Albans ; but do not try to dine there, 
 even if you are only one-and-twenty, and a girl. 
 
 All these walks and many more were taken by An- 
 gela with her companion on that blessed day, which 
 should be spent for good of body as well as soul. They 
 are walks which are beautiful in the winter as well as 
 in the summer — though the trees are leafless, there is 
 an underwood faintly colored with its winter tint of 
 purple; and there are stretches of springy turf and 
 bushes hung with catkins; and, above all, there was 
 nobody in the Forest or on the roads except Angela and 
 Harry. Sometimes night fell on them when they were 
 three or four miles from Epi^ing. Then, as they walked 
 in the twilight, the trees on either hand silently glided 
 past them like ghosts, and the mist rose and made 
 things look shadowy and large; and the sense of an 
 endless pilgrimage fell upon them — as if they would al- 
 ways go on like this, side by side. Then their hearts 
 would glow within them, and they would talk; and the 
 girl would think it no shame to reveal the secret thoughts 
 of her heart, although the man with her was not her 
 accepted lover. 
 
 As for her reputation, where was it? Not gone, in- 
 deed, because no one among her old friends knew of 
 these walks and this companionship, but in grievous 
 peril. 
 
 Or, when the day was cloudy, there was the city. T 
 declare there is no place which contains more delightful 
 walks for a cloudy Sunday forenoon, when the clang of 
 the bells has finished, and the scanty worshippers are in 
 their places, and the sleepy sextons have shut the doors, 
 than the streets and lanes of the old city. 
 
 You must go as Harry did, provided with something 
 of ancient lore, otherwise the most beautiful places will 
 quite certainh^ be thrown awaj^ and lost for you. Take 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 337 
 
 that riverside walk from Billingsgate to Blackfriars. 
 \Vliy, here were the quays, the ports, the whole com- 
 merce of the city in the good old daj's. Here was Cold 
 Herbergh, that great many-gabled house, where Harr}', 
 Prince of Wales, " carried on" with Falstaff and his 
 merry crew. Here was Queen Hithe — here Dowgate 
 with Walbrook. Here Baynard's Castle, and close by 
 the Tower of Montfichet ; also, a little to the north, a 
 thousand places dear to the antiquarian — even though 
 they have pulled down so much. There is Tower 
 Ro3'al, where Richard the Second lodged his mother. 
 There is the Church of Whittington, close by the place 
 where his college stood. There are the precincts of 
 Paul's, and the famous street of Chepe. Do people 
 ever think what things have been done in Chepe? 
 There is Austin Friars, with its grand old church now 
 given to the Dutch, and its quiet city square, where 
 only a few j'ears ago lived Lettice Langton (of whom 
 some of us have heard). There is Tower Hill, on which 
 was the residence of Alderman Medlycott, guardian of 
 Nelly Carellis; and west of Paul's there is the place 
 where )nce stood the house of Dr. Gregory Shovel, who 
 received the orphan Kitty Pleydell. But, indeed, there 
 is no end to the histories and associations of the city ; 
 and a man may give his life profitably to the mastery 
 and myster}" of its winding streets. 
 
 Here they would wander in the quiet Sunda}' fore- 
 noon, while their footsteps echoed in the deserted street, 
 and they would walk fearless in the middle of the road, 
 while they talked of the great town, and its million 
 dwellers, who come like the birds in the morning, and 
 vanish like the birds in the evening. 
 
 Or they would cross the river and wander up and 
 down the quaint old town of Rotherhithe, or visit South- 
 wark, the town of hops and malt, and all kinds of 
 strange things; or Deptford, the deserted, or even 
 Greenwich; and if it was rainy they would go to 
 church. There are a great manj^ places of worship 
 about Whitechapel, and man}^ forms of creed, from the 
 Baptist to the man with the biretta; and it would be 
 dfficult to select one which is more confident than an- 
 other of possessing the real Philosopher's Stone — the 
 thing for which we are always searching, the whole 
 
338 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 truth. And everywhere church and chapel filled with 
 the well-to-do and the respectable, and a sprinkling of 
 the very poor ; but of the working-men — none. 
 
 "Why have they all given up religion?" asked An- 
 gela. " Why should the work-men all over the world 
 feel no need of religion — if it were only the religious 
 emotion?" 
 
 Harry, who had answers ready for many questions, 
 could find none for this. He asked his cousin Dick, 
 but he could not tell. Personally, he said, he had some- 
 thing els3 to do; but if the women wanted to go to 
 church they might. And so long as the parsons and 
 priests did not meddle with him, he should not meddle 
 with them. 
 
 But these statements hardly seemed an answer to 
 the question. Perhaps in Berlin or in Paris they could 
 explain more clearly how this strange thing has come 
 to pass. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVn. 
 
 TRUTH WITH FAITHFULNESS, 
 
 To possess pure truth — and to know it — is a thing 
 which affects people in two ways, both of them uncom- 
 fortable to their fellow-creatures. It impels some to 
 go pointing out the purity of truth to the world at 
 large, insisting upon it, dragging unwilling people 
 along the road which leads to it, and dwelling upon the 
 dangers which attend the neglect of so great a chance. 
 Others it affects wdth a calm and comfortable sense of 
 superiority. The latter was Rebekah's state of mind. 
 To be a Seventh Day Independent was only one degree 
 removed from belonging to the Chosen People, to begin 
 with : and that there is but one chapel in all England 
 where the truth reposes for a space as the Ark of the 
 Covenant reposed in Shiloh, "in curtains," is, if you 
 please, a thing to be proud of! It brings with it eleva- 
 tion of soul. 
 
 There is at present, whatever there may once have 
 been, no proselytizing zeal about the Seventh Day Inde- 
 pendents; they are, in fact, a torpid bod}-; they are 
 
ALL SORTS AXD CONDITIOXS OF MEN. 3:59 
 
 contented with the conviction — a very comforting one, 
 and possessed by other creeds besides their own — that, 
 sooner or later, the whole world will embrace their 
 faith. Perhaps the Jews look forward to a day when, 
 in addition to the Restoration, which they profess to 
 desire, all mankind will become proselytes in the court 
 of the Gentiles : it is something little short of this thiit 
 the congregation of Seventh Day Independents expect 
 in the dim future. What a splendid, what a magnifi- 
 cent field for glory — call it not vain-glory ! — does this 
 conviction present to the humble believer ! There are, 
 again, so very few of them, that each one may feel 
 himself a visible pillar of the Catholic Church, bearing 
 on his shoulders a perceptible and measurable quantity 
 of weight. Each is an Atlas. It is, moreover, i3leas- 
 ing to read the Holy Scriptures, especially the books of 
 the Prophets, as written especially for a Connection 
 which numbers just one chapel in Great Britain and 
 seven in the United States. How grand is the name of 
 Catholic applied to just one church ! Catholicity is as 
 yet all to come, and exists only as a germ or seedling ! 
 The early Christians may have experienced the same 
 delight. 
 
 Rebekah, best and most careful of shopwomen and 
 accountants, showed her religious superiority more by 
 the silence of contempt than by zeal for conversion. 
 When Captain Tom Coppin, for instance, was preach- 
 ing to the girls, she went on with her figures, casting 
 up, ruling in red ink, carrying forward in methodical 
 fashion, as if his words could not possibly have any 
 concern with her; and when a church bell rang, or any 
 words were spoken about other forms of worship, she 
 became suddenly deaf and blind and cold. But she en- 
 treated Angela to attend their services. "We want 
 everybody to come, " she said ; '" we only ask for a single 
 hearing; come and hear my father preach." 
 
 She believed in the faith of the Seventh Day. As for 
 her father — when a man is paid to advocate the cause 
 of an eccentric or a ridiculous form of belief; when he 
 has to plead that cause week b}- week to the same slen- 
 der following, to pro}i up the limp, and to keep together 
 l)is small l)ody of believers: when he has to maintain a 
 show of hopefulness, to strengthen the wavering, to 
 
340 ALL SORTS AND COXDITIOXS OF JIEX. 
 
 confirm the strong, to encourage his sheep in confi- 
 dence ; when he gets too old for anything else, and his 
 daily bread depends upon this creed and no other — who 
 shall say what, after a wdiile, that man believes or does 
 not believe? Red-hot Avords fall from his lips, but they 
 fall equally red-hot each week ; his arguments are con- 
 clusive, but they were equally conclusive last week; his 
 logic is irresistible; his encouragement is warm and 
 glowing; but logic and encouragement alike are those 
 of last week and many weeks ago. Surelj", surely there 
 is no worse fate possible for any man than to preach, 
 week by week, any form whatever of dogmatic belief, 
 and to live by it ; surely, nothing can be more deadly 
 than to simulate zeal, to suppress doubt, to pretend cer- 
 tainty. But this is dangerous ground, because others 
 besides Seventh Da)" Independents may feel that they 
 are upon it, and that beneath them ane quagmires. 
 
 "Come," said Rebekah. "We want nothing but a 
 fair hearing." 
 
 Their chapel was endowed, which doubtless helped 
 the flock to keep together. It had a hundred and ten 
 pounds a year belonging to it, and a little house for the 
 minister, and there were scanty pew rents, which al- 
 most paid for the maintenance of the fabric and the old 
 woman who cleaned the windows and dusted the pews. 
 If the Reverend Percival Hermitage gave up that 
 chapel he would have no means of subsistence at all. 
 Let us not impute motives. No doubt he firmly be- 
 lieved what he taught; but his words, like his creed, 
 were stereotyped ; they had long ceased to be persuasive ; 
 they now served onl}- to preserve. 
 
 If Angela had accepted that invitation for any given 
 day there would have been, she knew very well, a ser- 
 mon for the occasion, conceived, written, and argued 
 out expressly for herself. And this she did not want. 
 Therefore, she said nothing at all of her intentions, but 
 chose one Saturday when there was little doing and she 
 could spare a forenoon for her visit. 
 
 The chapel of the Seventh Day Independents stands 
 at Redman's Lane, close to the Advanced Club House. 
 It is a structure extremely plain and modest in design. 
 It was built by an architect who entertained humble 
 views — perhaps he was a Churchman — concerning the 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 841 
 
 possible extension of the Connection, because the whole 
 chapel if quite filled would not hold more than two hun- 
 dred people. The front, or fagade, is tlat, consisting of 
 a surface of gray brick wall, with a door in the middle 
 and two circular windows, one on each sMe. Over the 
 door there are two dates — one of erection, the other of 
 restoration. The chapel within is a well-proportioned 
 room, with a neat gallerj" running round three sides, 
 resting on low pillars, and painted a warm and cheerful 
 drab ; the pews are painted of the same color. At the 
 back are two windows with semi-circular arches, and 
 between the windows stands a small railed platform 
 with a reading-desk upon it for the minister. Beside 
 it are high seats with cushions for elders, or other min- 
 isters if there should be any. But these seats have 
 never been occupied in the memory of man. The pews 
 are ranged in front of the jilatform, and they are of the 
 old and high-backed kind. It is a wonderful — a truly 
 wonderful — thing that clergymen, priests, ministers, 
 padres, rabbis, and church architects, with church- 
 wardens, sidesmen, vergers, bishops, and chapel-keep- 
 ers of all persuasions, are agreed, whatever their other 
 differences, in the unalterable conviction that it is im- 
 possible to be religious, that is, to attend services in a 
 proper frame of mind, unless one is uncomfortable. 
 Therefore we are offered a choice. We ma}^ sit in 
 high-backed, narrow-seated pews, or we ma}'' sit on low- 
 backed, narrow-seated benches : but sit in comfort we 
 may not. The Seventh Day people have got the high- 
 backed pew (which catches you on the shoulder-blade 
 and tries the backbone, and affects the brain, causing 
 softening in the long run) and the narrow seat (which 
 drags the muscles and brings on premature paralysis of 
 the lower limbs). The equally narrow, low-backed 
 bench produces injurious effects of a different kind, but 
 similarlj' pernicious. How would it be to furnish one 
 aisle, at least, of a church with broad, low, and com- 
 fortable chairs having arms? The}' should be reserved 
 for the poor who have so few easy-chairs of their own. 
 Rightly managed and properly advertised, they might 
 help toward a revival of religion among the working 
 classes. 
 
 Above the reading platform in the little chapel they 
 
343 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 have caused to be painted on the wall the Ten Com- 
 mandments — the fourth emphasized in red — with a text 
 or two, bearing on their distinctive doctrine; and in 
 the corner is a little door leading to a little vestry ; but, 
 as there are no vestments, its use is not apparent. 
 
 As for the position taken by these people it is per- 
 fectly logical, and, in fact, impregnable. There is no 
 answer to it. They say, " Here is the Fourth Com- 
 mandment. All the rest you continue to observe. 
 Why not this? When was it repealed ? And by 
 whom?" If you put these questions to Bishop or Pres- 
 byter, he has no reply. Because that law has never 
 been repealed. Yet as the people of the Connection 
 complain, though they have reason and logic on their 
 side, the outside world will not listen, and go on break- 
 ing the commandment with a light and unthinking 
 heart. It is a dreadful responsibilit37- — albeit a grand 
 thing — to be in possession of so simple a truth of such 
 vast importance ; and yet to get nobody ever to listen. 
 The case is worse even than that of Daniel Fagg. 
 
 Angela noted all these things as she entered the little 
 chapel a short time after the service had commenced. 
 It was bewildering to step out of the noisy streets, 
 where the current of Saturday morning was at flood, 
 into this quiet room with its strange service and its 
 strange flock of Nonconformists. The thing, at first, 
 felt like a dream : the people seemed like the ghosts of 
 an unquiet mind. 
 
 There were very few worshippers ; she counted them 
 all : four elderly men, two elderly women, three young 
 men, two girls, one of whom was Rebekah, and five 
 boys. Sixteen in all. And standing on the platform 
 was their leader. 
 
 Rebekah's father, the Rev. Percival Hermitage, was 
 a shepherd who from choice led his flock gently, along 
 peaceful meadows and in shady, quiet places ; he had 
 no prophetic fire; he had evidently long since acqui- 
 esced in a certain fact that under him, at least, what- 
 ever it might do under others, the Connection would 
 not greatly increase. Perhaps he did not himself de- 
 sire an increase, which would give him more work. 
 Perhaps he never had much enthusiasm. By the sim- 
 ple accident of birth he was a Seventh Day Christian ; 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 843 
 
 being of a bookish and unambitious turn, and of an in- 
 dolent habit of bod}^, mentally and physically unfitted 
 for the life of a shop, he entered the ministry ; in course 
 of time he got this chapel, where he remained, tolerably 
 satisfied with his lot in life, a simple, self-educated, 
 mildly pious person, equipped with the phrases of his 
 craft, and comforted with tiie consciousness of superior- 
 ity and separation. He looked up from his book in 
 gentle surprise when Angela entered the chapel. It 
 was seldom that a stranger was seen there — once, not 
 long ago, there was a boy who had put his head in at 
 the door and shouted " Hoo !" and ran away again; 
 once there was a drunken sailor who thought it was a 
 public-house, and sat dov/n and began to sing and 
 wouldn't go, and had to be shoved out by the united 
 efforts of the whole small congregation. When he was 
 gone they sang an extra hymn to restore a religious 
 calm — but never a young lad}' before. Angela took her 
 seat amid the wondering looks of the people, and the 
 minister went on in a perfunctory way with his prayers 
 and his hymns and his exposition. There certainly did 
 seem to an outsider a want of heart about the service, but 
 that might have been due to the emptiness of the pews. 
 When it came to the sermon, Angela thought the 
 preacher spoke and looked as if the limit of endurance 
 had at last almost arrived, and he would not much longer 
 endure the inexpressible dreariness of the conventicle. 
 It was not so ; he was always mildly sad ; he seemed 
 alwaj's a little bored ; it was no use pretending to be 
 eloquent any more ; fireworks were thrown away; and 
 as for what he had to say, the congregation always had 
 the same thing, looked for the same thing, and would 
 have risen in revolt at the suggestion of a new thing. 
 His sermon was neither better nor worse than \wa.Y be 
 heard any day in church or chapel ; nor was there any- 
 thing in it to distinguish it from the sermons of any 
 other body of Christians. The outsider left off listen- 
 ing and began to think of the congregation. In the 
 pew with her was a man of sixtj^ or so, with long black 
 hair streaked with gray, brushed back behind his ears. 
 He was devout and followed the prayers audibly, and 
 sang the hymns out of a manuscript music-book, and 
 read the text critically. His face was the face of a bull- 
 
344 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 dog for resolution. The man, she thought, u'ould enjoy 
 going to the stake for his opinions, and if tlie Seventi» 
 Da}' Independents were to be made the National Estab- 
 lished Church he would secede the week after and mak^^ 
 a new sect, if only by himself. Such men are not happ}' 
 under authority; their freedom of thought is as the 
 breath of their nostrils, and they cannot think like other 
 people. He was not well dressed, and was probably r^ 
 shoemaker or some such craftsman. In front of her sat 
 a famil}' of three. The wife was attired in a sealskin 
 rich and valuable, and the son, a young man of one or 
 two and twenty, had the dress and appearance of a 
 gentleman — that is to say, of what passes for such in 
 common citj' parlance. What did these people do in 
 such a place? Yet they were evidently of the religion. 
 Then she noticed a widow and her boy. The widow 
 was not young; i)robably, Angela thought, she had 
 married late in life. Her lips were thin and her face 
 was stern. "The boy," thought Angela, "will have 
 the doctrine administered with faithfulness." Only 
 sixteen altogether ; yet all, except the pastor, seemed to 
 be grimly in earnest and inordinately proud of their 
 sect. It was as if the emptiness of their benches and 
 their forsaken condition called upon them to put on a 
 greater show of zeal and to persuade themselves that 
 the cause was worth fighting for. The preacher alone 
 seemed to have lost heart. But his people, who were 
 accustomed to him, did not notice this despondency. 
 
 Then Angela, while the sermon went slowly on, be- 
 gan to speculate on the conditions belonging to such a 
 sect. First of all, with the apparent exception of the 
 lady in sealskin and her husband and son, the whole 
 sixteen — perhaps another two or three were prevented 
 from attending — were of quite the lower middle class ; 
 they belonged to the great stratum of society whose 
 ignorance is as profound as their arguments are loud. 
 But the uncomf ortableness of it ! Thej" can do no work 
 on the Saturday — " neither their man-servant nor their 
 maid-servant" — their shops are closed and their tools 
 put aside. They lose a sixth part of the working time. 
 The followers of this creed are as much separated from 
 their fellows as the Jews. On the Sunday they may 
 work if thoy please, but on that day all the world is at 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF 3IEN. 345 
 
 cluirch or at play. Angela looked round again. Yea; 
 the whole sixteen had upon their faces the look of 
 pride; they were proud of being separated; it was a 
 distinction, just as it is to be a Samaritan. Who 
 would not be one of the recipients, however few they be 
 in number, of Truth? And what a grand thing, what 
 an inspiriting thing, it is to feel that some day or other, 
 perhaps not to-day nor to-morrow, nor in one's life- 
 time at all, the whole world will rally round the poor 
 little obscure banner, and shout all together, with voice 
 of thunder, the battle-cry which now sounds no louder 
 than a puny whistle-pipe ! Yet, on the whole, Angela 
 felt it must be an uncomfortable creed ; better be one of 
 the undistinguished crowd which Hocks to the parish 
 church and yearns not for any distinction at all. Then 
 the sermon ended and they sang another hymn — the 
 collection in use was a volume printed in New York, 
 and compiled by the committee of the Connection, so 
 that there were manifestly congregations on the other 
 side of the Atlantic living in the same discomfort of 
 separation. 
 
 At the departure of the people Rebekah hurried out 
 first, and waited in the doorway to greet Angela. 
 
 " I knew you would come some day, " she said, " but 
 oh ! I wish you had told me when you were coming, so 
 that father might have given one of his doctrine ser- 
 mons. What we had to-day was one of the comforta- 
 ble discourses to the professed members of the church 
 which we all love so much. I am so sorry. Oh, he 
 would convince you in ten minutes !" 
 
 "But, Rebekah," said Angela, "I should be sorry to 
 have seen your service otherwise than usual. Tell 
 me, does the congregation to-day represent all your 
 strength?" 
 
 Rebekah colored. She could not deny that they 
 were, numerically, a feeble folk. 
 
 "We rely," she said, "on the strength of our cause — • 
 and some day — oh ! some day — the world will rally 
 round us. See, j\Iiws Kennedy, here is father; when he 
 has said good -by to the ]ieoplc" — he was talking to a 
 lady in sealskin — "he will come and speak to us." - 
 
 "I suppose," said Angela, "that this lady is a mem- 
 ber of your chapel?" 
 
346 ALL SORTS AXD COXDITIOXS OF MEX. 
 
 "Yes," Rebekah whispered, ''Oh, they are quite 
 rich people — the only rich people we have. They live 
 at Lej'tonstone ; they made their money in the book- 
 binding, and are consistent Christians. Father," — for 
 at this moment ]\Ir. Hermitage left his rich followers 
 in the porch — " this is Miss Kennedy, of whom you 
 have heard so much." 
 
 Mr. Hermitage took her hand with a weary smile, and 
 asked Rebekah if Miss Kennedy would come home with 
 her. 
 
 They lived in a small house next door to the chapel. 
 It was so small that there was but one sitting-room, 
 and this was filled with books. 
 
 "Father likes to sit here," said Rebekah, "by him- 
 self all day. He is quite happy if he is let alone. 
 Sometimes, however, he has to go to Leytonstone. " 
 
 " To the rich people?" 
 
 " Yes," Rebekah looked troubled. " A minister must 
 visit his flock, you know : and if they were to leave us 
 it would be bad for us, because the endowment is only 
 a hundred and ten pounds a year, and out of that the 
 church and the house have got to be kept in repair. 
 However, a clergj^man must not be dictated to, and I 
 tell father he should go his own way and preach his 
 own sermons. Whatever people say, truth must not 
 be hidden away as if we were ashamed of it ! Hush ! 
 Here he is. " 
 
 The good man welcomed Angela, and said some sim- 
 ple words of gratitude al)out her reception of his daugh- 
 ter. He had a good face, but he wore an anxious ex- 
 pression as if something was always on his mind ; and 
 he sighed when he sat down at his table. 
 
 Angela stayed for half an hour, but the minister said 
 nothing more to her ; only when she rose to go he mur- 
 mured with another heavy sigh, "There's an afternoon 
 service at three." 
 
 It is quite impossible to say whether he intended this 
 announcement as an invitation to Angela, or whether it 
 was a complaint, wrung from a heavy heart, of a 
 trouble almost intolerable. 
 
ALL SORTS AXD (CONDITIONS OF MEN. Ul 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIIL 
 
 I AM THE DRESSMAKER. 
 
 It happened on this very same Saturday that Lord 
 Jocelyn, feeling a little low, and craving for speech with 
 his ward, resolved that he would pay a personal visit to 
 him in his own den, whe.'e, no doubt, he would find 
 him girt with a fair white apron and crowned with 
 brown paper, proudl}^ standing among a lot of his 
 brother workmen — glorious fellows ! — and up to his 
 knees in shavings. 
 
 It is easy to take a cab and tell the driver to go to 
 the Mile End Road. Had Lord Jocelyn taken more 
 prudent counsel with himself he would have bidden 
 him drive straight to Messenger's Brewery; but he got 
 down where the Whitechapel road ends and the Mile 
 End road begins, thinking that he would find his way 
 to the Brewery with the greatest ease. First, however, 
 he asked the way of a lady with a basket on her arm ; it 
 was, in fact, Mrs. Bormalack going a-marketing, and 
 anxious about the price of greens ; and he received a 
 reply so minute, exact, and bewildering, that he felt, 
 as he plunged into the labyrinthine streets of Stepney, 
 like one who dives into the dark and devious ways of 
 the catacombs. 
 
 First of all, of course, he lost himself; but as the 
 place was strange to him, and a strange place is always 
 curious, he walked along in great contentment. Noth- 
 ing remarkable in the streets and houses unless, jjer- 
 haps, the entire absence of anything to denote inequal- 
 ity of wealth and position, so that, he thought with sat- 
 isfaction, the happy residents in Stepne}" all receive the 
 same salaries and make the same income, contriliute 
 the same amount to the tax collectors, and pay the same 
 rent. A beautiful continuity of sameness; a divine 
 monotony realizing partially the dreams of the socialist. 
 Presently he came upon a great building which seemed 
 rapidly approaching " completion ; not a beautiful build- 
 ing, but solid, big, well jiroporticwed and constructed 
 of real red brick, and without the "Queen Anne" con- 
 ceits which mostly go with that material. It was so 
 
348 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 large and so well built that it was evidently intended 
 for some special purpose ; a purpose of magnitude and 
 responsibility, requiring capital ; not a factory, because 
 the windows were large and evidently belonged to great 
 halls, and there were none of the little windows in rows 
 which factories must have in the nature of things ; not 
 a prison, because prisons are parsimonious to a fault in 
 the matter of external wnndows ; nor a school — yet it 
 might be a school; then — how should so great a school 
 be built in Stepney? It might be a superior almshouse, 
 or union — yet this could hardly be. While Lord Joce- 
 lyn looked at the building, a working-man lounged 
 along, presumably an out-of- working man, with his 
 hands in his pockets and kicking stra}^ stones in the 
 road, which is a sign of the penniless pocket, because 
 be who yet can boast the splendid shilling does not 
 slouch as he goes, or kick stones in the road, but holds 
 his head erect and anticipates with pleasure six half- 
 pints in the immediate future. Lord Joceh^n asked 
 that industrious idle, or idle industrious, if he knew the 
 object of the building. The man replied that he did 
 not know the object of the building; and to make it 
 quite manifest that he really did not know he put an 
 adjective before the word object, and another — that is, 
 the same — before the word building. With that he 
 passed upon his way, and Lord Jocelyn was left mar- 
 velling at the slender resources of our language which 
 makes one adjective do duty for so many qualifications. 
 Presently, he came suddenly upon Stepney Church, 
 which is a landmark or initial point, like the man on 
 the chair in the maze of Hampton Court. Here he 
 again asked his wa}", and then, after finding it and los- 
 ing it again six times more, and being generally treated 
 with contumely for not knowing so simple a thing, he 
 found himself actually at the gates of the Brewery, 
 which he might have reached in five minutes had he 
 gone the shortest way. 
 
 "So," he said, "this is the property of that remarka- 
 bly beautiful girl. Miss Messenger; who could wish to 
 start better? She is young; she is charming, she is 
 queenly, she is fabulously rich; she is clever; she is — 
 ah I if only Harry had met her before he became an 
 ass !" 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 349 
 
 He passed the gate and entered the courtyard, at one 
 side of which he saw a door on which was painted the 
 word '' Office. " The Brewery was conservative ; what 
 was now a hive of clerks and writers was known by 
 the same name and stood upon the same spot as the 
 little room built by itself in the oi^en court in which 
 King Messenger^ I., the inventor of the Entire, had 
 transacted by himself, having no clerks at all, the whole 
 business of the infant Brewery for his great invention. 
 Lord Jocelyn pushed open the door and stood irresolute, 
 looking about him; a clerk advanced and asked his 
 business. Lord Jocelyn was the most polite and con- 
 siderate of men : he took oS. his hat, humbly bowed, and 
 presented his card. 
 
 " I am most sorry to give trouble," he said. " I came 
 to see " 
 
 "Certainly, my lord." The clerk, having been intro- 
 duced to Lord Davenant, was no longer afraid of tack- 
 ling a title, however grand, and would have been 
 l)leased to show his familiarity with the great even to 
 a Royal Highness. " Certain!}', my lord. If j-our lord- 
 ship will be so good as to write j'our lordship's name in 
 the visitors' book, a guide shall take your lordship 
 round the Brewery immediatel}'." 
 
 " Thank you, I do not wish to see the Brewery," said 
 the visitor. " I came to see a~a — a young man who, 
 I believe, works in this establishment : his name is Gos- 
 lett. " 
 
 " Oh !" replied the clerk, taken aback , " Goslett? Can 
 any one," he asked generally of tho room he had just 
 left, "tell me whether there's a man working here 
 named Goslett?" 
 
 Josephus — for it was the juniors' room — knew and 
 indicated the j)lace and man. 
 
 " If, my lord," said the clerk, loath to separate him- 
 self from nobility, " your lordship will be good enough 
 to follow me, I can take your lordship to the man your 
 lordship wants. Quite a common man, my lord — quite. 
 A joiner and carpenter. But if your lordship wants 
 to see him " 
 
 He led Lord Jocel}Ti across the court, and left him 
 at the door of Harry's workshop. 
 
 It was not a great room with benches, and piles of 
 
350 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 shavings, and a number of men. Not at all; there were 
 racks with tools, a bench, and a lathe ; there were pieces 
 of furniture about waiting repair ; there was an unfin- 
 ished cabinet with delicate carved work, which Lord 
 Jocelyn recognized at once as the handiwork of his boy; 
 and the boy himself stood in the room, his coat off and 
 his cuffs turned up, contemplating the cabinet. It is 
 one of the privileges of the trade that it allows — nay, 
 roquires — a good deal of contemplation. Presently 
 Harry turned his head and saw his guardian standing 
 in the doorway. He greeted him cheerfully and led 
 him into the room, where he found a chair with four 
 legs and begged him to sit down and talk. 
 
 "You like it, Harry?" 
 
 Harry laughed. "Why not?" he said. "You see I 
 am independent, practically. The}' pay me pretty well 
 according to the work that comes in. Plain work, you 
 see — joiners' work." 
 
 "Yes, yes, I see. But how long, my boy — how 
 long?" 
 
 " Well, sir, I cannot say. Why not all my life?" 
 
 Lord Jocelyn groaned. 
 
 " I admit," said Harry, " that if things were different 
 I should have gone back to you long ago. But now I 
 cannot, unless " 
 
 "Unless what?" 
 
 " Unless the girl who keeps me here goes away her- 
 self or bids me go. " 
 
 " Then you are really engaged to the dress — I mean 
 — the young lady?" 
 
 " No, I am not. Nor has she shown the least sign 
 of accepting me. Yet I am her devoted and humble 
 servant." 
 
 "Is she a witch — this woman? Good heavens, 
 Harry ! Can you, who have associated with the most 
 beautiful and best-bred women in the world, be so in- 
 fatuated about a dressmaker?" 
 
 " It is strange, is it not? But it is true. The thought 
 of her fills my mind day and night. I see her con- 
 stantly. There is never one word of love, but she 
 knows already, without that word." 
 
 " Strange, indeed, " repeated Lord Jocelyn. "But it 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 351 
 
 will pass. You will awake, and find yourself again in 
 your right mind, Harr}'. 
 
 He shook his head. 
 
 "From this madness," he said, "I shall never re- 
 cover — for it is my life. Whatever happens, I am her 
 servant." 
 
 "It is incomprehensible," replied his guardian; "you 
 were always chivalrous in j^our ideas of women. They 
 are unusual in young men of the present day ; but they 
 used to sit well upon you. Then, however, your ideal 
 was a lady." 
 
 "It is a lady still," said the lover, "and yet a dress- 
 maker. How this can be, I do not know; but it is. 
 In the old days men became the servants of ladies. I 
 know now what a good custom it was, and how salu- 
 tary to the men. Petit Jehan de Saintre, in his early 
 daj's, had the best of all possible training." 
 
 " But if Petit Jehan had lived at Stepney ?" 
 
 " Then there is another thing — the life here is use- 
 ful." 
 
 " You now tinker chairs, and get paid a shilling an 
 hour. Formerly, j^ou made daintv, carved workboxes 
 and fans, and pretty things for ladies, and got paid by 
 their thanks. Which is the more useful life?" 
 
 " It is not the work I am thinking of — it is the 
 
 Do you remember what I said the last time I saw you?" 
 
 " Perfect!}" — about 3-our fellow-creatures, was it not? 
 My dear Harry, it seems to me as if our fellow-men get 
 on veTy well in their own way without our interfer- 
 ence. " 
 
 " Yes — that is to say, no. They are all getting on 
 as badly as possible ; and somehow I want, before 1 go 
 away, to find out what it is they want. They don't 
 know; and how they should set about getting it — if it 
 is to be got — as I think it is. You will not think me a 
 prig, sir?" 
 
 " You will never be a prig, Harry, under any circum- 
 stances. Does, then, the lady of your worship approve 
 of this? — this stud}' of humanity?" 
 
 " Perfectly — if this lady did not approve of it, I 
 should not be engaged upon it." 
 
 " Harry, will you take me to see this goddess of otep- 
 ney Green — it is there, I believe, that she resides?" 
 
352 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 "Yes; I would rather not. Yet (the young man 
 hesitated for a inomeiit) — Miss Kennedy thinks that I 
 have always been a working-man." I would not unde- 
 ceive her yet. I would rather she did not know that I 
 have given up, for her sake, such a man as you, and 
 such companionship as yours." 
 
 He held out both his hands to his guardian, and his 
 eyes for a moment were dim. 
 
 Lord Jocelyn made no reply for a moment — then he 
 cleared his throat and said he must go ; asked Harry 
 rather piteously could he do nothing for him at all? 
 and made slowly for the door. The clerk who received 
 the distinguished visitor was standing at the door of 
 the office, waiting for another glimpse of the noble and 
 illustrious personage. Presently he came back and re- 
 ported that his lordship had crossed the j^ard on the 
 arm of the young man called Goslett, and that on part- 
 ing with him he had shaken him by the hand, and 
 called him "my boy." Whereat many marvelled, and 
 the thing was a stumbling-block; but Josephus said it 
 was not at all unusual for members of his family to be 
 singled out by the great for high positions of trust; 
 that his own father had been churchwarden of Stepney, 
 and he was a far-off cousin of Miss Messenger's; and 
 that he could himself have been by this time superin- 
 tendent of his Sunday-school if it had not been for his 
 misfortunes. Presently the thing was told to the chief 
 accountant, who told it to the chief brewer ; and if there 
 had been a chief baker one knows not what would have 
 happened. 
 
 Lord Jocelyn walked slowly away in the dii'ection of 
 Stepney Green. She lived there, did she? Oh, and 
 her name was Miss Kennedy ; ah, and a man, by call- 
 ing upon her, might see her. Very good — he would 
 call. He would sa}^ that he was the guardian of Harry, 
 and that he took a warjn interest in him ; and that the 
 boy was pining away — which was not true; and that 
 he called to know if Miss Kennedy as a friend would 
 divine the cause — which was crafty. Quite a little 
 domestic drama he made up in his own mind, which 
 would have done beautifully had it not been completely 
 shattered by the surprising things which happened, as 
 will immediately be seen. 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. S.-JS 
 
 Presently he arrived at Stepney Green and stopped to 
 look about him. A ({uiet, George-tho-Third looking 
 place, with many good and solid houses, and a narrow 
 strip of garden running down the middle — in which of 
 these houses did Miss Kennedy dwell? 
 
 There came along the asphalt walk an old, old man ; 
 he was feeble, and tottered as he went. He wore a 
 black silk stock and a buttoned-up frock-coat. His face 
 \vas wrinkled and creased. It was, in fact, Mr. Mali- 
 phant going rather late (because he had fallen asleep 
 by the fire) to protect the property. 
 
 Lord Jocelyn asked him politely if he would tell him 
 where Miss Kennedy lived. 
 
 The patriarch looked up, laughed joj^ously, and shook 
 his head — then he said something inaudibly, but his 
 lips moved ; and then pointing to a large house on the 
 right, he said aloud : 
 
 " Caroline Coppin's house it was — she that married 
 Sergeant Goslett. Mr. Messenger, whose grandmother 
 was a Coppin, and a good old Whitechapel family, had 
 the deeds. My memory is not so good as usual this 
 morning, young man, or I could tell you who had the 
 house before Caroline's father; but I think it was old 
 Mr. Messenger, because the young man who died the 
 other daj^, and was only a year or two older than me, 
 was born there himself." Then he went on his way, 
 laughing and wagging his head. 
 
 "That is a wonderful old man," said Lord Jocelyn. 
 "Caroline Coppin's house — that is, Harry's mother's 
 house. Pity she couldn't keej? it ii)V her son — the ser- 
 geant was a thrifty man, too. Here is another native ; 
 let us try him." 
 
 This time it was Daniel Fagg, and in one of his de- 
 spondent moods, because none of the promised proofs 
 had arrived. 
 
 "Can you tell me, sir," asked Lord Jocelyn, "where 
 Miss Kennedy lives?" 
 
 The "native," who had sandy hair and a graj' beard, 
 and immense sandy eyebrows, turned u])on him fiercely, 
 shaking a long finger in his face, as if it Avas a sword. 
 
 "Mind you," he growled, "Miss Kennedy's the only 
 man among you ! You talk of your scholars ! Gar ! 
 — jealousy and envy. But I've remembered her — pos- 
 23 
 
354 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 terity shall knew her when the head of the Egyptian 
 department is dead and forgotten." 
 
 "Thank yoii," said Lord Jocelyn, as the man left 
 him. " I am likely to be forwarded at this rate." 
 
 He tried again. 
 
 This time it happened to be none other than Mr, 
 Bunker. The events of the last few weeks were prey- 
 ing upon his mind — he thought continuall}^ of handcuffs 
 and prisons. He was nervous and agitated. 
 
 But he replied courteously, and pointed out the house. 
 
 " Ah !" said Lord Jocelyn, " that is the house which 
 an old man, whom I have just asked, said was Caro- 
 line Coppin's." 
 
 "Old man — what old man?" (Mr. Bunker turned 
 pale — it seemed as if the atmosphere itself was full of 
 dangers.) " 'Ouse was whose? That 'ouse, sir, is mine 
 — mine, do j'ou hear?" 
 
 Lord Jocelyn described the old man — in fact, he was 
 yet within sight. 
 
 "I know him," said Mr, Bunker. "He's mad, that 
 old man — sill}^ Avith age; nobody minds him. That 
 'ouse, sir, is mine." 
 
 " Oh ! And you" (for Lord Jocelyn now recollected 
 him) — "are Mr. Bunker, are you? Do you remember 
 me? Think, man." 
 
 Mr. Bunker thought his hardest ; but if you do not 
 remember a man, 3'ou might as well stand on your 
 head as begin to think. 
 
 "Twenty years ago," said Lord Jocelyn, "I took 
 away your nephew, who has now come back here " 
 
 "You did, 5"ou did," cried Bunker eagerly. "Ah, 
 sir, why did you let him come back here? A bad busi- 
 ness — a bad business." 
 
 " I came to see him to-day, perhaps to ask him why 
 he stays here," 
 
 " Take him away again, sir — don't let him stay. 
 Rocks ahead, sir !" Mr. Bunker put up hands in warn- 
 ing. " When I see youth going to capsize on virtue it 
 makes mj^ blood, as a Christian man, to curdle — take 
 him away." 
 
 " Certainly it does you great credit, Mr. Bunker, as 
 a Christian man; because curdled blood must be un- 
 pleasant. But what rocks?" 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 355 
 
 " A rock — one rock, a woman. In that 'ouse, sir, she 
 lives; her name is Miss Kennedy — that is what she 
 calls herself. She's a dressmaker by trade, she says; 
 and a captivator of foolish young men by nature — don't 
 go anigh her. She may captivate you. Daniel Fagg 
 made her an offer of marriage, and he's sixty. He con- 
 fessed it to me. She tried it on with me ; but a man of 
 principles is proof. The conjurer wanted to marry 
 her. My nephew, Dick Coppin, is a fool about her." 
 
 " She must be a very remarkable woman, " said Lord 
 Jocelyn. 
 
 " As for that boj^ Harry Goslett" (Bunker uttered the 
 name with an obvious effort) — "he's further gone than 
 all the rest put together. If it wasn't for her, he would 
 go back to where he came from." 
 
 " Ah ! and where is that?" 
 
 "Don't j'ou know, then? You, the man who took 
 him away? Don't you know where he came from? 
 Was it something very bad?" 
 
 There was a look of eager malignit}- about the man's 
 face — he wanted to hear something bad about his 
 nephew. 
 
 Lord Jocelyn encouraged him. 
 
 "Perhaps I know — perhaps I do not." 
 
 "A disgraceful story, no doubt," said Bunker, with 
 a pleased smile. " I dreaded the worst when I saw him 
 with his white hands, and his sneerin', fleerin' ways. I 
 thought of Newgate and jailbirds — I did, indeed, at 
 once. O prophetic soul! Well, now wo know the 
 worst, and you had better take him away before all the 
 world knows it. I shan't talk, of course." 
 
 " Thank j^ou, Mr. Bunker ; and about this Miss Ken- 
 nedy, is there anything against her except that the men 
 fall in love with her?" 
 
 "There is plenty against her; but I'm not the man 
 to take awa}' a woman's character. Reports are about 
 her that would astonish you. If all secrets were 
 known, we should find what a viper we've been cher- 
 ishing. At the end of her year, out she goes of my 
 'ouse — bag and baggage, she goes; and wherever she 
 goes, that bo3-'ll go after her unless you prevent it.'' 
 
 "Thank you again, Mr. Bunker. Good-morning." 
 
 Angela (just returned from her chapel) was sitting 
 
356 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF 31 EN. 
 
 at the window of the workroom, in her usual place ; 
 she looked out upon the green now and again. 
 
 Presently she saw Mr. Maliphant creep slowly along 
 the pavement, and observed that he stopped and spoke 
 to a gentleman. Then she saw Daniel Fagg swinging 
 his arms and gesticulating, as he rehearsed to himself 
 the story of his wrongs, and he stopped and spoke to 
 the same man. Then she saw Mr. Bunker walking 
 moodily on his way, and he stopped, too, and conversed 
 with the stranger. Then he turned, and she saw his 
 face. 
 
 It was Lord Jocelyn le Breton, and he was walking 
 with intention toward her own door ! 
 
 She divined the truth in a moment — he was coming 
 to see the " dressmaker" who had bewitched his boy. 
 
 She whispered to Nelly that a gentleman was coming 
 to see her who must be shown upstairs. She took 
 refuge in the drawing-room, which was happily empty; 
 and she awaited him with a beating heart. 
 
 She heard his footsteps on the stairs — the door 
 opened. She rose to meet him. 
 
 " You here, Miss Messenger ! This is, indeed, a sur- 
 prise." 
 
 "No, Lord Jocelyn," she replied, confused, yet try- 
 ing to speak confidently ; " in this house, if you please, 
 I am not Miss Messenger. I am Miss Kennedy, the — 
 the " 
 
 Now she remembered exactly what her next words 
 Vv^ould mean to him, and she blushed violently. " I am 
 the — the dressmaker. " 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIX. 
 
 THRICE HAPPY BOY. 
 
 A MAN of the world at forty-five seldoms feels sur- 
 prised at anything, unless, indeed, like Moliere, he en- 
 counters virtue in unexpected quarters. This, however, 
 was a thing so extraordinary that Lord Jocelyn gasped. 
 
 "Pardon me. Miss Messenger," he said, recovering 
 himself. " I was so totally unprepared for this — this 
 discovery. " 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 357 
 
 "Now that you have made it, Lord Jocelj'-n, may I 
 ask 3'ou most earnestly to reveal it to no one? I mean 
 no one at all." 
 
 "I understand perfectly. Yes, Miss Messenger, I 
 will keep your secret. Since it is a secret, I v\-ill tell 
 it to none. But I would ask a favor in return, if I 
 may." 
 
 "What is that?" 
 
 " Take me further into your confidence. Let me 
 know why you have done this most wonderful thing. 
 I hope I am not impertinent in asking this of you." 
 
 " Not impertinent, certainly. And the thing must 
 seem strange to you. And after what you told me 
 
 some time ago, about " She hesitated a moment, and 
 
 then turned her clear brown eyes straight upon his 
 face, " about your w^ard, perhaps some explanation is 
 due to you." 
 
 "Thank you, beforehand." 
 
 " First, however, call me Miss Kennedy here ; pra}' — 
 pray, do not forget that there is no Miss Messenger 
 nearer than Portman Square." 
 
 " I will tr}^ to remember." 
 
 " I came here, " she went on, " last Juh^, having a 
 certain problem in my mind. I have remained here 
 ever since, working at that problem. It is not nearly 
 worked out yet, nor do I think that in the longest life 
 it could be worked out. It is a most wonderful prob- 
 lem, for one thing leads to another, and great schemes 
 rise out of small, and there are hundreds of plans spring- 
 ing out of one — if I could only carry them out." 
 
 "To assist you in carrj-ing them out, you have se- 
 cured the services of my ward, I learn." 
 
 " Yes; he has been very good to me." 
 
 "I have never," said Lord Jocel.yn, "been greatly 
 tempted in the direction of philanthropy. But pray 
 go on . " 
 
 " The first thing I came to establish was an association 
 of dressmakers, myself being one. That is very sim- 
 ple. I have started them with a house free of rent and 
 the necessary furniture — which I know is wrong, be- 
 cause it introduces an unfair advantage — and we divide 
 all the money in certain proportions.* That is one 
 thing." 
 
358 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 " But, my clear young lady, could you not have done 
 this from Portman Square V" 
 
 " I could, but not so well. To live here as a work- 
 woman among other workwomen is, at least, to avoid 
 the danger of being flattered, deceived, and paid court 
 to. I was a most insignificant person when T came. I 
 am now so far advanced that a great many emploj^ers 
 of women's labor cordially detest me, and would like to 
 see my association ruined. 
 
 "O Lord Jocelvn," she went on, after a pause, 
 " 3'ou do not know, you cannot know the dreadful dan- 
 gers which a rich woman has to encounter. If I had 
 come here in my own name I should have been besieged 
 b}^ every plausible rogue who could catch my ear for 
 half an hour. I should have all the clergy round me 
 imploring help for their schools and their churches ; I 
 should have had ever}" unmarried curate making love 
 to me ; I should have paid ten times as much as anj^body 
 else; and, worse than all, I should not have made a 
 single friend. My sjanpathies, whenever I read the 
 parable, are always with Dives, because he must have 
 been so flattered and worshipped before his pride be- 
 became intolerable." 
 
 " I see. All this you escaped by your assumption of 
 the false name." 
 
 '' Yes. I am one of themselves ; one of the people ; I 
 have got my girls together ; I have made them under- 
 stand my project ; they have become my fast and faith- 
 ful friends. The better to inspire confidence, I even 
 sheltered myself behind m3'self. I said Miss Messen- 
 ger was interested in our success. She sends us orders. 
 I went to the West End with things made up for her. 
 Thanks mainlj^ to her, we are flourishing. We work 
 for shorter hours and for greater pay than other girls: 
 I could already double my staff if I could only, which 
 I shall soon, double the work. We have recreation, 
 too, and we dine together, and in the evening we have 
 singing and dancing. My girls have never before 
 known an}" happiness : now they have learned the hap- 
 piness of quiet, at least, with a little of the culture, and 
 some of the things which make rich people happy. 
 Oh ! would you have me go away and leave them, when 
 I have taught these things of which they never dreamed 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 359 
 
 before? Should I send them back to the squalid house 
 and the bare pittance again? Stay and take your 
 luncheon with us when we dine, and ask yourself 
 whether it would not be better for me to live here alto- 
 gether — never to go back to the West End at all — than 
 to go away and desert my girls?" 
 
 She was agitated because she spoke from her heart. 
 She went on without waiting for any reply : 
 
 '' If you knew the joyless lives, the hopeless days of 
 these girls, if you could see their workrooms, if j^ou 
 knew what is meant b}' their long hours and their in- 
 sufficient food, you would not wonder at my staying 
 here, you would cry shame upon the rich woman so 
 selfish as to spend her substance in idle follies, when 
 she might have spent it upon her unfortunate sisters." 
 
 "I think," said Lord Jocelyn, "that you are a very 
 noble girl." 
 
 " Then there is another scheme of mine : a project so 
 great and generous — nay, I am not singing my o^vn 
 praises, believe me — that I can never get it out of my 
 mind. This project, Lord Jocelyn, is due to your 
 ward." 
 
 " Harry was always an ingenious youth. But pray 
 tell me what it is. " 
 
 " I cannot," she replied ; " when I put the project into 
 words they seem cold and feeble. They do not express 
 the greatness of it. They would not rouse your enthu- 
 siasm. I could not make j'ou understand in any de- 
 gree the great hopes I have of this enterprise." 
 
 "And it is Harry's invention?" 
 
 " Yes — his. All I have done is to find the money to 
 carry it out." 
 
 " That is a good part of anj^ enterprise, however. " 
 
 At this point the bell rang. 
 
 " That is the first bell," said Angela; "now the}" lay 
 down their work and scamper about — at least the 
 younger ones do — for ten minutes before dinner. Come 
 with me to the dining-room." 
 
 Presently the girls came trooping in, fifteen or so, 
 with bright eyes and healthy clieeks. Some of them 
 were pretty : one. Lord Jocelyn thought, of a peculiarly 
 graceful and delicate type, though too fragile in ap- 
 pearance. This was Nelly Sorensen. She looked more 
 
360 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 fragile than usual to-daj^, and there were black lines 
 under her lustrous e^^es. Another, whom Miss Ken- 
 nedy called Rebekah, was good-looking in a different 
 way, being sturdy, rosj-cheeked, and downright in her 
 manner. Another, who would otherwise have been 
 quite common in appearance, was made beautiful — al- 
 most — by the patient look which had followed years of 
 suffering ; she was a cripple ; all their faces during the 
 last few months had changed for the better ; not one 
 among them all bore the expression which is described 
 by the significant words "bold" and " con nnon." Six 
 months of daily drill and practice in good manners had 
 abolished that look at any rate. 
 
 The dinner was perfectly plain and simple, consisting 
 of a piece of meat with plenty of vegetables and bread, 
 and nothing else at all. But the meat was good and 
 well cooked, and the service was on fair white linen. 
 Moreover, Lord Jocelyn, sitting down in this strange 
 company, observed that the girls behaved with great 
 propriety. Soon after they began, the door opened and 
 a man came in. It was one of those to whom Lord 
 Jocelyn had spoken on the green, the man with the 
 bushy sandy eyebrows. He took his seat at the table 
 and began to eat his food ravenously. Once he pushed 
 his plate away as if in a temper, and looked up as if he 
 was going to complain. Then the girl they called Re- 
 bekah — she came to dinner on Saturdays, so as to have 
 the same advantages as the rest, though she did no 
 work on that day — held up her forefuiger and shook it 
 at him, and he relapsed into silence. He was the onlj'- 
 one who behaved badly, and Miss Kennedy made as if 
 she had not seen. 
 
 During the dinner the girls talked freely among them- 
 selves w^ithout any of the giggling and whispering 
 which, in some circles, is considered good manners; 
 they all treated Miss Kennedy with great respect, though 
 she was only one workwoman among the rest. Yet 
 there was a great difference, and the girls knew it; 
 next to her on her left sat the pretty girl whom she 
 called Nelly. 
 
 When dinner was over, because it was Saturday there 
 was no more work. Some of the girls went into the 
 drawing-room to rest for an hour and read ; Rebekah 
 
ALL SORTS A^D CONDITIONS OF MEN. 361 
 
 went home again to attend the afternoon service ; some 
 went into the garden, although it was December, and 
 began to plaj- lawn-tennis on the asphalt ; the nicin with 
 the eyebrows got up and glared moodily around from 
 under those shaggy eyebrows and then vanished. An- 
 gela and Lord Jocelyn remained alone. 
 
 "You have seen us," she said; " what do you think 
 of us?" ^ 
 
 " I have nothing to say, and I do not know what to 
 think." 
 
 " Your ward is our right hand. We women want a 
 man to work for us always. It is his business, and his 
 pleasure, too, to help us to amuse ourselves. He finds 
 diversions; he invents all kinds of things for us. Just 
 now he is arranging tableaux and plays for Christmas." 
 
 " Is it — is it — oh. Miss Kennedy— is it for the girls 
 onh-'?" 
 
 "That is dangerous ground," she replied, but not 
 severely. "Do you think we had better discuss the 
 subject from that point of view?" 
 
 ^ " Poor boy !" said Lord Jocelyn. " It is the point of 
 view from which I must regard it." 
 
 ^ She blushed again— and her beautiful eyes grew lim- 
 pid. 
 
 "Do you think," she said, speaking low, "do you 
 think I do not feel for him? Yet there is a cause— a 
 sentiment, perhaps. The time is not quite come. Lord 
 Jocelyn, be patient with me !" 
 
 "You will take pity on him?" 
 
 " Oh !" she took the hand he offered her. " If I can 
 make him happy — — " 
 
 " If not," replied Lord Joceh'n, kissing her hand, "he 
 would be the most ungrateful dog in all the world. If 
 not, he deserves to get nothing but a shilling an hour 
 for the miserable balance of his days. A shilling? No ; 
 let him go back to his tenpence. My dear young lady, 
 you have made me at all events, the happiest of men ! 
 No, do not fear : neither by word nor look shall Harry 
 — shall any one — know what you have been so very, very 
 good, so generous, and so thoughtful as to tell me." 
 
 " He loves me for myself, " she murmured, " He does 
 not know that I am rich. Think of that, and think of 
 the terrible suspicions which grow up in every rich 
 
363 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIOXS OF MEN. 
 
 woman's heart when a man makes love to her. Now I 
 can never, never doubt his honesty. For my sake he 
 lias given up so much; for my sake — mine! oh! Why 
 are men so good to women?" 
 
 " No," said Lord Jocelyn. " Ask what men can ever 
 do that they should be rewarded with the love and trust 
 of such a woman as your'" 
 
 That is, indeed, a difficult question, seeing in what 
 words the virtuous woman has been described by one 
 who writes as if he ouglit to have known. As a pen- 
 dailt to the picture 'tis pity, 'tis great pitj^ we have not 
 the eulogy of the virtuous man. But there never were 
 any, perhaps. 
 
 Lord Jocelyn stayed with Angela all the afternoon. 
 They talked of many things; of Harry's bo3'hood, of his 
 gentle and ready ways, of his many good qualities, and 
 of Angela herself, her hopes and ambitions, and of their 
 life at Bormalack's. And Angela told Lord Jocleyn 
 about her proteges, the claimants to the Davenant 
 peerage, with the history of the "Roag in Grane," Sat- 
 urday Davenant; and Lord Jocelyn promised to call 
 upon them. 
 
 It was five o'clock when she sent him away, with 
 permission to come again. Now this. Lord Jocelyn 
 felt, as he came away, was the most satisfactory, na}' 
 the most delightful, day that he had ever spent. 
 
 That lucky rascal Harrj' ! To think of this tremen- 
 dous stroke of fortune ! To fall in love with the richest 
 heiress in England ; to have that passion returned, to 
 be about to marry the most charming, the most beau- 
 tiful, the sweetest woman that had ever been made. 
 Happy, thrice happy boy ! What wonder, now, that he 
 found tinkering chairs, in company, so to speak, with 
 that incomparable woman, better than the soft divans 
 of his club or the dinners and dances of society? What 
 had he. Lord Jocelyn, to offer the lad, in comparison 
 with the delights of this strange and charming court- 
 ship? 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 363 
 
 CHAPTER XL. 
 
 SWEET NELLY. 
 
 In every love-storj^ there is always, thougla it is not 
 always told, a secondary plot, the history of the man or 
 woman who might have been left happy but for the 
 wedding bells which peal for somebody else and end the 
 tale. When these ring out, the hopes and dreams of 
 some one else, for whom they do not ring, turn at last 
 to dust and ashes. We are drawing near the church ; 
 we shall soon hear those bells. Let us spare a moment 
 to speak of this tale untold, this dream of the morning, 
 doomed to disappointment. 
 
 It is only the dream of a foolish girl ; she was young 
 and ignorant ; she was brought up in a school of hard- 
 ship until the time when a gracious lady came to rescue 
 her. She had experienced, outside the haven of rest, 
 where her father was safel}' sheltered, only the buffets 
 of a hard and cruel world, filled with greedy task- 
 masters who exacted the uttermost farthing in work and 
 paid the humblest farthing for reward. More than this, 
 she knew, and her father knew, that when his time 
 came for exchanging that haven for the cemeterj', she 
 would have to fight the hard battle alone, being almost 
 a friendless girl, too shrinking and timid to stand up 
 for herself. Therefore, after her rescue, at first she was 
 in the seventh heaven ; nor did her gratitude and love 
 toward her rescuer ever know any abatement. But 
 there came a time when gratitude was called upon to 
 contend with another feeling. 
 
 From the very first Harry's carriage toward Nelly 
 was marked by sympathetic and brotherly affection. 
 He really regarded this pretty creature, with her soft 
 and winning ways, as a girl whom he could call by her 
 Christian name and treat as one treats a sweet and 
 charmii>g child. She was clever at learning — nobody, 
 not even Miss Kennedy, danced better ; she was docile ; 
 she was sweet-tempered and slow to say or think evil. 
 She possessed naturally, Harry thought — but then he 
 forgot that her father had commanded an East India- 
 
364 A-LL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 man — a refinement of thought and manner far above 
 the other girls ; she caught readily the tone of her pa- 
 tron; she became in a few weeks, this young dress- 
 maker, the faithful effigies of a lady under the instruc- 
 tion of Miss Kennedy, whom she watched and studied 
 da}' by day. It was unfortunate that Harry continued 
 to treat her as a child, because she was already a woman. 
 
 Presently she began to think of him, to watch for 
 him, to note his manner toward herself. 
 
 Then she began to compare and to watch his manner 
 toward Miss Kennedy. 
 
 Then she began to wonder if he was paying attention 
 to Miss Kennedy, if they were engaged, if they had an 
 understanding. 
 
 She could find none. Miss Kennedy was always 
 friendly toward him, but never more. He was always 
 at her call, her faithful servant, like the rest of them, 
 but no more. 
 
 Remember that the respect and worship with which 
 she regarded Miss Kennedy were unbounded. But 
 Harry she did not regard as on the same level. No 
 one was good enough for Miss Kennedy. And Harry, 
 clever and bright and good as he seemed, was not too 
 good for herself. 
 
 They were a great deal together. All Nelly's even- 
 ings were spent in the drawing-room ; Harry was there 
 ever}^ night ; they read together ; they talked and danced 
 and sang together. And though the young man said 
 no single word of love, he was always thoughtful for her 
 in ways that she had never experienced before. Below 
 a certain level, men are not thoughtful for women. 
 The cheapeners of women's labor at the East End are 
 not by any means thoughtful toward them. No one 
 had ever considered Nelly at all, except her father. 
 
 Need one say more? Need one explain how tender 
 flowers of hope sprang up in this girl's heart, and be- 
 came her secret joy? 
 
 This made her watchful, even jealous. And when a 
 change came in Miss Kennedy's manner — it was after 
 her first talk with Lord Jocelyn — when Nelly saw her 
 color heighten and her eyes grow brighter when Harry 
 appeared, a dreadful pain seized upon her, and she 
 knew, without a word being spoken, that all was over 
 
ALL SORTS AXD CONDITIONS OF MEN. 365 
 
 for her. For what was she compared with this glorious 
 woman, beautiful as the day, sweet as a rose in June, 
 full of accomplishments'? How could any man regard 
 her beside Miss Kenned}-? How could any man think 
 of any other woman when such a goddess had smiled 
 upon him? 
 
 In some stories, a girl who has had to beat down and 
 crush the young blossoms of love goes through a great 
 variety of performances, always in the same order. 
 The despair of love demands that this order shall be 
 obeyed. She turns white; she throws herself on her 
 bed, and weeps by herself, and miserably owns that she 
 loves him ; she tells the transparent fib to her sister or 
 mother ; she has received a blow from which she never 
 will recover ; if she is religious, it brings her nearer to 
 heaven — all this we have heard over and over again. 
 Poor little Nelly knew nothing about her grander sis- 
 ters in misfortune ; she knew nothing of what is due to 
 self-respect under similar circumstances ; she only per- 
 ceived that she had been foolish, and tried to show as if 
 that was not so. It was a make-believe of rather a sorry 
 kind. When she was alone she reproached herself; 
 when she was with Miss Kennedy she reproached her- 
 self; when she was with Harry she reproached herself. 
 Always herself to blame, no one else, and the imme- 
 diate result was that her great limpid eyes were sur- 
 rounded by dark rings and her cheeks grew thin. 
 • Perhaps there is no misfortune more common among 
 women — especially among women of the better class — 
 tlian that of disappointed hope. Girls who are hard 
 worked in shops have no time, as a rule, to think of 
 love at all. Love, like other gracious influences, does 
 not come in their wa}-. It is when leisure is arrived 
 at, with sufficiency of food and comfort, of shelter and 
 good clothing, that love begins. 
 
 To most of Angela's girls, Harry Goslett was a creat- 
 ure far above their hopes or thoughts. It was pleasant 
 to dance with him ; to hear him play, to hear him talk; 
 but he did not belong to them. It was not for nothing 
 that their brothers called him " Gentleman Jack. " They 
 were, in fact, "common girls," althougli Angela, by 
 the quiet and steady force of example, was introducing 
 such innovations in the dressing of the hair, the car- 
 
366 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF lilEN. 
 
 riage of the person, and the style of garments, that they 
 were rapidly becoming uncommon girls. But they oc- 
 cupied a position lower than that of Nelly, v/ho was 
 the daughter of a ship's captain now in the asjium ; or 
 of Rebekah, who was the daughter of a minister, and 
 had the key to all truth. 
 
 To Nelly, therefore, there came for a brief space this 
 dream of love. It lasted, indeed, so brief a space — it 
 had such slender foundations of reality — that when it 
 vanished she ought to have let it go without a sigh, 
 and have soon felt as if it never had come to her at all. 
 This is difficult of accomplishment, even for women of 
 strong nerves and good physique; but IMelly tried it and 
 partially succeeded. That is, no one knew her secret 
 except Angela, who divined it — having special reason 
 for this insight; and Rebekah, who perhaps had also 
 her own reasons ; but she was a self-contained woman, 
 who kept her own secret. 
 
 "She cannot," said Rebekah, watching Angela and 
 Harry, who were walking together on the green — " she 
 cannot marry anybody else. It is impossible." 
 
 '' But why," said Nelly — " why do they not tell us, if 
 thej" are to be married'?" 
 
 "There are many things," said Rebekah, "which 
 Miss Kennedy does not tell us. She has never told us 
 who she is or where she came from, or how she gets 
 command of money; or how she knows Miss Messen- 
 ger; or what she was before she came to us. Because,. 
 Nelly, you may be sure of one thing — that Miss Ken- 
 nedj'' is a lady, born and bred. Not that I want to 
 know more than she chooses to tell, and I am as certain 
 of her goodness as I am certain of anything. And 
 Avhat this place will do for the girls if it succeeds, no 
 one can tell. Miss Kennedy wid tell us, perhaps, some 
 da}' why she has come among us, pretending to be a 
 dressmaker." 
 
 *' Oh !" said Nelly, " what a thing for us that she did 
 pretend ! And oh, Rebekah, what a thing it would be 
 if she were to leave off pretending! But she would 
 never desert us — never. " 
 
 " No, she never would." 
 
 Rebekah continued to watch them. 
 
 "You see, Nelly, if she is a lady, he is a gentleman." 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 367 
 
 Nelly blushed; and then blushed again for very shame 
 at having blushed at all. " Some gentleman, I am told, 
 take delight in turning girls' heads. He doesn't do that. 
 Has he ever said a word to yo\i that he shouldn't?" 
 
 "No," said Nelly, "never." 
 
 "Well, and he hasn't to me; though, as for you, he 
 goes about saying everywhere that you are the prettiest 
 girl in Stepney, next to Miss Kennedy. And as for me 
 and the rest, he has always been like a brother ; and a 
 good deal better than most brothers are to their sisters. 
 Being a gentleman, I mean he is no match for you and 
 me, who are real work-girls. And there is nobody in 
 the parish except Miss Kennedy for him." 
 
 " Yet he works for money. " 
 
 " So does she. My dear, I don't understand it — I 
 never could understand it. Perhaps some day we shall 
 know what it all means. There they are, making 
 believe. They go on making believe and pretending, 
 and they seem to enjoy it. Then they walk about to- 
 gether, and p^ay in words with each other — one pretend- 
 ing not to understand and so on. Miss Kennedy says, 
 " But then I speak from hearsay, for I am only a di-ess- 
 maker. ' And he says, 'So I read, because, of course, 
 a cabinet-maker can know nothing of these things.' 
 Mr. Bunker, who ought to be made to learn the Epistle 
 of St. James by heart, says dreadful things of both of 
 them, and one his own nephew; but what does he 
 know ? — nothing. " 
 
 " But, Rebekah, Mr. Goslett cannot be a very great 
 gentleman, if he is Mr. Bunker's nephew; his father 
 was a sergeant in the army." 
 
 " He is a gentleman by education and training. Well, 
 some day we shall learn more. Meantime, I for one am 
 contented that they should marry. Are you, Nelly?" 
 
 "I, too," she replied, "am contented, if it will make 
 Miss Kennedy happy." 
 
 "He is not convinced of the truth," said Rebekah, 
 making her little sectarian reservation, " but any woman 
 who would want a better husband must be a fool. As 
 for jow and me, now, after knowing these two, it will 
 be best for us never to marry, ratlier than to marry one 
 of the drinking, tobacco-smoking workmen, who would 
 have us." 
 
368 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 "Yes," said Nelly, "much best. I shall never marry 
 anybody." 
 
 Certainl}'^ it was not likely that more young gentle- 
 men would come their way. One Sunday evening, the 
 girl, being alone with Miss Kennedy, took courage and 
 dared to speak to her. 
 
 In fact, it was Angela herself who began the talk. 
 
 " Let us talk, Nelly," she began ; " we are quite alone. 
 Tell me, my dear, what is on your mind?" 
 
 "Nothing," said Nelly. 
 
 " Yes there is something — tell me what it is." 
 
 " Oh, Miss Kennedy, I cannot tell you. It would be 
 rudeness to speak of it." 
 
 " There can be no rudeness, Nelly, between you and 
 me. Tell me what you are thinking." 
 
 Angela knew alread}- what was in her mind, but after 
 the fashion of her sex she dissembled. The brutality 
 of truth among the male sex is sometimes very painful; 
 and yet we are so proud, some of us, of our earnest at- 
 tachment to truth. 
 
 "Oh, Miss Kennedy, can you not see that he is suf- 
 fering?" 
 
 " Nelly !" but she was not displeased. 
 
 "He is getting thinner. He does not laugh as he 
 used to; and he does not dance as much as he did. Oh, 
 Miss Kennedy, can you not take pity on him?" 
 
 "Nelly, you have not told me whom you mean. 
 Nay," as with a sudden change of tone she threw her 
 arms about Nelly's neck and kissed her, " nay. I know 
 very well whom you mean, my dear." 
 
 " I have not offended you?" 
 
 "No, you have not offended me. But, Nelly, an- 
 swer me one question — answer it truthfully. Do you, 
 from 3-our own heart, wish me to take pity on him?" 
 
 Nelly answered f rankh^ and truthfully : 
 
 "Yes; because how can I wish anything but what 
 will make you happy? Oh, how can any of us help 
 wishing that ; and he is the only man who can make 
 you happy. And he loves you." 
 
 " You Want him to love me for my sake ; for my own 
 sake. Nelh', dear child, you humble me." 
 
 But Nelly did not understand. She had secretly 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 3G9 
 
 offered up her humble sacrifice — her pair of turtle- 
 doves ; and she knew not that her secret was known. 
 
 "She loves him herself," Angela was thinking, "and 
 she gives him up for my sake." 
 
 "He is not," Nelly went on — as if she could by any 
 words of hers persuade Angela — " he is not like any of 
 the common workmen. See how he walks, and how 
 independent he is, and he talks like a gentleman. And 
 he can do all the things that gentlemen learn to do. 
 Who is there among us all that he could look at, except 
 you?" 
 
 " JSTelly — do not make me vain." 
 
 " As for you, Miss Kennedy, there is no man fit for 
 you in all the world. You call yourself a dressmaker, 
 but we know better ; oh, you are a lady ! My father 
 saj^s so. He used to have great ladies sometimes on 
 board his ship. He sa3-s that never was any one like 
 you for talk and manner. Oh, we don't ask your se- 
 cret, if you have one — only some of us (not I, for one) are 
 afraid that some day you will go away, and never come 
 back to us again. What should we do then?" 
 
 " My dear, I shall not desert you." 
 
 "And, if you marry him, you will remain with us? 
 A lady should marry a gentleman, I know ; she could 
 not marry any common man. But jow are, so you tell 
 us, only a dressmaker. And he, hesaj^s, only a cabinet- 
 maker ; and Dick Coppin says that, though he can use 
 the lathe, he knows nothing at all about the trade — not 
 even how they talk, nor anj'thing about them. If 
 you two have secrets. Miss Kennedy, tell them to each 
 other." 
 
 "' My secrets, if I have anj", are very simple, Nelly, 
 and very soon you shall know them ; and, as for his, I 
 know them already." 
 
 Angela was silent awhile, thinking over this thing ; 
 then she kissed the girl, and whispered : " Patience 
 yet a little while, dear Nelly. Patience, and I \'fill do, 
 perhaps, what you desire." 
 
 " Father, " said Nelly, later on that night, sitting to- 
 gether by the fire, " father, I spoke to Miss Kennedy 
 to-night." 
 
 " What did you speak to her about, ni}' dear?" 
 24 
 
370 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 " I told her that we knew (you and I) that she is a 
 lady, whatever she mav pretend." 
 
 " That is quite true, Nelly." 
 
 " And I said that Mr. Goslett is a gentleman, what- 
 ever he may pretend." 
 
 " That may be true — even though he is not a gentle- 
 man born — but that's a very different thing, my dear." 
 
 "Why is it different?" 
 
 " Because there are many ladies who go about among 
 poor people ; but no gentleman, unless it's the clergy- 
 men. Ladies seem to like it — they do it, however hard 
 the work, for nothing — and all because it is their" duty, 
 and an imitation of the Lord. Some of them go out 
 nursing. I have told you how I took them out to Scu- 
 tari. Some of them go, not a bit afraid, into the foul 
 courts, and find out the worst creatures in the world, 
 and help them. Many of them give up their whole 
 lives for the poor and miserable. My dear, there is 
 nothing that a good woman will shrink from — no mis- 
 er}', no den of wickedness — nothing. Sometimes I think 
 ]\Iiss Kennedy must be one of those women. Yes, she's 
 got a little money, and she has come here to work in 
 her own way among the people here. " 
 
 "And Mr. Goslett, father?" 
 
 " Men don't do what women do. There may be some- 
 thing in what Mr. Bunker says — that he has reasons of 
 his own for coming here and hiding himself." 
 
 "Oh, father, you don't mean it; and his own uncle, 
 too, to say such a thing." 
 
 " Yes, iiis own uncle. Mr. Goslett, certainly, does 
 belong to the place ; though why Bunker should bear 
 him so much malice is more than I can tell." 
 
 " And, father, there is another reason why he should 
 stay here." Nelly blushed, and laughed merrily. 
 
 "What is that, my dear?" 
 
 Nelly kissed him and laughed again. 
 
 " It is your time for a pipe — let me fill it for you. 
 And the Sunday ration, here it is ; and here is a light. 
 Oh, father, to be a sailor so long and have no eyes in 
 your head !" 
 
 " What" — he understood now — "you mean Miss Ken- 
 nedy ! Nell, my dear, forgive me — I was thinking 
 that perhaps you " 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 371 
 
 " No, father, " she replied hurriedly, " that could never 
 be. I want nothing but to stay on here with you and 
 Miss Kennedy, who has been so good to us that we can 
 never, never thank her enough; nor can we wish her 
 too much joy. But, please, never — never say that 
 again." 
 
 Her eyes filled with tears. 
 
 Captain Sorensen took a book from the table — it was 
 that book which so many people have constantly in their 
 mouths, and yet it never seems to get into their hearts ; 
 the book which is so seldom read and so much com- 
 mented upon. He turned it over till he found a cer- 
 tain passage beginning, " Who can find a virtuous wom- 
 an?" He read this right through to the end. One 
 passage, "She stretcheth out her hand to the poor. 
 Y"ea, she reacheth forth her hands unto the needy," he 
 read twice ; and the last line, " Let her own works praise 
 her in the gates," he read three times. 
 
 " My dear" he concluded, " to pleasure Miss Kennedy 
 you would do more than give up a lover ; ay, and with 
 a cheerful heart." 
 
 ■ CHAPTER XLI. 
 
 BOXING-NIGHT. 
 
 " Let us keep Christmas, " said Angela, " with some- 
 thing like original treatment. We will not dance, be- 
 cause we do that nearly every night." 
 
 " Let us," said Harry, "dress up and act." 
 
 What were they to act? That he would find for 
 them. How were they to dress? That they would have 
 to find for themselves. The feature of the Christmas 
 festival was that they were to be mummers, and that 
 there was to be mummicking, and of course there would 
 be a little feasting, and perhaps a little singing. 
 
 " We must have just such a programme, " said Angela 
 to their master of ceremonies, " as if you were preparing 
 it for the Palace of Delight." 
 
 "This is the only Palace of Delight," said Harry, 
 " that we shall ever see. For my own part I desire no 
 other. " 
 
373 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 " But, you know, we are going to have another one, 
 much larger than this little place. Have you forgotten 
 all 5'our projects?" 
 
 Harry laughed ; it was strange how persistently Miss 
 Kennedy returned to the subject again and again ; how 
 seriously she talked about it ; how she dwelt upon it. 
 
 " We must have," she continued, ''sports which will 
 cost nothing, with dresses which we can make for our- 
 selves. Of course we must have guests to witness 
 them." 
 
 "Guests cost money," said Harry. "But, of course, 
 in a Palace of Delight money must not be considered. 
 That would be treason to your principles." 
 
 " We shall not give our guests anything except the 
 cold remains of the Christmas dinner. As for cham- 
 pagne, we can make our own with a few lemons and a 
 little sugar. Do not forbid us to invite an audience." 
 
 Fortunately, a present which arrived from their 
 patron, Miss Messenger, the day before Christmas Day, 
 enabled them to give their guests a substantial supper, 
 at no cost whatever. The present took the form of sev- 
 eral hampers, addressed to Miss Kennedy, with a note 
 from the donor conveying her love to the girls and best 
 wishes for the next year, when she hoped to make their 
 acquaintance. The hampers contained turkeys, sau- 
 sages, ducks, geese, hams, tongues, and the like. 
 
 Meantime, Harr}^, as stage manager and dramatist, 
 had devised the tableaux, and the girls between them had 
 devised the dresses from a book of costumes. Christ- 
 mas Day, as everybody remembers, fell last year on a 
 Sunday. This gave the girls the whole of Saturday 
 afternoon and evening, with Monday morning for the 
 conversion of the trying-on room into the stage, and 
 the show-room for the audience. But the rehearsals 
 took a fortnight, for some of the girls were stupid and 
 some were shy, though all were willing to learn, and 
 Harry was patient. Besides, there was the chance of 
 wearing the most beautiful dresses, and no one was left 
 out ; in the allegory, a pastoral, invented by their man- 
 ager, there was a part for every one. 
 
 The gift of Miss Messenger made it possible to have 
 two sets of guests ; one set consisting of the girls' fe- 
 male relations, and a few private friends of Miss Ken- 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 373 
 
 nedy's who lived and suffered in the neighborhood, for 
 the Christmas dinner, held on Monday ; and the other 
 set was carefully chosen from a long list of the select 
 audience in the evening. Among them were Dick and 
 his friend, the ex-Chartist cobbler, and a few leading 
 spirits of the Advanced Club. They wanted an audi- 
 ence who would read between the lines. 
 
 The twenty-sixth day of last December was, in 
 the neighborhood of Stepney, dull and overcast; it 
 promised to be a day of rebuke for all quiet folk, be- 
 cause it was a general holiday, one of those four terrible 
 days when the people flock in droves to favorite haunts 
 if it is in the summer, or hang about public-houses if it 
 is winter ; when, in the evening, the air is hideous with 
 the shouts of those who roll about the pavements ; a day 
 when even Comas and his rabble rout are fain to go 
 home for fear of being hustled and evilly treated by the 
 holiday-makers of famous London town; a day when 
 the peaceful and the pious, the temperate and the timid, 
 stay at home. But to Angela it was a great day, sweet 
 and precious — to use the language of an ancient Puritan 
 and modern prig — because it was the first attempt to- 
 ward the realization of her great dream ; because her 
 girls on this night for the first time showed the fruits 
 of her training in the way they plaj-ed their parts, their 
 quiet bearing and their new refinement. After the per- 
 formances of this evening she looked forward with con- 
 fidence to her palace. 
 
 The day began, then, at half-past with the big din- 
 ner. All the girls could bring their mothers, sisters, 
 and female relations generally, who were informed that 
 Miss Messenger, the mysterious person who interfered 
 perpetually, like a goddess out of a machine, with some 
 new gift, or some device for their advantage, was the 
 giver of the feast. 
 
 It was a good and ample Christmas dinner served in 
 the long work-room by Angela and the girls them- 
 selves. There were the turkeys of the hamper, roasted 
 M^ith sausages, and roast beef and roast fowls, and 
 roast geese and roast pork, with an immense supply of 
 the vegetables dear to London people ; and after this 
 first ^course, there were plum-pudding and mince-pies. 
 Messenger's ale, with the stout so much recommended 
 
374 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIOXS OF MEN. 
 
 by Bunker, flowed freely, and after dinner there was 
 handed to each a glass of port. None but women and 
 children — no boy over eight being allowed — were pres- 
 ent at the feast, and when it was over most of the wom- 
 en got up and went away, not without some little 
 talk with Angela and some present in kind from the 
 benevolent Miss Messenger. Then they cleared all 
 away and set out the tables again, with the same pro- 
 visions, for the supper in the evening, at which there 
 would be hungrj^ men. 
 
 All the afternoon they spent in completing their ar- 
 rangements. The guests began to arrive at five. The 
 music was supplied by Angela herself, who did not act, 
 with Captain Sorensen and Harry. The ])iano was 
 brought downstairs and stood in the hall outside the try- 
 ing-on room. 
 
 The performance was to commence at six, but every- 
 bod}^ had come long before half -past five. At a quarter 
 to six the little orchestra began to play the old Engb'sh 
 tunes dear to pantomimes. 
 
 At the ringing of a bell, the music changed to a low 
 monotonous plaint and the curtain slowly rose on the 
 tableau. 
 
 There was a large, bare, emptj^ room ; its sole furni- 
 ture was a table* and three chairs; in one corner was 
 a pile of shavings; upon them sat, crouching with her 
 knees drawn up, the pale and worn figure of a girl; 
 beside her were the crutches which showed that she 
 was a cripple ; her white cheek was wasted and hollow ; 
 her chin was thrust forward as if she was in suffering 
 almost intolerable. During the tableau she moved not, 
 save to swing slowly backward and forward upon the 
 shavings which formed her bed. 
 
 On the table, for it was night, was a candle in a gin- 
 ger-beer bottle, and two girls sat at the table working 
 hard ; their needles were running a race with starva- 
 tion ; their clothes were in rags ; their hair was gathered 
 up in careless knots ; their cheeks were pale ; they were 
 pinched and cold and feeble with hunger and privation. 
 
 Said one of the women present, " Twopence an hour, 
 they can make. Poor things ! poor things !" 
 
 "Dick," whispered the cobbler, "you make a note of 
 it; I guess what's coming," 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 375 
 
 The spectators shivered with sympathy. They knew 
 so well what it meant ; some of them had themselves 
 dwelt amid these garrets of misery and suffering. 
 
 Then voices were heard outside in the street singing. 
 
 They were the waits, and they sang the joyful h3"mns 
 of Christmas. When the working-girls heard the sing- 
 ing, they paid no heed whatever, plying the needle fast 
 and furiously; and the girl in the shavings paid no heed, 
 slowly swinging to and fro in her pain and hunger. 
 At the sight of this callous contempt, this disregard of 
 the invitation to rejoice, as if there were neither hope 
 nor joy for such as themselves, with only a mad desire 
 to work for something to stay the dreadful pains of 
 hunger, some of the women among the spectators wept 
 aloud. 
 
 Then the waits went away; and there was silence 
 again. 
 
 Then one of the girls — it was Nelly — stopped, and 
 leaned back in her chair, with her hand to her heart ; 
 the work fell from her lap upon the floor ; she sprang to 
 her feet, threw up her hands, and fell in a lifeless heap 
 upon the floor. The other girl went on with her sew- 
 ing; and the cripple went on swinging backward and 
 forward. For they were all three so miserable that the 
 misery of one could no more touch the other two. 
 
 The curtain dropped. The tableau represented, of 
 course, the girls who work for an emj)loyer. 
 
 After five minutes it rose again. There were the 
 same girls and others ; they were sitting at work in a 
 cheerful and well-furnished room; the}" were talking 
 and laughing. The clock struck six, and they laid 
 aside their work, pushed back the table and advanced 
 to the front singing all together. Their faces were 
 bright and happy ; they were well dressed, thej" looked 
 well fed ; there was no trouble among them at all ; they 
 chatted like singing-birds ; the}" ran and played. 
 
 Then Captain Sorensen came in with his fiddle, and 
 first he played a merry tune, at the sound of which the 
 girls caught each other by the waist, and fell to danc- 
 ing the old Greek ring. Then he played a quadrille, 
 and they danced that simple figure, and as if they liked 
 it; and then he played a waltz, and they whirled round 
 .nnd round. 
 
37ft ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 This was the labor of girls for themselves. Every- 
 body understood perfectly what was meant without the 
 waste of words. Some of the mothers present wiped 
 their eyes and told their neighbors that this was no play 
 acting, but the sweet and blessed truth ; and that the 
 jo}^ was real, because the girls were working for them- 
 selves and there were no naggings, no fines, no temper, 
 no bullj'ing, no long hours. 
 
 After this there was a concert, which seemed a fall- 
 ing off in point of excitement. But it was pretty. 
 Captain Sorensen played some rattling sea ditties ; then 
 Miss Kennedy and Mr. Goslett plaj^ed a duet ; then the 
 girls sang a madrigal in parts, so that it was wonder- 
 ful to hear them, thinking how ignorant they were six 
 months before. Then Miss Kennedy played a solo, and 
 then the girls sang another song. By what magic, by 
 what myster}^, were girls so transformed? Then the 
 audience talked together, and whispered that it was all 
 the doing of that one girl — Miss Kennedy — who was 
 believed by everybody to be a lady born and bred, but 
 pretended to be a dressmaker. She it was who got the 
 girls together, gave them the house, found work for 
 them, arranged the time and duties, and paid them 
 week b3' week for shorter hours better wages. It was 
 she who persuaded them to spend their evenings with 
 her instead of trapesing about the streets, getting into 
 mischief ; it was she who taught them the singing, and 
 all manner of pretty things ; and they were not spoiled 
 bj^ it, except that they would have nothing more to say 
 to the rough lads and shopbo3^s who had formerly paid 
 them rude court and jested with them on Stepney 
 Green. Uppish they certainly were; what mother 
 would find fault with a girl for holding up her head 
 and respecting herself? And as for manners, why, no 
 one could tell what a difference there was. 
 
 The Chartist looked on with a little suspicion at first, 
 which gradually changed to the liveliest satisfaction. 
 
 "Dick," he whispered to his friend and disciple, "I 
 am sure that, if the working-men like, they may find 
 the swells their real friends. See, now we've got all 
 the power; they can't take it from us; very good then, 
 who are the men we should suspect? Why, those 
 who've got to pay the wages — the manufacturers and 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 377 
 
 such. Not the swells. Make a note of that, Dick. 
 It may be the best card you've got to \Asiy. A thou- 
 sand places such as this — planted all about England — 
 started at first by a swell — wdiy, man, the working 
 classes would have not only all the power but all the 
 money. Oh, if I were ten years younger! What are 
 they going to do next?" 
 
 The next thing they did pleased the women, but the 
 men did not seem to care much about it, and the 
 Chartist went on developing the new idea to Dick, who 
 drank it all in, seeing that here, indeed, was a practical 
 and attractive idea even though it meant a new depart- 
 ure. But the preacher of a new doctrine has generally 
 a better chance than one who only hammers away at 
 an old one. 
 
 The stage showed one figure. A beautiful girl, her 
 hair bound in a fillet, clad in Greek dress, simple, flow- 
 ing, graceful, stood upon a low pedestal. She was in- 
 tended — it was none other than Nelly — to represent 
 woman dressed as she should be. One after the other 
 there advanced upon the stage and stood beside this 
 statue, women dressed as women ought not to be ; there 
 they were, the hideous fashions of generations; the 
 pinched waists, monstrous hats, high peaks, hoops and 
 crinolines, hair piled up, hair stuffed out, gigot sleeves, 
 high waists, tight skirts, bending walk, boots with high 
 heels — an endless array. 
 
 When Nelly got down from her pedestal and the show 
 was over, Harry advanced to the front and made a little 
 speech. He reminded his hearers that the Association 
 was only six months old ; he begged them to consider 
 vrhat was its position now. To be sure, the girls had 
 been started, and, that he said, was the great difficulty; 
 but, the start once made and prejudice removed, they 
 found themselves with work to do, and they were now 
 paying their own way and doing well; before long 
 they would be able to take in more hands; it Avas not 
 all work with them, but there was plenty of plaj'-, as 
 they knew. Meantime the girls invited everybod}^ to 
 have supper with them, and after supper there would 
 be a little dance. 
 
 They stayed to supper, and they appreciated the gift 
 of Miss Messenger; then they had the little dance — 
 
378 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 Dick Coppin now taking his part without shame. 
 "While the dancing went on the Chartist sat in the 
 corner of the room, talking with Angela. When he 
 went awa}', his heart — which Avas large and gene- 
 rous — burned within him, and he had visions of a 
 time when the voices of the poor shall not be raised 
 against the rich nor the minds of the rich hardened 
 against the poor. Perhaps he came unconsciously- 
 nearer to Christianity, this man who was a scoffer 
 and an unbeliever, that night than he had ever before. 
 To have faith in the future forms, indeed, a larger 
 part of the Christian religion than some of us ever 
 realize. And to believe in a single woman is one step, 
 however small, toward believing in the Divine Man. 
 
 CHAPTER XLII. 
 
 NOT JOSEPHUS, BUT ANOTHER. 
 
 The attractions of a yard peopled with ghosts, dis- 
 contented figure-heads, and an old man, are great at 
 first, but iiot likely to be lasting if one does not person- 
 ally see or converse with the ghosts and if the old man 
 becomes monotonous. We expect too much of old men. 
 Considering their years, we think their recollections 
 must be wonderful. One says, " Good heavens ! Me- 
 thuselah must recollect William the Conquer<3r and 
 King John, and Sir John Falstaff, to say nothing of 
 the battle of Waterloo!" As a matter of fact, Me- 
 thuselah generally remembers nothing except that 
 where Cheapside now stands was once a green field. 
 As for Shakespeare, and Coleridge, and Charles Lamb, 
 he knows nothing whatever about them. You see if he 
 had taken so much interest in life as to care about 
 things going on, he would very soon, like his contem- 
 poraries, have worn out the machine, and would be ly- 
 ing, like them, in the grassy inclosure. 
 
 Harry continued to go to the carver's yard for some 
 time, but nothing more was to be learned from him. He 
 knew the family history, hov/ever, by this time, pretty 
 well. The Coppins of Stepney, like all middle-class 
 families, had experienced many ups and downs. They 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 379 
 
 had been churchwardens; they had been bankrupts; 
 they had practised many trades ; and once there was 
 a Coppin who died, leaving houses — twelve houses — 
 three apiece to his children — a meritorious Coppin. 
 Where were those houses now? Absorbed by the om- 
 nivorous Uncle Bunker. And how Uncle Bunker got 
 those belonging to Caroline Coppin could not now be 
 ascertained, except from Uncle Bunker himself. Every- 
 where there are scrapers and scatterers; the scrapers 
 are few, and the scatterers many. By what scatterer 
 or what process of scattering did Caroline lose her 
 houses? 
 
 Meantime, Harry did not feel himself obliged to 
 hold his tongue upon the subject ; and everybody knew, 
 before long, that something was going on likely to be 
 l^rejudicial to Mr. Bunker. People whispered that 
 Bunker was going to be caught out ; this rumor lent to 
 the unwilling agent some of the interest which attaches 
 to a criminal. Some went so far as to say that they had 
 always suspected him because he was so ostentatious 
 in his honesty ; and this is a safe thing to say, because 
 any person may be reasonably suspected ; and if we did 
 not suspect all the world, why the machinery of bolts 
 and bars, kej-s and patent safes? But it is the wise 
 man who suspects the right person, and it is the justly 
 proud man who strikes an attitude and says : " What 
 did I tell you?" As j^et, however, the suspicions were 
 vague. Bunker, for his part, though not generally a 
 thin-skinned man, easily perceived that there was a 
 change in the way he was received and regarded ; peo- 
 ple looked at him with marked interest in the streets; 
 they turned their heads and looked after him; they 
 talked about him as he approached ; they smiled with 
 meaning; Josephus Coppin met him one day, and asked 
 him whj he would not tell his nephew how he obtained 
 those three houses and what consideration he gave for 
 them. He began, especially of an evening, over brandy 
 and water, to make up mentally, over and over again, 
 his own case, so that it might be presented at the right 
 ^noment absolutely perfect and without a flaw ; a para- 
 gon among cases. His nephew, whom he now regarded 
 with a Icjathing almost lethal, was impudent enough to 
 go about saying that he had got those houses unlaw- 
 
380 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 fully. Was he? Veiygood; he would have such law 
 as is to be had in England, for the humiliation, pun- 
 ishment, stamping out, and ruining of that nephew; 
 aye, if it cost him five hundred pounds he would. He 
 should like to make his case public; he was not afraid; 
 not a bit; let all the world know; the more the story 
 was known, the more would his contemporaries admire 
 his beautiful and exemplary virtue, patience, and mod- 
 eration. There were, he said, with the smile of benev- 
 olence and blush of modesty which so well become the 
 good man, transactions, money transactions, between 
 himself and his sister-in-law, especiall}^ after her mar- 
 riage with a man who was a secret scatterer. These 
 money matters had been partly squared by the transfer 
 of the houses, which he took in part payment ; the rest 
 he forgave when Caroline died, and when, which 
 showed his goodness in an electric light, he took over 
 the boy to bring him up to some honest trade, though 
 he was a beggar. Where were the proofs of those 
 transactions? Unfortunately they were all destroyed 
 by lire some j^ears since, after having been carefully 
 preserved, and docketed, and indorsed, as is the duty 
 of every careful man of business. 
 
 Now by dint of repeating this precious story over and 
 over again, the worthy man came to believe it entirely, 
 and to believe that other people would believe it as 
 well. It seemed, in fact, so like the truth, that it 
 would deceive even experts, and pass for that priceless 
 article. At the time when Caroline died, and the boy 
 went to stay with him, no one asked any questions, be- 
 cause it seemed nobody's business to inquire into the 
 interest of the child. After the boy was taken away it 
 gradually became known among the surviving members 
 of the family that the houses had long before, owing to 
 the profligate extravagance of the sergeant — as careful a 
 man as ever marched — passed into the hands of Bunker, 
 who now had all the Coppin houses. Everything was 
 clean forgotten by this time. And the boy must needs 
 turn up again, asking questions. A young villain ! A 
 serpent ! But he should be paid out. 
 
 A very singular accident prevented the "paying out" 
 quite in the sense intended by Mr. Bunker. It hap- 
 pened in this way : 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 381 
 
 One day when Miss Messenger's cabinet-maker and 
 joiner-in-ordinary, having little or nothing to do, was 
 wandering about the Brewery, looking about him, lazily 
 watching the process of beer-making on a large exten- 
 sive scale, and exchanging the compliments of the 
 season, which was near the new year, with the work- 
 men, it happened that he passed the room in which 
 Josephus had sat for forty years among the juniors. 
 The door stood open, and he looked in, as he had often 
 done before, to nod a friendly salutation to his cousin. 
 There Josephus sat, with gray hair, an elderly man 
 among boys, mechanically ticking off entries among 
 the lads. His place was in the warm corner near the 
 fire; beside him stood a large and massive safe; the 
 same safe out of which, during an absence of three min- 
 utes, the country notes had been so mysteriously stolen. 
 The story, of course, was well known. Josephus' 
 version of the thing was also well known. Everybody 
 further knew that, until the mystery of that robbery 
 was cleared up, Josephus would remain a junior on 
 30s. a week. Lastly, everybody (with the kindliness 
 of heart common to our glorious humanity) firmly be- 
 lieved that Josephus had really cribbed those notes"", but 
 had been afraid to present them, and so dropped them 
 into a fire, or down a drain. It is truly remarkable 
 to observe how deeply we respect, adore, and venerate 
 virtue— insomuch that we all go about pretending to be 
 virtuous; yet how little we believe in the virtue of each 
 other! It is also remarkable to reflect upon the exten- 
 sive fields still open to the moralist, after all these years 
 of preaching and exhorting. 
 
 Now, as Harry looked into the room, his eye fell upon 
 the safe, and a curious thing occurred. The fragment 
 of a certain letter from Bob Coppin (in which he sent a 
 message by his friend to his cousin, Squaretoes Jo- 
 sephus) quite suddenly and unexpectedly returned to 
 his memory — further, the words assumed a meaning. 
 
 "Josephus," he said, stepping into the office, "lend 
 me a piece of paper and a pencil. Thank you." 
 
 He wrote down the words exactly as he recollected 
 them— half destroyed by the tearing of the letter. 
 
 "... Josephus, my cousin, that he will. . .'nd the 
 safe the bundle. . . or a lark. Josephus is a squaretoes. 
 
882 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 I hate a man who won't drink. He will. . . if he looks 
 there." 
 
 When he had written these words down he read them 
 over again, while the lads looked on with curiosity and 
 some resentment. Cabinet-makers and joiners have no 
 business to swagger about the office of young gentle- 
 men who are clerks in breweries, as if it were their 
 own place. It is an innovation — a levelling of rank. 
 
 " Josephus, " Harry whispered, " you remember your 
 cousin. Bob Coppin?" 
 
 " Yes ; but these are office hours. Conversation is 
 not allowed in the juniors' room." 
 
 He spoke as if he was still a bo}^ — as indeed, he was, 
 having been confined to the society of boys, and hav- 
 ing drawn the pay of a boy for so many years. 
 
 " Never mind rules — tell me all about Bob." 
 
 " He was a drinker and a spendthrift — that's enough 
 about him." 
 
 Josephus spoke in a whisper, being anxious not to 
 discuss the family disgrace among his fellow-clerks. 
 
 " Good ! Were j^ou a friend as well as a cousin of his?" 
 
 " No, I never was — I was respectable in those days, 
 and desirous of getting my character high for steadi- 
 ness. I went to evening lectures and taught in the 
 Wesleyan Sundaj^-schools. Of course, when the notes 
 were stolen, it was no use trying any more for character 
 — that was gone. A young man suspected of stealing 
 £14,000 can't get any character at all. So I gave up 
 attending the evening lectures, and left off teaching in 
 the school, and going to church, and everything." 
 
 "You were a great fool, Josephus — you ought to 
 have gone on and fought it out. Now then, on the day 
 that 5^ou lost the money, had you seen Bob — do you re- 
 member?" 
 
 "That day?" the unlucky junior replied; "I remem- 
 ber every hour as plain as if it was to-day. Yes, I saw 
 Bob He came to the office half an hour before I lost 
 the notes. He wanted me to go out with him in the 
 evening, I forget where — some gardens, and dancing, 
 and prodigalities. I refused to go. In the evening I 
 saw him again, and he did nothing but laugh while I 
 was in misery. It seemed cruel; and the more I suf- 
 fered he louder he laughed." 
 
ALL SORTS AND COXDITIOXS OF MEN. 383 
 
 "Did YOU never see Bob again?" 
 
 " No ; he went away to sea, and he came home and 
 went away again ; but somehow I never saw him. It 
 is twenty years now since he went away last, and was 
 never heard of, nor his ship — so, of course, he's dead 
 long ago. But what does it matter about Bob? And 
 these are office hours ; and there will, really, be things 
 said if we go on talking — do go away.'' 
 
 Harr}' obeyed, and left him ; but he went straight to 
 the office of the chief accountant and requested an in- 
 terview. 
 
 The chief accountant sent word that he could com- 
 municate his business through one of the clerks. Harry 
 replied that his business was of a nature which could 
 not be communicated by a clerk— that it was very seri- 
 ous and important business, which must be imparted to 
 the chief alone ; and that he would wait his convenience 
 in the outer office. Presently he was ushered into the 
 presence of the great man. 
 
 "This is very extraordinary," said the official. 
 " What can j^our business be, which is so important 
 that it must not be intrusted to the clerks? Now come 
 to the point, young man — my time is valuable." 
 
 " I want you to authorize me to make a little ex- 
 amination in the junior clerks' room." 
 
 "What examination, and wh}'?" 
 
 Harry gave him the fragment of the letter, and ex- 
 plained where he found it. 
 
 " I understand nothing. What do you learn from 
 this fragment?" 
 
 "There is no date," said Harrj-, "but that matters 
 A'ery little. You will observe that it clearly refers to 
 my cousin Josephus Cojjpin." 
 
 "That seems evident — Josephus is not a common 
 name." 
 
 " You know my cousin's version of the loss of those 
 notes?" 
 
 " Certainly — he said they must have been stolen dur- 
 ing the two or three minutes that he was out of the 
 room." 
 
 " Yes — now" (Harry wrote a few words to fill up the 
 broken sentences of the letter) "read thai;, sir." 
 
 " Good heavens !" 
 
384 ALL SORTS AND COXDITIOXS OF MEN. 
 
 "My cousin tells me, too," lie went on, "that this fel- 
 low, Bob Coppin, was in tiie office half an hour before 
 the notes were missed — why, very likely he was at the 
 time hanging about the place — and that in the evening, 
 when his cousin was in an agony of distress. Bob was 
 laughing as if the whole thing was a joke." 
 
 " Upon m}' word," said the chief, " it seems plausible." 
 
 "We can try the thing at once," said Harry, "But 
 I should like you to be present when we do." 
 
 " Undoubtedly I will be present — come, let us go at 
 once. By the way, you were the young man recom- 
 mended by Miss Messenger; are you notV" 
 
 " Yes. Not that I have the honor of knowing Miss 
 Messenger personally." 
 
 The chief accountant laughed. Cabinet-makers do 
 not generally know 3'oung ladies of position; and this 
 was such a remarkably cheeky young workman. 
 
 They took with them four stout fellows from those 
 who toss about the casks of beer. The safe was one of 
 the larger kind, standing three feet six inches high, on 
 a strong wooden box, witli an ojDen front — it was in the 
 corner next to Josephus' seat. Between the back of 
 the safe and the wall was a space of an inch or so. 
 
 "I must trouble j^ou to change your seat," said the 
 chief accountant to Josephus, " we are about to move 
 this safe." 
 
 Josephus rose, and the men presently, with mighty 
 efforts, lugged the great heavy thing a foot or two from 
 its place. 
 
 " Will you look, sir?" asked Harry. " If there is anj^- 
 thing there, I should like jon, who know the whole 
 story, to find it." 
 
 The chief stooped over the safe and looked behind it. 
 Everybody was now aware that something Avas going 
 to happen; and though pens continued to be dipped into 
 inkstands with zeal, and heads to be bent over desks with 
 the devotion which always seizes a junior clerk in pres- 
 ence of his chief, all eyes were furtively turned to Jo- 
 sephus' corner. 
 
 " There is a bundle of papers, " he said. " Thank j^ou. " 
 
 Harry picked them up and placed them in his hands. 
 
 The only person who paid no heed to the proceedings 
 was the most concerned. 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 385 
 
 The cliief accountant received them (a rolled bundle, 
 not a tied -up parcel, and covered inch deep with black 
 dust) . He opened it and glanced at the contents — then 
 a strange and unaccountable look came into his eyes as 
 he handed them to Josephus. 
 
 "Win you oblige me, Mr. Coppin," he said, "b}^ ex- 
 amining those papers?" 
 
 It was the first time that the title of " Mr." had been 
 bestowed upon Josephus during all the years of his long 
 servitude. He was troubled by it, and he could not 
 understand the expression in his chief's eyes; and 
 v>^hen he turned to Harry for an explanation he met 
 eyes in which the same sympathy and pity were ex- 
 pressed. When he turned to the boys, his fellow- 
 clerks, he was struck by their faces of wondering ex- 
 pectation. 
 
 What was going to happen? 
 
 Recovering his presence of mind, he held out the 
 dusty papers and shook the dust off them. 
 
 Then he began slowly to obey orders, and to examine 
 them. 
 
 Suddenly he began to turn them over with fierce 
 eagerness. His eyes flashed — he gasped. 
 
 "Come, Josephus," said his cousin, taking his arm, 
 "gently — genth'. What are they, these papers?" 
 
 The man laughed, a hysterical laugh. 
 
 " They are. "^Ha ! ha ! they are— ha ! ha ! ha !" 
 
 He did not finish because his voice failed him ; but 
 he dropped into a chair, with his head in his hands. 
 
 " They are country bank-notes and other papers," said 
 Harry, taking them from his cousin's hands — he had 
 interpreted the missing words rightly. 
 
 The chief looked round the room. "Young men," he 
 said solemnly, " a wonderful thing has happened. Af- 
 ter many years of undeserved suspicion and unmerited 
 punishment, Mr. Coppin's character is cleared at last. 
 We cannot restore to him the years he has lost, but we 
 can rejoice that his innocence is established.'' 
 
 " Come, Josephus," said Harry, " bear your good fort- 
 une as j"ou have borne the bad — rouse yourself." 
 
 The senior junior clerk lifted his head and looked 
 around. His cheeks were white. His eyes were filled 
 with tears ; his lips were trembling. 
 
386 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 " Take your cousin home, " said the chief to Harry, 
 "and then come back to my office." 
 
 Harr}" led Josephus unresisting home to the board- 
 ing-house. 
 
 " We have had a shock, Mrs. Bormalack. Nothing to 
 be alarmed about — quite the contrary. The bank-notes 
 have been found after all these years, and my cousii; 
 has earned his promotion and recovered his character. 
 Give him some brandy and water, and make him lie 
 down for a bit." 
 
 For the man was dazed — he could not understand as 
 yet what had happened. 
 
 Harry placed him in the armchair, and left him to 
 the care of the landlady. Then he went back to the 
 brewer}". 
 
 The chief brewer was with the chief accountant, and 
 they were talking over what was best to be done ; said 
 very kind things about intelligence, without which 
 good fortune and lucky finds are wasted. And they 
 promised to represent Harry's conduct in a proper ligiit 
 to Miss Messenger, who would be immediately commu- 
 nicated with; and Josephus would at once receive a 
 very substantial addition to his pay, a better position, 
 and more responsible work. 
 
 "May I suggest, gentlemen," said Harr>% "that a 
 man who is fifty-five, and has all his life been doing 
 the simple work of a junior, may not be found equal to 
 more responsible work.'' 
 
 " That may be the case." 
 
 " My cousin, when the misfortune happened, left off 
 taking any interest in things — I believe he has never 
 Oldened a book or learned anything in all these j^ears," 
 
 " Well, we shall see. " A workman was not to be 
 taken into counsel. "There is, however, something 
 here which seems to concern yourself. Your mother 
 was one Caroline Coppin, was she not?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Then these papers which were deposited by some 
 persons unknown with Mr. Messenger — most likely for 
 greater care — and placed in the safe by him, belong to 
 you; and I hope will prove of value to you." 
 
 Harry took them without much interest, and came 
 away. 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 387 
 
 In the evening Josephus held a reception. All his 
 contemporaries in the brewery — the men who entered 
 Avith himself — all those who had passed over his head, 
 all those with whom he had been a junior in the brew- 
 ery, called to congratulate him. At the moment he felt 
 as if this universal sympathy fully made up for all his 
 sufferings of the past. Nor was it until the morning 
 that he partly perceived the truth — that no amount of 
 sympathy would restore his vanished youth, and give 
 him what he had lost. 
 
 But he will never quite understand this; and he 
 looked upon himself as having begun again from the 
 point where he stopped. When the reception was over 
 and the last man gone, he began to talk about his fu- 
 ture. 
 
 "I shall go on again with the evening course," he 
 said, " just where I left off. I remember we were hav- 
 ing Monday for book-keeping by single and double en- 
 try ; Tuesday for French ; Thursday for arithmetic — 
 we were in mixed fractions; and Friday for Euclid. 
 Then I shall take up my class at the Sunday-school 
 again, and shall become a full church-member of the 
 Wesleyan connection — for though my father was once 
 churchwarden at Stepney church, I always favored the 
 Wesleyans myself." 
 
 He talked as if he was a boy again, with all his life 
 before him, and, indeed, at the moment he thought he 
 was. 
 
 CHAPTER XLHL 
 
 O MY PROPHETIC SOUL ! 
 
 Harry thought nothing about the papers which were 
 found among the notes that evening, because he was 
 wholly engaged in the contemplation of a man who 
 had suddenly gone back thirty-five years in his life. 
 The gray hairs, thin at the top and gone at the temples, 
 were not, it is true, replaced by the curly brown locks 
 of youth, though one thinks that Josephus must always 
 have been a straight-haired young man. But it was 
 remarkable to hear that man of fifty-five talking as if 
 
S83 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN 
 
 thej'ears had rolled backward, and he could take up the 
 thread of life where he had drup^jed it so long ago. 
 He spoke of his evening lectures juid his Sunday-school 
 with the enthusiasm of a boy. Ho would study — work 
 of that sort always paid : he would prepare his lessons 
 f«or the school beforehand, and stand well with the 
 superintendent : it was good for men in business offices, 
 lie said, to have a good character with the superinten- 
 dent. Above all, he would learn French and bookkeep- 
 ing, with mensuration, gauging, and astronomy, at 
 the Beaumont Institute. All those things would come 
 in useful, some time or the other, at the brewer}^ ; be- 
 sides, it helps a man to be considered studious in his 
 haibts. He became, in fact, in imagination a young 
 man once more. And because in the old days, when 
 he had a character to earn, he did not smoke tobacco, 
 so now he forgot that foriner solace of the day, his even- 
 ing pipe. 
 
 "The brewery," he said, "is a splendid thing to get 
 into. You can rise : j^ou may become — ah ! even chief 
 accountant: you may look forward to draw over a 
 thousand a year at the brewer}^, if you are steady and 
 well conducted, and get a good name. It is not every 
 one, mind you, gets the chance of such a service. And 
 once in, alvva3'S in. That's the pride of the brewery. 
 No turning out : there you stay, with your salary al- 
 ways rising, till j'ou die." 
 
 In the morning, the exultation of spirits was ex- 
 changed for a corresponding depression. Josephus went 
 to the brewer}^, knowing that he should sit on that old 
 seat of his no longer. 
 
 He went to look at it : the w^ooden stool was worn 
 black; the desk was worn black; he knew every cut 
 and scratch in the lid at which he had written so many 
 years. There were all the books at which he had 
 worked so long: not hard work, nor work requiring 
 thought, but simple entering and ticking off of names, 
 which a man can do mechanically — on summer after- 
 noons, with the window open and an occasional bee 
 buzzing in from Hainault Forest, and the sweet smell 
 of the vats and the drowsy rolling of the machinery — 
 one can do the work half asleep and never make a mis- 
 take. Now he would have to undertake some different 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF 3IEX. 389 
 
 kind of work, more responsible work : he wonld have 
 to order and direct ; he would have a chair instead of a 
 stool, and a table instead of a desk. So that he began 
 to wish that he had in the old days gone further in his 
 studies — but he was always slow at learning — before 
 the accident happened ; and to wonder if anything at 
 all remained of the knowledge he had then painfully 
 acquired after all these years. 
 
 As a matter of fact, nothing remained. Josephus 
 had become perfectly, delightfully, inconceivably stu- 
 Ijid. He had forgotten everything, and could now learn 
 no new thing. Pending the decision of Miss Messen- 
 ger, to whom the case was referred, they tried him with 
 all sorts of simple work — correspondence, answering 
 letters, any of the things which require a little intelli- 
 gence. Josephus could do nothing. He sat like a 
 lielpless boy and looked at the documents. Then they 
 let him alone, and for a while he came every da}', sat all 
 day long, half asleep, and did nothing, and was much 
 less liapp}' than when he had been kept at work from 
 nine o'clock in the morning till six o'clock at night. 
 
 When Harry remembered the packet of papers placed 
 in his hand, which was on the following morning, he 
 read them. And the effect of his reading was that he 
 did not go to work that morning at all. 
 
 He was not a lawyer, and the principal paper was a 
 legal instrument, the meaning of which it took him 
 some little time to make out. 
 
 " Hum — hum — um — why can't they write plain Eng- 
 lish. 'I give to my said tiustees, John Skelton and 
 Benjamin Bunker, the three freehold houses as follows : 
 that called number twenty-nine on Stepney Green, 
 forty-five in Beaumont Square, and twenty-three in 
 Redman's Row, upon trust to apply the rents and in- 
 come of the same as in their absolute discretion they 
 may think fit for the maintenance, education, and bene- 
 fit of the said Caroline, until she be twenty-one years 
 old or until she marry, and to invest from time to time 
 the accumulations of such rents and income as is here- 
 intofore provided, and to apply the same when invested 
 in all respects as I direct concerning the last above- 
 mentioned premises. And when the said Caroline shall 
 attain the age of twenty-one, or marr}-, I direct my said 
 
390 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 trustees to pay to her the said rents and income and the 
 income of the accumulation of the same, if any during 
 her life, by four equal quarterly payments for her sole 
 and separate use, free from the debts and engagements 
 of any husband or husbands she may marry ; and I di- 
 rect that on the death of the said Caroline my said trus- 
 tees shall hold and stand possessed of all the said prem- 
 ises for such person or persons and in such maner in 
 all respects as the said Caroline shall by deed or will 
 appoint. And in default of such appointment and so 
 far as the same shall not extend upon trust' — and so on 
 — and so on." 
 
 Harry read this document with a sense, at first, of 
 mj'stification. Then he read it a second time, and be- 
 gan to understand it. 
 
 "The houses," he said, "my mother's houses, are 
 hers, free from any debts contracted by her husband : 
 they are vested in trustees for her behalf ; she could not 
 sell or part with them. And the trustees were John 
 Skelton and Benjamin Bunker. John Skelton — gone 
 to Abraham's bosom, I suppose. Benjamin Bunker — 
 where will he go to? The houses were tied up — set- 
 tled — entailed." 
 
 He read the document right through for the third 
 time. 
 
 "So," he said. "The house at number twenty -nine 
 Stepne}' Green. That is the hoiise which Bunker calls 
 his own ; the house of the Associated Dressmakers ; and 
 it's mine — mine." He clinched his fist and looked dan- 
 gerous. " Then the house at twenty-three Redman's 
 Row, and at forty-five Beaumont Square. Two more 
 houses. Also mine. And Bunker, the perfidious Bun- 
 ker, calls them all his own! What shall be done to 
 Bunker?" 
 
 "Next," he went on, after reading the document 
 again, " Bunker is a fraudulent trustee, and his brother 
 trustee too, unless he has gone dead. Of that there can 
 be no doubt whatever. That virtuous and benevolent 
 Bunker was my mother's trustee — and mine. And he 
 calmly appropriates the trust to his own uses — Uncle 
 Bunker ! Uncle Bunker !" 
 
 " I knew from the beginning that there was some- 
 thing wrong. First, I thought he had taken a sum of 
 
ALL SORTS AXD CONDITIONS OF MEN. 391 
 
 money from Lord Jocelyn. Then I found out that lie 
 had got possession of houses in a m^^sterious manner. 
 And now I find that he was simply the trustee. 
 Wicked Uncle Bunker !" 
 
 Armed with his precious document, he put on his hat 
 and walked straight off, resolution on his front, toward 
 his vmcle's office. He arrived just when Mr. Bunker 
 was about to start on a daily round among his houses. 
 B}' this frequent visitation he kept up the hearts of his 
 tenants, and taught them the meaning of necessity; 
 so that they put by their money and religiously paid 
 the rent. Else 
 
 "Pray," said Harrj^, "be so good as to take off jouv 
 hat, and sit down and have five minutes' talk with 
 me." 
 
 "No, sir," said Bunker, "I will not. You can go 
 awa}', do 3'ou hear? Be off; let me lock my office and 
 go about ni}' own business." 
 
 " Do take off your hat, my uncle. " 
 
 "Go, sir, do you hear?" 
 
 " Sit down and let us talk — my honest — trustee !" 
 
 Mr. Bunker dropped into a chair. 
 
 In all the conversations and dramatic scenes made 
 up in his ovra mind to account for the possession of the 
 houses, it had never occurred to him that the fact of his 
 having been a trustee would come to light. All were 
 dead, except himself, who were concerned in that trust: 
 he had forgotten by this time that there was any deed : 
 by ignoring the trust he simplified, to his own mind, 
 the transfer of the houses ; and during all these years 
 he had almost forgottf^n the obligations of the trust. 
 
 "What do 5-0U mean?" he stammered. 
 
 " Virtuous uncle ! I mean that I know all. Do you 
 quite understand me? I mean really and truly all. 
 Yes : all that there is to know — all that you hide away 
 in 5"our own mind and think that no one knows." 
 
 " What — what — what do you know?" 
 
 "First, I know which the houses are — I mean my 
 houses — my mother's houses. The house in Stepney 
 Green that you have let to Miss Kennedy is one ; a house 
 in Beaumont Square — do you wish to know the num- 
 ber? — is another; and a house in Redman's Row — and 
 do you want to know the number of that? — is the third. 
 
393 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIOyS OF 3IEN. 
 
 You have collected the rents of those houses and paid 
 those rents to your own account for twenty years and 
 more." 
 
 "Go on. Let us hear what you pretend to know. 
 Suppose they were Caroline's houses, what then'?" He 
 spoke with an attempt at bounce ; but he was pale, and 
 his eyes were unsteady. 
 
 " This next. These houses, man of probity, were not 
 my mother's propert}^ to dispose of as she pleased." 
 
 '' Oh! whose were thej'", then?" 
 
 "They were settled upon her and her heirs after her; 
 and the property was placed in the hands of two trus- 
 tees: yourself, my praiseworthy; and a certain John 
 Skelton, of whom I know nothing. Presumably, he is 
 dead." 
 
 Mr. Bunker made no reply at all. But his cheek 
 grew paler. 
 
 " Shall I repeat this statement, or is that enough for 
 you?" asked Harry. "The situation is pretty, perhaps 
 not novel : the heir has gone awaj', probablj^ never to 
 come back again ; the trustee, sole surviving, no doubt 
 receives the rents. Heir comes back. Trustee swears 
 the houses are his own. When the trustee is brought 
 before a court of law and convicted, the judge sa)'s that 
 the case is one of peculiar enormit3% and must be met 
 by transportation for five-and-twenty years ; five — and 
 —twenty — years, my patriarch ! think of that, in uni- 
 form and with short hair." 
 
 Mr. Bunker said nothing. But by the agitation of 
 his fingers it was plain that he was thinking a great 
 deal. 
 
 " I told you," cried Harr5\ " I warned you, some time 
 ago, that you must now begin to think seriously about 
 handcuffs and prison, and men in blue. The time has 
 come now, when, unless 3^ou make restitution of all that 
 you have taken, action will be taken, and j^ou will real- 
 ize what it is that people think of the fraudulent trustee. 
 Uncle Bunker, my heart bleeds for you." 
 
 "Why did you come here?" asked his uncle, pit- 
 eously. "Wh}' did you come here at all? We got on 
 very well without you — very well and comfortably, in- 
 deed." 
 
 This seemed a feeble sort of bleat. But, in fact, the 
 
ALL SORTS AXD COXDITIOXS OF MEN. ?m 
 
 Bunker's mind was for the moment prostrated. He 
 had no sound resistance left. 
 
 "I offered you," he went on, "twenty-five pounds— 
 to go. _ I'll double it— there. I'll give you fifty pounds 
 to go, if you'll go at once. So that there will be an end 
 to all this trouble." 
 
 "Consider," said Harry, "there's the rent of Miss 
 Kennedy's house— sixty-five pounds a year for that; 
 there's the house in Beaumont Square— fifty for that ; 
 and the house in Redman's Row at five-and-twenty at 
 least: comes to a hundred and forty pounds a. year, 
 which you have drawn, my precious uncle, for twenty- 
 one years at least. That makes, without counting in- 
 terest, two thousand nine hundred and forty pounds. 
 And you want to buy me off for fifty pounds !" 
 
 " Not half the money— not half the money !" his uncle 
 groaned. " There's repairs and painting— and bad ten- 
 ants; not half the money." 
 
 "We will say, then," lightly replied his nephew, as 
 if nme hundred were a trifle, " we will say two thou- 
 sand pounds. The heir to that property has come back ; 
 he says, 'Give me my houses, and give me an account 
 of the discharge of your trust.' Now"— Harry rose 
 from the table on which he had been sitting— "let us 
 have no more bounce : the game is up. I have in my 
 pocket— here," he tapped his coat-pocket, "the original 
 deed itself. Do you want to know where it was found? 
 Behind a safe at the Brewery, where it was hidden by 
 your brother-in-law. Bob Coppin, with all the country 
 notes which got Josephus into a mess. As for the date 
 I will remind you that it was executed about thirtv-five 
 years ago, when my mother was still a girl and unmar- 
 ried, and 3'ou had recently married her sister. I have 
 the deed here. What is more, it has been seen by the 
 chief accountant at the Brewery, who gave it me. 
 Bunker, the game is up." 
 
 He moved toward the door. 
 
 "Have you anything to say before I go? I am now 
 going straight to a lawyer." 
 
 "What is the— the— lowest— O good Lord !— the 
 very lowest figure that you Avill take to square it? Oh ! 
 be merciful ; I am a poor man, indeed a very poor man, 
 
394 ALL SORTS AXD COXDITIOXS OF MEX. 
 
 though they think me warm. Yet I must scrape and 
 save to get along at all." 
 
 "Two thousand," said Harry. 
 
 " Make it fifteen hundred. Oh ! fifteen hundred to 
 clear off all scores, and then you can go away out of the 
 place; I could borrow fifteen hundred." 
 
 "Two thousand," Harry repeated. "Of course, be- 
 sides the houses, which are mine." 
 
 "Besides the houses? Never. You may do j^our 
 worst. You may drag your poor old uncle, now sixty 
 years of age, before the courts, but two thousand be- 
 sides the houses? Never!" 
 
 He banged the floor with his stick, but his agitation 
 was betrayed by the nervous tapping of the end upon 
 the oil-cloth which followed the first hasty bang. 
 
 "No bounce, if you please." Harry took out his 
 watch. "I will give you five minutes to decide; or, if 
 your mind is already made up, I will go and ask advice 
 of a law^'er at once." 
 
 " I cannot give you that sum of money," Bunker de- 
 clared ; " it is not that I would not ; I would if I could. 
 Business has been bad ; sometimes I've spent more than 
 I've made; and what little I've saved I meant alwaj^s 
 for you — I did, indeed. I said, 'I will make it up to 
 him. He shall have it back with ' " 
 
 "One minute gone," said Harry, relentlessly. 
 
 " Oh ! this is dreadful. Why, to get even fifteen 
 hundred I should have to sell all my little property at a 
 loss; and what a dreadful thing it is to sell property at 
 a loss ! Give me more time to consider, only a week or 
 so, just to look round." 
 
 " Three minutes left, " said Harry the hardened. 
 
 " Oh ! oh ! oh !" He burst into tears and weeping of 
 genuine grief, and shame, and rage. " Oh, that a 
 nephew should be found to persecute his uncle in such 
 awa}^! Where is your Christian charity? Where is 
 forgiving and remitting?" 
 
 " Only two minutes left," said Harry, unmoved. 
 
 Then Bunker fell upon his knees : he grovelled and 
 imploi^ed pardon; he offered one house, two houses, and 
 twelve hundred pounds, fifteen hundred pounds, eigh- 
 teen hundred pounds. 
 
 "One minute left," said Harry. 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF 3IEX. 395 
 
 Then he sat down and wiped the tears from his eyes, 
 and in good round terms — in Poplar, Limehouse, Shad- 
 well, Wajiping, and Ratcliff Highway terms — he cursed 
 his nephew, and the houses, and the trust, and all that 
 therein lay, because, before the temptation came, he 
 was an honest man, whereas now he should never be 
 able to look Stepney in the face again. 
 
 "Time's up," said Harry, putting on his hat. 
 
 In face of the inevitable, Mr. Bunker showed an im- 
 mediate change of front. He neither prayed, nor wept, 
 nor swore. He became once more the complete man 
 of business. He left the stool of humiliation, and seated 
 himself on his oa^ti Windsor chair before his own table. 
 Here, pen in hand, he seemed as if he were dictating 
 rather than accepting terms. 
 
 " Don't go," he said. " I accept." 
 
 "Very good," Harry replied. "You know what is 
 best for yourself. As for me, I don't want to make 
 more fuss than is necessary. You know the terms?" 
 
 "Two thousand down; the three houses; and a com- 
 plete discharge in full of all claims. Those are the con- 
 ditions." 
 
 "Yes, those are the conditions." 
 
 " I will draw up the discharge, " said Mr. Bunker, 
 " and then no one need be any the wiser. " 
 
 Harry laughed. This cool and business-like compro- 
 mise of felony pleased him. 
 
 " You may draw it up if j^ou like. But my opinion 
 of your ability is so great, that I shall have to show the 
 document to a solicitor for his approval and admira- 
 tion." 
 
 Mr. Bunker was disconcerted. He had hoped — that 
 is, thought — he saw his waj^; but never mind. He 
 quickly recovered and said, with decision : 
 
 " Go to Lawver Pike, in the Mile End Road . " 
 
 " ^yhy? Is the Honorable Pike a friend of j'ours?" 
 
 "No, he isn't; that is why I want you to go to him. 
 Tell him thatj'ou and I have long been wishing to clear 
 up these accounts, and that 3'ou've agreed to take the 
 two thousand with the houses." Mr. Bunker seemed 
 now chiefly anxious that the late deplorable scene should 
 be at once forgotten and forgiven. " He said the other 
 day that I was nothing better than a common grinder 
 
396 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 and oppressor. Now, when lie sees what an honorable 
 trustee I am, he will be sorry he said that. You can 
 tell everybody if you like. Why, what is it? Here's 
 my nephew comes home to me and says, 'Give me my 
 houses.' I say, 'Prove your title.' Didn't I say so? 
 How was I to know that he was my nephew? Then 
 the gentleman comes who took him away, and says, 
 'He is your long-lost nephew ; ' and I say, 'Take your 
 houses, young man, with the accumulations of the rent 
 hoarded up for you. ' Why, you can tell everybody that 
 story. " 
 
 " I will leave you to tell it, Bunker, your own way. 
 Everybody will believe that way of telling the story. 
 What is more, I will not go out of my way to contra- 
 dict it." 
 
 " Very good, then. And on that understanding I 
 withdraw all the harsh things I may have said to you, 
 nephew. And we can be good friends again. " 
 
 " Certainly, if you like, " said Harry, and fairly ran 
 away for fear of being called upon to make more con- 
 cessions. 
 
 " It's a terrible blow !" The old man sat down and 
 wiped his forehead. " To think of two thousand down ! 
 But it might have been much worse. Ah ! it might 
 have been very, very much worse. I've done better 
 than I expected, when he said he had the papers. . The 
 young man's a fool — a mere fool. The houses let for 
 £150 a year, and they have never been empty for six 
 months together; and the outside repairs are a trifle, 
 and I've saved it all every j^ear. Ha! now a hundred 
 and fifty pounds a yea." for twenty j-ears and more, 
 at compound interest only five per cent., is close on 
 £5,000. I've calculated it out often enough to know. 
 Yes, and I've made five per cent, on it, and sometimes 
 six and seven, and more, with no losses. It niight 
 have been far, far worse. It's come to £7,000 if it's a 
 penny. And to get rid of that awful fear and that 
 devil of a boy with his grins and his sneers at £2,000, 
 why, it's cheap, I call it cheap. As for the houses, I'll 
 get them back, see if I don't." 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 397 
 
 CHAPTER XLIV. 
 
 A FOOL AND HIS MONEY. 
 
 Mr. Pike, the solicitor of the Mile End Road, does 
 not belong to the stoiy— which is a pity, because he has 
 manj^ enviable qualities— further than is connected with 
 Harry's interview with him. 
 
 He read the documents and heard the story from be- 
 ginning to end. When he had quite mastered all the 
 details he began mildly to express astonishment and 
 pity that any young man could be such a fool. This 
 was hard, because Harry really thought he had done a 
 mighty clever thing. "You have been taken in, sir,"' 
 said Mr. Pike, "in a most barefaced and impudent 
 manner. Two thousand pounds ! Why, the mere rent 
 alone, without counting interest, is three thousand. 
 Go away, sir ; find out this fraudulent impostor, and tell 
 him that you will have nothing to do with him short of 
 a full account and complete restitution." 
 " I cannot do that,^" said Harry. 
 "Why not?" 
 
 "Because I have passed my word." 
 " I think, 5'oung man, you said 3-ou were a cabinet- 
 maker — though you look something' better." 
 " Yes, I belong to that trade." 
 
 " Since when, may I ask, have cabinet-makers been 
 so punctilious as to their promises?" 
 
 "The fact is," said Harry gravely, "we have turned 
 over a new leaf, and are now all on the side of truth 
 and honor." 
 
 " Humph ! Then there is nothing to do but to give 
 the man a receipt in full and a discharge. You are of 
 age; you can do this if you like. Shall I draw it up 
 for you, and receive the money, and take over the 
 houses?" 
 
 This was settled, therefore, and in this way Harry 
 became a rich man, with houses and money in the 
 funds. 
 
 As for Bunker, he made the greatest mistake in his 
 
398 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 life when he sent his nephew to Mr. Pike. He should 
 have known, but he was like the ostrich when he runs 
 his head into the sand, and believes from the secure re- 
 treat that he is invisible to his hunters. For his own 
 version of the incident was palpably absurd ; and, be- 
 sides, Mr. Pike heard Harry's account of the matter. 
 Therefore, though Bunker thought to heap coals of lire 
 upon his enemy's head, he only succeeded in throwing 
 them under his feet, which made him kick — "for who 
 can go upon hot coals and his feet not be burned?" The 
 good man is now, therefore, laboring under a cloud of 
 prejudice which does not seem to lift, though perhaps he 
 will live it down. Other events have happened since, 
 which have operated to his prejudice. Ever3'body 
 knows how he received his nephew; what wicked things 
 lie said everywhere about him ; and what rumors he 
 spread about ]\Iiss Kennedy : everybody knows that he 
 had to disgorge houses — actually, houses — which he had 
 appropriated. This knowledge is common property; 
 and it is extremely unpleasant for ]\Ir. Bunker when he 
 takes his walks abroad to be cruellj" assailed by ques- 
 tions which hit harder than any brickbat: they are 
 hurled at him by working-men :ind by street boys. 
 " Who stole the 'ouse'?" for instance, is a very nasty 
 thing to be said to a gentleman who is professionally 
 connected with house property. I know not how this 
 knowledge came to be so generally known. Certainly 
 Harry did not spread it abroad. People, however, are 
 not fools, and can put things together ; where the evil- 
 doings and backslidings of their friends are concerned 
 they are surprisingly sharp. 
 
 Now when the ownership of the house in Stepney 
 Green became generally known, there immediately 
 sprang up, as always happens on occasions of discovery, 
 rooting-out of facts, or exposure of wickedness, quite a 
 large crop of old inhabitants ready to declare that they 
 knew all along that the house on Stepney Green was 
 one of those belonging to old Mr. Coppin. He bought 
 it, they said, of Mr. Messenger, who was born there; 
 and it was one of three left to Caroline, who died 
 young. Who would believe that Mr. Bunker could 
 have been so wicked? Where is faith in brother man 
 since so eminent a professor of honesty has fallen? 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 399 
 
 Mr. Bunker suffers, but he suffers in silence; he may 
 be seen any day in the neighborhood of Stepney Green, 
 still engaged in his usual business; people may talk be- 
 hind his back, but talk breaks no bones; they don't 
 dare talk before his face; though he has lost two thous- 
 and pounds, there is still money left — he feels that he 
 is a warm man, and has money to leave behind him ; 
 it will be said of him that he cut up well. Warmth of 
 all kinds comforts a man ; but he confesses with a pang 
 that he did wrong to send his nephew to that lawyer, 
 who took the opportunity, when he drew up the dis- 
 charge and receipt, of giving him an opinion — unasked 
 and unpaid for — as to his conduct in connection with 
 the trust. There could be no mistake at all about the 
 meaning and force of that opinion. And, oddly 
 enough, whenever Mr. Bunker sees the queen's omni- 
 bus — that dark painted vehicle, driven by a policeman — 
 pass along the road, he thinks of Mr. Pike, and that 
 opinion returns to hismemor}^, and he feels just exactly 
 as if a bucket of cold water was trickling down his 
 back by the nape of the neck. Even in warm weather 
 this is disagreeable. And it shows that the lawj^er 
 must have spoken very strong words indeed, and that 
 although Mr. Bunker, like the simple ones and the 
 scorners, wished for none of the lawyer's counsel, un- 
 like them he did not despise their reproof. Yet he is 
 happier, now that the blow has fallen, than he was 
 while he was awaiting it and dreaming of handcuffs. 
 
 We anticipate ; but we have, indeed, seen almost the 
 last of Mr. Bunker. It is sad to part with him. But 
 we have no choice. 
 
 In the evening Harry went as usual to the draw- 
 ing-room. He stayed, however, after the girls went 
 away. There Avas nothing unusual in his doing so. 
 "Girls in my position," said the dressmaker, "are not 
 tied by the ordinary rules." To-night, however, he 
 had something to say. 
 
 "Congratulate me," he cried, as soon as they were 
 alone. " I have turned out, as the story-books say, to 
 be the heir to vast sums of money." 
 
 Angela turned pale. She was reassured, however, 
 on learning the extent of the heritage. 
 
 "Consider my romantic story," said Harry. "In- 
 
400 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 stead of finding myself the long-lost heir, strawberry- 
 mark and all, to an earldom, 1 am the son of a sergeant 
 in the Line. And then, just as I am getting over the 
 blow, I find myself the owner of three houses and 
 two thousand pounds. What workman ever had two 
 thousand pounds before? There was an under-gardener 
 I knew," he went on meditatively, "who once got a 
 hundred; he called it a round hundred, I remember. 
 He and his wife went on the hospitable drink for a 
 fortnight; then they went to hospital for a month with 
 trimmings; cind then went back to work — the money 
 all gone — and joined the Primitive Methodists. Can't 
 we do something superior in the shape of a burst or 
 a boom, for the girls, with two thousand pounds?" 
 
 " Tell me," said Angela, "how you got it." 
 
 He narrated the whole story, for her instruction and 
 amusement, with some dramatic force, impersonating 
 Bunker's wrath, terror, and entreaties, and final busi- 
 ness-like collapse. 
 
 " So that, " said Angela, " you are now a man of 
 property, and will, I suppose, give up the work at the 
 brewery." 
 
 " Do you think I should?" 
 
 " I do not like to see any man idle, and" — she hesi- 
 tated — "especially you." 
 
 "Thank you," said Harry. "Then I remain. The 
 question of the two thousand pounds — my cool two 
 thousand — I am the winner of the two thousand — in re- 
 serve. As for this house, however, decided steps must 
 be taken. Listen, Queen of the Mystery of Dress ! You 
 pay Bunker sixty-five pounds a year or so for the rent 
 of this house; that is a good large deduction from the 
 profits of the Association. I have been thinking, if you 
 approve, that I will have this house conveyed to you in 
 trust for the Association. Then you will be rent-free." 
 
 " But that is a very, very generous offer. You really 
 wish to give us this house altogether for ourselves !" 
 
 " If 5'ou will accept it." 
 
 "You have only these houses, and you give us the 
 best of them. Is it right and just to strip yourself?" 
 
 " How many houses should I have? Now there are 
 two left, and their rent brings in seventy pounds a year, 
 and I have two thousand pounds which will bring in 
 
ALL SORTS AXD CONDITIONS OF MEN. 401 
 
 another eighty pounds a year. I am rich — much too 
 rich for a common cabinet-maker." 
 
 " Oh !" she said, " what can we do but accept? And 
 how shall we show our gratitude? But, indeed, we 
 can do nothing. " 
 
 "I want nothing," said Harry. "I have had so 
 much happiness in this place that I can want for noth- 
 ing. It is for me to show my gratitude." 
 
 " Thank you," she replied, giving him her hand. He 
 stooped and kissed it, but humbl}", as one w^ho accepts 
 a small favor gratefully and asks for no more. 
 
 They were alone in the drawing-room; the fire was 
 low; only one lamp was burning; Angela was sitting 
 beside the fire; her face was turned from him. A 
 mighty wave of love w^as mounting in the young man's 
 brain; but a little more, a very little more, and he 
 would have been kneeling at her feet. She felt the 
 danger ; she felt it the more readily because she was 
 so deeply moved herself. What had she given the 
 girls, out of her abundance, compared with what he 
 had given out of his slender portion? Her eyes filled 
 with tears. Then she sprang to her feet and touched 
 his hand again. 
 
 '• Do not forget j^^our promise," she said. 
 
 " My promise? Oh ! how long " 
 
 "Patience," she replied. '' Give me a little while — a 
 little while — onh^ — and " 
 
 "Forgive me," he said, kissfng her hand again. 
 "Forgive me." 
 
 "Let me go," she went on. "It is eleven o'clock." 
 They put out the lamp and went out. The night was 
 clear and bright. 
 
 " Do not go in just j'et," said Harry. " It is pleasant 
 out here, and I think the stars are brighter than they 
 are at the West End." 
 
 '■' Everything is better here, " said Angela, " than at 
 the West End . Here we have hearts, and can feel for 
 each other. Here we are all alike — workmen and work- 
 women together." 
 
 " You are a prejudiced person. Let us talk of the 
 Palace of Delight — your dream." 
 
 "Your invention," said Angela. 
 
 "Won't mv two thousand go some Avav in starting 
 
402 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 it? Perhaps, if we could just start it, the thing would 
 go on of its own accord. Why, see what you have 
 done with j^our girls already." 
 
 " But I must have a big Palace — a noble building, fur- 
 nished with everj'thing that we want. No, my friend, 
 we will take your house because it is a great and noble 
 gift, but you shall not sacrifice your money. Yet we 
 will have that Palace, and before long. And when it 
 is ready " 
 
 "Yes, when it is ready." 
 
 "Perhaps the opening of the Palace will be, for all 
 of us, the beginning of a new happiness. " 
 
 " You speak in a parable. " 
 
 " No," she said, " I speak in sober earnestness. Now 
 let me go. Remember what I say ; the opening of the 
 Palace may be, if you will — for all of us " 
 
 " For you and me?" 
 
 "For — yes — for you — and for me. Good-night." 
 
 CHAPTER XLV. 
 
 LADY DAVENANT'S DINNER-PARTY. 
 
 Lady Davenant had now been in full enjoyment of 
 her title in Portman Square, where one enjoys such 
 things more thoroughly than on Stepney Green, for 
 four or five weeks. She at first enjoyed it so much that 
 she thought of nothing but the mere pleasure of the 
 greatness. She felt an uplifting of heart every time 
 she walked up and down the stately stairs; another 
 every time she sat at the well-furnished dinner table ; 
 and another whenever she looked about her in the 
 drawing-room. She wrote copious letters to her friend 
 Aurelia Tucker during these days. She explained with 
 fulness of detail, and in terms calculated to make that 
 lady expire of envy, the splendor of her position ; and 
 for at least five weeks she felt as if the hospitality of 
 Miss Messenger actually brought with it a complete re- 
 cognition of her claim. Her husband, not so sanguine 
 as herself, knew very well that the time would come 
 when the Case would haA'e to be taken up again and 
 sent in to the proper quarter for examination. Mean- 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 403 
 
 time he was resigned, and even happy. Three square 
 meals a day, each of them abundant, each a masterpiece 
 of art, were enough to satisfy that remarkable tAvist 
 which, as her ladyship was persuaded, one knows not 
 on what grounds, had always been a distinguishing 
 mark of the Davenants. Familiarity speedily recon- 
 ciled him to the presence of the footmen ; he found in 
 the library a most delightful chair in which he could 
 sleep all the morning; and it pleased him to be driven 
 through the streets in a luxurious carriage under soft, 
 warm furs, in which one can take the air and get a 
 splendid appetite without fatigue. 
 
 They were seen about a great deal. It was a part of 
 Angela's design that they should, when the time came 
 for going back again, seem to themselves to have 
 formed a part of the best society in London. There- 
 fore she gave instructions to her maid that her visitors 
 were to go to all the public places, the theatres, con- 
 certs, exhibitions, and places of amusement. The little 
 American lady knew so little what she ought to see and 
 whither she ought to go, that she fell back on Campion 
 for advice and help. It was Campion who suggested a 
 theatre in the evening, the Exhibition of Old Masters 
 or the Grosvenor Gallery in the morning, and Regent 
 Street in the afternoon; it was Campion who pointed 
 out the recognized superiority of Westminster Abbey, 
 considered as a place of worship for a lady of exalted 
 rank, over a chapel up a back street, of the Baptist per- 
 suasion, to which at her own home Lady Davenant had 
 belonged. It was Campion who went with her and 
 showed her the shops, and taught her the delightful art 
 of spending her money — the money "lent" her by ]\Iiss 
 Messenger — in the manner becoming to a peeress. She 
 was so clever and sharp, that she caught at every hint 
 dropped by the lady's-maid ; she reformed her husband's 
 ideas of evening-dress ; she humored his weaknesses ; 
 she let him keep his eyes wide open at a farce or a bal- 
 let on the understanding that at a concert or a sermon 
 he might blamelessly sleep through it; she even began 
 to acquire rudimentary ideas on the principles of art! 
 
 "I confess, my dear Aurelia," she wrote, "that habit 
 soon renders even these marble halls familiar. I have 
 become perfectly reconciled to the splendor of Enghsh 
 
404 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 patrician life, and now feel as if I had beei jora, to it. 
 Tall footmen no longer frighten me, nor ine shouting 
 of one's name after the theatre. Of course the oatwartl 
 marks of respect one receives as one's due, when one 
 belongs, by the gift of Providence, to a great and noble 
 house." 
 
 This was all very pleasant ; yet Lady Davenant be- 
 gan to yearn for somebody, if it were only Mrs, Bor- 
 malack, with whom she could converse. She wanted 
 a long chat. Perhaps Miss Kennedy or Mrs. Bor- 
 malack, or the sprightly Mr. Goslett, might be induced 
 to come and spend a morning with her, or a whole day, 
 if only they would not feel shy and frightened in so 
 splendid a place. 
 
 Meantime some one " connected with the Press" got 
 to hear of a soi-clisant Lord Daveiiant who was often 
 to be seen with his wife in boxes at theatres and other 
 places of resort. He heard, this intellectual connection 
 of the Press, people asking each other who Lord Dave- 
 nant was ; he incjuired of the Red Book, and received 
 no response ; he thereupon perceived that here was an 
 opportunity for a sensation and a mystery. He found 
 out where Lord Davenant was living, b}" great good 
 luck — it was through taking a single four of whiskey 
 in a bar frequented by gentlemen in plush ; and he pro- 
 ceeded to call upon his lordship and to interview him. 
 
 The result appeared in a long cominuuique which 
 attracted general and immediate interest. The jour- 
 nalist set forth at length and in the most graphic man- 
 ner the strange and romantic career of the condescend- 
 ing wheelwright; he showed how the discovery was 
 made, and how, after many years, the illustrious pair 
 had crossed the Atlantic to put forward their claim ; and 
 how they were offered the noble hospitalitj' of a young 
 lady of princely fortune. It was a most delightful god- 
 send to the paper in which it appeared, and it came at 
 a time when the House was not sitting, and there was 
 no wringle-wrangle of debates to furnish material for 
 the columns of big tjq^e which are supposed to sway 
 the masses. The other papers therefore seized upon the 
 topic and had leading articles upon it, in which the 
 false Demetrius, the pretending Palseologus, Perkin 
 Warbeck, Lambert Simnel, George Psalmanazar, the 
 
ALL SOFTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 405 
 
 Languishing Nobleman, the Earl of Mar, the Count of 
 Albany, with other claims and claimants, fiirnished 
 illustrations to the claims of the Davenants. The pub- 
 licity given to the Case by these articles delighted her 
 ladyship beyond everj^thing, while it abashed and con- 
 founded her lord. He saw in it the beginning of more 
 exertion, and strenuous efforts after the final recog- 
 nition. And she carefully cut out all the articles and 
 sent them to her nephew Nicholas, to her friend Au- 
 relia Tucker, and to the editor of the Canaan City 
 Express with her compliments. And she felt all the 
 more, in the midst of this excitement, that if she did 
 not have some one to talk to she must go back to Step- 
 ney Green and spend a day. Or she would die. 
 
 It was at this juncture that Campion, perhaps in- 
 spired by secret instructions, suggested that her lady- 
 ship must be feeling a little lonely, and must want 
 to see her friends. Why not, she said, ask them to 
 dinner ''' 
 
 A dinner-party, Lady Davenant reflected, would 
 serve not only to show her old friends the reality of her 
 position, but would also please them as a mark of kindly 
 remembrance. Only, she reflected, dinner at Stepney 
 Green had not the same meaning that it possesses at 
 the West End. The best dinner in that locality is that 
 which is most plentiful, and there are no attempts made 
 to decorate a table. Another thing, dinner is taken 
 universally between one o'clock and two. " I think, 
 Clara Martha," said his lordship, whom she consulted 
 in this affair of state, "that at any time of day such a 
 Feast of Belshazzar as you will give them will be grate- 
 ful ; and they vcvaj call it dinner or supper, which ever 
 they please." 
 
 Thereupon Lady Davenant wrote a letter to Mrs. 
 Bornicilack inviting the whole part}'. She explained 
 that they had met with the most splendid hospitality 
 from Miss Messenger, in whose house they were still 
 staying; that they had become public characters, and 
 had been the subject of discussion in the papers, which 
 caused them to be much stared at and followed in the 
 streets, and in theatres and concert-rooms; that they 
 were both convinced that their case would soon be tri- 
 umphant ; that they frequently talked over old friends 
 
406 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 of Stepney, and regretted that the distance between 
 tlieni was so great — tbougli distance, she added kindly, 
 cannot divide hearts; and that, if Mrs. Bormalack's 
 party would come over together and dine with them, 
 it would be taken as a great kindness, both by herself 
 and by his lordship. Siio added that she hoped they 
 would all come, including Mr. Fagg and old Mr. Mal- 
 iphant and Mr. Josephus, "though," she added with a 
 little natural touch, " I doubt whether Mr. Maliphant 
 ever gave me a thought; and Mr. Josephus was always 
 too much occupied with his own misfortunes to mind 
 any business of mine. And, dear Mrs. Bormalack, 
 please remember that when we speak of dinner we mean 
 what you call supper. It is exactly the same thing, 
 only served a little earlier. We take ours at eight 
 o'clock instead of nine. His lordship desires me to add 
 that he shall be extremely disappointed if Mr. Goslett 
 does not come; and you will tell Miss Kennedj^, whose 
 kindness I can never forget, the same from me, and 
 that she must bring Nelly and Rebekah and Captain 
 Sorensen." 
 
 The letter was received with great admiration. Jo- 
 sephus, who had blossomed into a complete new suit of 
 clothes of juvenile cut, declared that the invitation did 
 her ladyship great credit, and that now his misfortunes 
 were finished he should be rejoiced to take his place 
 in society. Harry laughed, and said that of course he 
 would go. ''And you. Miss Kennedy?" 
 
 Angela colored. Then she said that she would try 
 to go. 
 
 " And if Mr. Maliphant and Daniel only go too," said 
 Harry, " we shall be as delightful a party as were ever 
 gathered together at one dinner-table." 
 
 It happened that about this time Lord Jocelj'n re- 
 membered the American claimants, and his promise to 
 call upon them. He therefore called, and was received 
 with the greatest cordiality by her little ladj^ship, and 
 with T^'ondrous affability, as becomes one man of rank 
 toward another, by Lord Davanant. 
 
 It was her ladyship who volubly explained their 
 claim to him, and the certainty of the assumption that 
 their Timothy Clitheroe was the lost heir to the same 
 two Christian names ; her husband only folded his fat 
 
ALL SORTS AXD CONDITIONS OF MEN. 407 
 
 hands over each other, and from time to time wagged 
 his head. 
 
 ''You are the first of my husband's brother peers," 
 she said, "who has called upon us. We shall not for- 
 get this kindness from your lordship. " 
 
 "But I am not a peer at all," he explained; "lam 
 only a younger son with a courtesy title. I am quite a 
 small personage." 
 
 "Which makes it all the kinder," said her ladyship; 
 " and I must say that, grand as it is, in this big house, 
 one does get tired of hearin' no voice but your own — • 
 and my husband spends a good deal of his time in the 
 study. Oh ! a man of great literary attainments, and 
 a splendid mathematician. I assure your lordship not 
 a man or a boy in Canaan City can come near him in 
 algebra." 
 
 " Up to a certain point, Clara Martha," said her hus- 
 band, meaning that there might be lofty heights in 
 science to which even he himself could no^ soar. 
 "Quadratic equations, my lord." 
 
 Lord Jocelyn made an original remark about the im- 
 portance of scientific pursuits. 
 
 " And since you are so friendh^" continued her lady- 
 ship, " I will venture to invite your lordship to dine 
 with us." 
 
 " Certainly. I shall be greatly pleased." 
 
 " We have got a few friends coming to-morrow even- 
 ing, " said her ladyship, rather grandly. " Friends from 
 Whitechapel." 
 
 Lord Jocelyn looked curious. 
 
 " Yes, Mr. Josephus Coppin and his cousin Mr. Gos- 
 lett, a sprightly young man who respects rank." 
 
 " He is coming, is he?" asked Lord Jocel3'n, laughing. 
 
 " And then there is Miss Kennedy " 
 
 "She is coming too?" He rose with alacrity. "Lady 
 Davenant, I shall be most happy to come, I assure j'ou." 
 
 It was most unfortunate that next day Miss Kennedy 
 had such a dreadful headache, that she founds herself 
 prevented from going with the rest. This was a great 
 disappointment, and at the last moment old Mr. Malir 
 pliant could not be found, and they had to start without 
 him. 
 
 -How they performed the journey, how Harry man- 
 
408 ALL SORTS AXD CONDITIOXS OF 31 EN. 
 
 aged to let most of the party go on before, because of 
 his foohsh pride, which would not let him form one of 
 a flock all going out together, and how he with Captain 
 Sorensen and Nelly came on after the rest, may be 
 passed over. 
 
 When he got to Portman Square, he found the first 
 detachment already 'arrived, and, to his boundless 
 astonishment, his guardian. Lady Davenant, arrayed 
 in her black velvet and the jewels wdiich Angela gave 
 her, looked truly magnificent. Was it possible, Mrs. 
 Bormalack thought, that such a transformation could 
 be effected in a woman by a velvet gown? She even 
 looked tall. She received her friends with unaffected 
 kindness, and introduced them all to Lord Jocelyn. 
 
 " Mrs. Bormalack, your lordship, my former land- 
 lady, and always my very good friend. Professor 
 Climo, your lordship, the famous conjurer. And I'm 
 sure the way he makes things disappear makes you 
 believe in magic. Mr. Fagg, the great scholar; of 
 whom, perhaps, your lordship lias heard. Mr. Josephus 
 Coppin, who has been unfortunate." Lord Jocelyn 
 w^ondered what that meant. " Miss Rebekah Hermitage, 
 whose father is minister of the Seventh Day Indepen- 
 dents, and a most respectable connection, though small 
 in number. Captain Sorensen, your lordship, who comes 
 from the Trinity Almshouse, and Nellie his daughter; 
 and Mr. Goslett. And I think that is all; and the 
 sooner they let us have dinner the better. '' 
 
 Lord Jocelyn shook hands with everybody. When 
 it came to Harry, ho laughed, and they both laughed, 
 but they did not say why. 
 
 "And where is Miss Kennedy?" asked her ladyship. 
 And there were great lamentations. " I wanted your 
 lordship to see Miss Kennedy. Oh, there's nobody like 
 Miss Kennedy — is there, Nelly?" 
 
 " Nobody, " said Nelly. "There can be nobody like 
 Miss Kenned5^" liOrd Joceh'n w-as struck wnth the 
 beauty of this girl, whom he remembered seeing at the 
 dressmakery. He began to hope that she would sit 
 next to him at dinner. 
 
 " Nobody half so beautiful in all Stepney, is there?" 
 
 "Nobody half so good," said Rebekah. 
 
 Then the dinner was announced, and there was con- 
 
ALL SORTS AND COXDITIOys OF 3IEX. 409 
 
 fusion in going down, because nobody would go before 
 Lord Jocelyn, who, therefore, had to lead the way. 
 Lord Davenant offered his arm to Mrs. Bormalack, 
 Harry to Nelly, and Captain Sorensen to Rebekah. 
 The professor, Mr. Fagg, and Josephus came last. 
 
 "To be sure," said Mrs. Bormalack, looking about 
 her, thankful that she had put on her best cap, "' mag- 
 nificence was expected, as was your lordship's due, but 
 such as this — no, young man, I never take soup unless 
 I've made it mj^self, and am quite sure — such as this, 
 my lord, we did not expect." 
 
 She was splendid in her beautiful best cap, all rib- 
 bons and bows, with an artificial dahlia in it of a far- 
 off fashion — say, the forties; the sight of the table, 
 with its plate and flowers and fruit, filled her with ad- 
 miration, but, as she now says in recalling that stu- 
 pendous feed, there was too much ornament, which 
 kept her mind off the cooking, so that she really car- 
 ried away no new ideas for Stepney use. Nelly did sit 
 next to Lord Jocelyn, who talked with her, and found 
 that she was shy until he touched upon Miss Kennedy. 
 Then she waxed eloquent, and told him marvels, for- 
 getting that he was a stranger who probably knew and 
 cared nothing about Miss Kennedy. But Nelly be- 
 longed to that very numerous class which believes its 
 own affairs of the highest interest to the world at" 
 large, and in this instance Miss Kennedy was a subject 
 of the deepest interest to her neighbors. Wherefore he 
 listened while she told what had been done for the 
 workgirls by one woman, one of themselves. 
 
 Opposite, on Lady Davenant's left, sat Captain Sor- 
 ensen. In the old days the captains of East Indiamen 
 were not unacquainted with great men's tables, but 
 it was long since he had sat at such a feast. Presently 
 Lord JoCel3'n began to look at him curiousl3^ 
 
 "Who is the old gentleman opposite?" he whispered 
 to Nelly. 
 
 " That is my father; he was a captain once, and com- 
 manded a great ship." 
 
 "I thought so," said Lord Jocelyn. "I remember 
 him, but he has forgotten me." 
 
 Next to the captain sat Rebekah, looking prepared for 
 any fate, and not unduly uplifted by the splendor of 
 
410 ALL SORTS AND ('OyDrriOXS OF MEX. 
 
 the scene. But for her, as well as for nearly all who 
 were present, the word dinner will henceforth have 
 a new and exalted meaning. The length of the feast, 
 the number of things olfered, the appointments of the 
 table, struck her imagination ; she thought of Belshazzar 
 and of Herod ; such as the feast before her were those 
 feasts of old; she tasted the champagne, and it took 
 away her breath; j-et it seemed good. Mr. Goslett 
 seemed to think so too, because he drank so many 
 glasses. 
 
 So did the others, and, being inexperienced in wine, 
 they drank with more valor than discretion, so that 
 the}' began to talk loud, but that was not till later. 
 
 "Do people — rich people — always dine like this?" 
 asked Nelh' of her neighbor. 
 
 " Something like this ; yes, that is, some such dinner, 
 though simpler, is always prepared for them." 
 
 "I Avas thinking," she said, "how differently people 
 live. I would rather live in our way — with Miss Ken- 
 nedy — than in so much grandeur." 
 
 " Grandeur soon becomes a matter of habit. But as 
 for ]\Iiss Keimedy, you cannot live always with her, 
 can 3'ou?" 
 
 " Why not?" 
 
 "Weil, she may marry, you know." 
 
 Nelly looked across the table at Harry. 
 
 " I suppose she will; we all of us hope she will, if it 
 is to stay with us ; but that need not take her away 
 from us." 
 
 " Do you know Miss Messenger?" 
 
 "No," said Nelly; "she has been very kind to us; 
 she is our best customer, she sends us all sorts of kind 
 messages, and presents even ; and she sends us her love 
 and best wishes; I think she must be very fond of 
 Miss Kennedy. She promises to come some day and 
 visit us. Whenever I think of Miss Messenger, I 
 think, somehow, that she must be like Miss Kennedy ; 
 only I cannot understand Miss Kennedy being rich and 
 the OA\Tier of this great house." 
 
 When the ladies retired, at length, it became mani- 
 fest that Josephus had taken more wine than was good 
 for him. He laughed loudly; he told everybody that 
 he was going to begin all over again, classes and lect- 
 
ALL SOBTS AND COXDITIOXS OF MEN. 411 
 
 ures and everything, including the Sunday-school and 
 the church membership. The professor, who, for his 
 part, seemed indisposed for conversation, retained the 
 master}'' over his fingers, and began to prepare little 
 tricks, and presently conveyed oranges into'Lord Dave- 
 nant's coat-tails without moving from his chair. And 
 Daniel Fagg, whose cheek was flushed, and whose 
 eyes were sparkling, rose from his chair, and attacked 
 Lord Jocelyn, note-book in hand. 
 
 " Is your lo'ship," he began, with a perceptible thick- 
 ness of speech — Lord Jocelyn recognized him as the 
 man whom he had accosted at Stepney Green, and who 
 subsequently took dinner with the girls — "is your 
 lo'ship int'rested in Hebrew schriptions?" 
 
 " Very much indeed," said Lord Jocelyn, politely. 
 
 " 'Low me to put your lo'ship's name down for schrip- 
 tion, twelve-and-six? Book will come out next month, 
 Miss Ken'dy says so." 
 
 "Put up your book, Daniel," said Harry sternly, 
 "and sit down." 
 
 " I want — show — his lo'ship — a Hebrew schription." 
 
 He sat down, however, obediently, and immediately 
 fell fast asleep. 
 
 Said Lord Jocelyn to Captain Sorensen : 
 
 " I remember you, captain, very well indeed, but you 
 have forgotten me. Were you not in command of the 
 Sussex in the year of the Mutiny? Did you not take 
 me out with the 120th?" 
 
 " To be sure — to be sure I did ; and I remember 5"our 
 lordship very well, and am very glad to find 3'ou re- 
 member me. You were younger then." 
 
 "I was; and how goes it with you now, captain? 
 Cheerfully as of old?" 
 
 " Ay, ay, my lord. I'm in the Trinity Almshouse, 
 and my daughter is with Miss Kennedy, bless her! 
 Therefore I've nothing to complain of." 
 
 "May I call upon you, some day, to talk over old 
 t"imes? You used to sing a good song in those days, 
 and play a good tune, and dance a good dance. " 
 
 "Come, my lord, as often as 5-ou like," he replied in 
 great good-humor. "The cabin is small, but it's cozy, 
 and the place is hard to get at." 
 
 "It is the queerest dinner I ever had, Harry," Lord 
 
412 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 Jocelyn whispered. "I like our old captain and his 
 daughter. Is the hard-hearted dressmaker prettier than 
 Nellie?" 
 
 "Prettier! why, there is no comparison possible." 
 
 "Yet NeWy hath a pleasing manner." 
 
 " Miss Kennedy turns all her girls into ladies. Come 
 and see her." 
 
 " Perhaps, Harry, perhaps ; when she is no longer 
 hard-hearted; when she has named the happy day." 
 
 "This evening," said Lady Davenant, when they 
 joined her, " will be one that I never can forget. For 
 I've had my old friends round me, who were kind in 
 our poverty and neglect; and now I've your lordship, 
 too, Avho belongs to the new time. So that that it is a 
 joining together, as it were, and one don't feel like step- 
 ping out of our place into another quite different, as I 
 shall tell Aurelia, who says she is afraid that splendor 
 may make me forget old friends ; whereas there is no- 
 body I should like to have with us this moment better 
 than Aurelia. But perhaps she judges others by her- 
 self." 
 
 " Lor !*' cried ]\Irs. Bormalack, " to hear 3'our lady- 
 ship go on ! It's like an angel of goodness." 
 
 " And the only thing that vexes me — it's enough to 
 spoil it all — is that Miss Kennedy couldn't come. Ah ! 
 my lord, if you had only seen Miss Kennedy! Re- 
 bekali and Nellj^ are two good girls and prett}'^, but 
 you are not to compare with Miss Kennedy — are 3'ou, 
 dears'?" 
 
 They both shook their heads, and were not offended. 
 
 It was past eleven when they left to go home in cabs ; 
 one contained the sleeping forms of Joseph us and Mr. 
 Fagg ; the next contained Captain Sorensen and Nelly, 
 with Harry. The Professor, who had yjartly revived, 
 came with Mrs. Bormalack and Rebekah in the last. 
 
 "You seemed to know Lord Jocelyn, Mr. Goslett," 
 said the captain. 
 
 " I ought to, " replied Harry simply ; " he gave me 
 my education." 
 
 " He was always a brave and generous officer, I re- 
 member," the captain M-ent on. " Yes, I remember him 
 well; all the men would have followed him everywhere. 
 Well, he says he will come and see me." 
 
ALL SORTS AXD CONDITIONS OF MEN. 413 
 
 "Then he will come," said Harrj-, "if he said so." 
 " Very good ; if he comes, he shall see Miss Kennedy 
 too, " 
 
 CHAPTER XLVI. 
 
 THE END OF THE CASE. 
 
 This dinner, to which her ladyship will always look 
 back with the liveliest satisfaction, was the climax, the 
 highest point, so to speak, of her greatness, which was 
 destined to have a speedy fall. Angela asked Lord 
 Joceljm to read through the papers and advise. She 
 told him of the professor's discovery, and of the book 
 which had belonged to the wheelwright, and every- 
 thing. Of course the opinion which he formed was 
 exaclly that formed by Angela herself, and he told her 
 so. 
 
 " I have asked them to my house," Angela wrote, " be- 
 cause I want them to go home to their oVn people with 
 pleasant recollections of their stay in London, I should 
 like them to feel, not that their claim had broken down, 
 and that they were defeated, but that it had been ex- 
 amined, and was held to be not proven. I should be 
 very sorry if I thought that the little lady would cease 
 to believe in her husband's illustrious descent. Will 
 you help me to make her keep her faith as far as 
 possible and go home with as little disappointment as 
 possible?" 
 
 " I will try," said Lord Jocelyn. 
 
 He wrote to Lady Davenant that he had given care- 
 ful consideration to the Case, and had taken opinions, 
 which was also true, because he made a lawyer, a her- 
 ald, and a peer all read the documents, and write him 
 a letter on the subject. He dictated all three letters, 
 it is true; but there is generally something to conceal 
 in this world of compromises. 
 
 He went solemnl}- to Portman Square bearing these 
 precious documents with him. To Lady Davenant his 
 opinion was the most important step which had yet 
 occurred in the history of the claim; she placed her 
 husband in the hardest arm-chair that she could find, 
 
414 ALL SORTS AXD COXDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 with strict injunctions to keep broad awake; and she 
 had a great array of pens and paper laid out on tlie 
 tabe in order to look business-like. It must be owned 
 that tlie good feeling of the last two months, with car- 
 riage exercise, had greatly increased his lordship's ten- 
 dency to sleep and inaction. As for the Case, he had 
 almost ceased to think of it. The Case meant worry, 
 coi>ying out, writing and re-writing, hunting up facts, 
 and remembering; when the Case was put away he 
 could give up his mind to breakfast, lunch, and dimior. 
 Never had the present moment seemed so delightful to 
 him. 
 
 Lord Jocleyn wore an expression of great gravity, 
 as befitted the occasion. In fact, he was intrusted with 
 an exceedingly delicate mission; he had to tell these 
 v/orthy peo})le that there was not the slightest hope for 
 them ; to recommend them to go home again ; and, 
 though the counsel would be clothed in sugared words, 
 to renounce forever the hope of proving their imaginary 
 claim. But it is better to be told these things kindly 
 and sympathetically, by a man with a title, than by 
 any coarse or common lawyer. 
 
 "Before I begin'' — Lord Jocelyn addressed himself 
 to the lady instead of her husband — " I would ask if 
 you have any relic at all of that first Timothy Clitheroe 
 who is buried in your cemetery at Canaan City?" 
 
 " There is a book," said her ladyship. " Here it is." 
 
 She handed him a little book of songs, roughly bound 
 in leather; on the title-page was written at the top 
 "Satturday," and at the bottom "Davvenant." 
 
 Lord Jocelyn laid the book down and opened his case. 
 
 First, he reminded them that Miss Messenger in her 
 first letter had spoken of a possible moral, rather than 
 legal, triumph; of a possible failure to establish the 
 claim before a committee of the House of Peers to whom 
 it would be referred. This, in his opinion, was the 
 actual difficulty ; he had read the Case, as it had been 
 carefully drawn up and presented by his lordship — and 
 he complimented the writer upon his lucid and excellent 
 style of drawing up of facts — and he had submitted the 
 Case for the opinion of friends of his own, all of them 
 gentlemen eminently projier \o form and to express an 
 opinion on such a subject. He held the opinions of 
 
ALL SORTS A^'D CONDITIONS OF MEN. 415 
 
 these gentlemen in his hands. One of them was from 
 Lord de Lusignan, a nobleman of very ancient descent. 
 His lordship wrote that there were very strong grounds 
 for supposing it right to investigate a case which pre- 
 sented, certainl}', very remarkable coincidences, if noth- 
 ing more; that further investigations ought to be made 
 on the spot ; and that, if this Timothy Clitheroe Dave- 
 nant turned out to be the lost heir, it would be another 
 romance in the history of the Peerage. And his lord- 
 ship concluded by a kind expression of hope that more 
 facts would be discovered in support of the claim. 
 
 " You will like to keep this letter, " said tlie reader, 
 giving it to Lady Davenant. She was horribly pale and 
 trembled, because it seemed as if everything was slip- 
 ping from her. 
 
 " The other letters, " Lord Jocelyn went on, " are to the 
 same effect. One is from a lawj'er of great eminence, 
 and the other is from a herald. You will probably like 
 to keep them, too, when I have read them." 
 
 Lady Davenant took the letters, which were cruel in 
 their kindness, and the tears came into her eyes. 
 
 Lord Jocelyn went on to say that researches made in 
 their interest in the parish registers had resulted in a 
 discovery which might even be made into an argument 
 against the claim. There was a foundling child bap- 
 tized in the church in tlie same year as the young heir ; 
 he received the name of the village, with the day of the 
 week on which he was found for Christian name ; that 
 is to say, he was called Saturday Davenant. 
 
 Then, indeed, his lordship became very red, and her 
 ladj^ship turned still paler, and both looked guilty. 
 Saturday Davenant ! the words in the book. Suppose 
 they were not a date and a name, but a man's whole 
 name instead ! 
 
 "He left the parish," said Lord Jocelyn, "and was 
 reported to have gone to America." 
 
 Neither of them spoke. His lordshij) looked slowly 
 around the room, as if expecting that everj'thing, even 
 the solid mahogany ot the librar}- shelves, would van- 
 ish suddenly away. And he groaned, thinking of the 
 dinners which would soon be things of the golden past. 
 
 "But, my friends," Lord Jocelyn went on, "do not 
 be downcast. There is always a possibility of new 
 
41G ALL SORTS AXD COXDITIOXS OF MEN. 
 
 facts turning up. Your grandfather's name may have 
 been really Timothy Clitheroe, in which case I have 
 very little doubt that he was the missing heir ; but he 
 may, on the other hand, have been the Saturday Dave- 
 nan t, in which case he lived and died with a lie on hiy 
 lijjs, which one would be sorry to think possible. " 
 
 " Well, sir — if that is so — what do you advise that we 
 should do now?" asked the grandson of this mystery. 
 He seemed to have become an American citizen again, 
 and to have shaken oif the aristocratic manner. 
 
 " What I should advise is this. You will never, 
 most certainly never get recognition of your claim 
 without stronger evidence than you at present offer. 
 On the other hand, no one will refuse to admit that 3'ou 
 have a strong case. Therefore I would advise you to 
 go home to your own people, to tell them what has hap- 
 pened — how your case was taken up and carefully con- 
 sidered by competent authorities" — here he named 
 again the lawj^er, the herald, and the peer — " to show 
 them their opinions, and to say that you have come 
 back for further evidence, if j'ou can find any, which 
 will connect 3'ou beyond a doubt with the lost heir." 
 
 " That is gcx)d advice, sir," said the claimant. " No, 
 Clara Martha, for once I will have my own way. The 
 connection is the weak point ; we must go home and 
 make it a strong point, else we had better stay there. 
 I said, all along, that we ought not to have come. 
 Nevertheless, I'm glad we came, Clara Martha. I 
 shan't throw it in your teeth that we did come. I'm 
 grateful to you for making us come. We've made good 
 friends here, and seen many things which we shouldn't 
 otherwise have seen. And the thought of this house 
 and the meals we've had in it — such breakfasts, such 
 luncheons, such dinners — will never leave us, I am 
 sure." 
 
 Lady Davenant could say nothing. She saw every- 
 thing torn from her at a rough blow — her title, her con- 
 sideration, the envy of her fellow-citizens, especially of 
 Aurelia Tucker. She put her handkerchief to her eyes 
 and sobbed aloud. 
 
 "You should not go back as if you were defeated," 
 Lord JocehTi went on, in s^-mpathy with the poor little 
 woman. " You are as much entitled to the rank you 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 417 
 
 claim as ever. More: your case has been talked about; 
 it is known; should any of the antiquaries who are al- 
 ways grubbing about parish records find any scrap of 
 information which may help, he will make a note of it 
 for you. When you came you were friendless and un- 
 known. Now the press of England has taken j'ou up ; 
 3'our story is romantic ; we are all interested in you, and 
 desirous of seeing you succeed. Before you go you will 
 write to the papers stating why you go, and what j^ou 
 hope to find. All these letters and papers and proofs of 
 the importance of 3'Our claim should be kept and shown 
 to your friends." 
 
 " We feel mean about going back, and that's a fact," 
 said his lordship. " Still, if we must go back, why, 
 we'd better go back with drums and trumpets than 
 sneak back " 
 
 " Ah !" said his wife, " if you'd only shown that spirit 
 from the beginning, Timothy !" 
 
 He collapsed. 
 
 " If we go back, " she continued, thoughtfully, " I 
 suppose there's some sort of work we can find, between 
 us. Old folks hadn't ought to work like the young, 
 p.nd I'm sixty-five, and so is my husband. But " 
 
 She stopped, with a sigh. 
 
 " I am empowered by Miss Messenger," Lord JocehTi 
 vrent on, with great softness of manner, *' to make you 
 a little proposition. She thinks that it would be most 
 desirable for 3'ou to have your hands free while you 
 make those researches which may lead to the discover- 
 ies we hope for. ISTow, if you have to waste the day in 
 work you will never be able to make saxj research. 
 Therefore Miss Messenger proposes — if you do not mind 
 — if you will accept — an annuity on 3'our joint lives of 
 six hundred dollars. You may be thus relieved of all 
 anxiet}^ about your personal wants. And Miss Mes- 
 senger begs only that you may let this annuity appear 
 the offering of sympathizing English friends." 
 
 " But we don't know Miss Messenger," said her lady- 
 ship. 
 
 " Has she not extended her hospitality to you for two 
 months and more? Is not that a proof of the interest 
 she takes in you?" 
 
 " Certainly it is. Why — see now — we've been living 
 27 
 
418 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 here so long, that we've forgotten it is all Miss Messen- 
 ger's gift." 
 
 " Then you will accept?" 
 
 " Oh, Lord Jocelyn, what can we do but accept?" 
 "And with grateful hearts," added his lordship, 
 " Tell her that. With grateful hearts. They've a way 
 
 of serving quail in her house, that " He stopped 
 
 and sighed. 
 
 The}' have returned to Canaan City; they live in 
 simple sufficiency. His lordship, when he is awake, 
 has many ttdes to tell of London. His friends believe 
 Stepney Green to be a pai't of Maj'-fair, and Mrs. Bor- 
 malack to be a distinguislied though untitled ornament 
 of London society ; while as for Aurelia Tucker, who 
 fain woukl scoff, tliere are her ladyship's beautiful and 
 costly dresses, and her jewels, and the letters from 
 Lord Jocelj'n le Breton and the rich Miss Messenger, 
 and the six hundred dollars a year drawn montldy, 
 which proclaim aloud that there is something in the 
 claim. 
 
 There are things which cannot be gainsaid. 
 Nevertheless, no new discoveries have yet rewarded 
 his lordship's researches. 
 
 CHAPTER XLVIL 
 
 A PALACE OF DELIGHT. 
 
 During this time the Palace of Delight was steadily 
 rising. Before Christmas its walls were completed and 
 the roof on. Then began the painting, the decorating, 
 and the fittings. And Angela was told that the build- 
 ing would be handed over to her, complete according to 
 the contract, by the first of March. 
 
 The building was hidden away, so to speak, in a 
 comer of vast Stepney, but already rumors were abroad 
 concerning it, and the purpose for which it was erected. 
 They were conflicting rumors. No one knew at all 
 what was intended by it; no one had been within the 
 walls ; no one knew who built it. The place was sit- 
 uated so decidedly in the very heart and core of Step- 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 419 
 
 ney, that the outside public knew nothing at all about it, 
 and the rumors were confined to the small folk round 
 it. So it rose in their midst without being greatly re- 
 garded. No report or mention of it came to Harry's 
 ears, so that he knew nothing of it, and suspected noth- 
 ing any more than he suspected Miss Kennedy of being 
 some other person. 
 
 The first of March in this present year of grace 1882 
 fell upon a Wednesday. Angela resolved that the open- 
 ing-day should be on Thursday, the second, and that she 
 would open it herself ; and then another thought came 
 into her mind ; and the longer she meditated ujjon it, 
 the stronger hold did the idea take upon her. 
 
 The Palace of Delight was not, she said, her own 
 conception ; it was that of the man — the man she loved. 
 Would it not be generous, in giving this place over to 
 the people for whom it was built, to give ics real founder 
 the one reward which he asked? 
 
 Never any knight of old had been more loj'al. He 
 obeyed in the spirit as well as the letter her injunction 
 not to speak of love ; not only did he refrain from those 
 good words which he would fain have uttered, but he 
 showned no impatience, grumbled not, had no fits of 
 sulking; he waited, patient. And in all other things 
 he did her behest, working with a cheerful heart for 
 her girls, always ready to amuse them, always at her 
 service for things great and small, and meeting her 
 mood with a ready sj'mpathy. 
 
 One evening, exactly a fortnight before the proposed 
 opening-day, Angela invited all the girls, and with 
 them her faithful old captain and her servant Harry, 
 to follow her because she had a thing to show them. 
 She spoke with great seriousness, and looked overcome 
 with the gravity of this thing. What was she going 
 to show them? 
 
 They followed, wondering, while she led the way to 
 the church, and then turned to the right among the nar- 
 row lanes of a part where, by some accident, none l1 
 the girls belonged. 
 
 Presently she stopped before a great building,. It 
 was not lit up, and seemed quite dark and empty. Out- 
 side, the planks were not yet removed, and they were 
 covered with gaudy advertisements, but it was too dark 
 
420 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 to see them. There was a broad porch above the en- 
 trance, with a generously ample ascent of steps like 
 unto those of St. Paul's Cathedral. Angela rang a bell 
 and the door was opened. They found themselves in 
 an entrance-hall of some kind, imperfectly lighted by 
 a single gas-jet. There were three or four men stand- 
 ing about, apparently waiting for them, because one 
 stepped forward, and said : 
 
 " Miss Messenger's party?" 
 
 " We are Miss Messenger's party," Angela replied. 
 
 "Whoever we are," said Harry, "we are a great 
 mystery to ourselves." 
 
 " Patience," Angela whispered; "part of the mystery 
 is going to be cleared up." 
 
 '■ Light up. Bill," said one of the men. 
 
 Then the whole place passed suddenl}^ into daylight, 
 for it was lit by the electric globes. It was a lofty 
 vestibule. On either side were cloak-rooms; opposite 
 were entrance-doors. But what was on the other side 
 of these entrance-rooms none of them could guess. 
 
 "My friend," said Angela to Harr}^, "this place 
 should be yours. It is of your creation." 
 
 "What is it, then?" 
 
 " It is your Palace of Delight. Yes ; nothing short 
 of that. Will you lead n.e into your palace?" 
 
 She took his arm while he marvelled greatl}^ and asked 
 himself what this might mean. One of the men then 
 opened the doors, and they entered, followed by the 
 wondering girls. 
 
 The}^ found themselves in a lofty and very spacious 
 hall. At the end was a kind of throne — a red velvet 
 divan, semicircular under a canopy of red velvet. Stat- 
 ues stood on either side ; behind them was a great organ ; 
 upon the walls were pictures. Above the pictures were 
 trophies in arms ; tapestry carpets — all kinds of beauti- 
 ful things. Above the entrance was a gallery for mu- 
 sicians; and on either side were doors leading to places 
 of which i\\Qj knew nothing. 
 
 Miss Kennedy led the way to the semicircular divan 
 at the end. She took the central place, and motioned 
 the girls to arrange themselves about her. The effect 
 of this little group sitting by themselves and in silence, 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 421 
 
 at the end of the great hall, was very strange and 
 wonderful. 
 
 " My dears," she said, after a moment — and the girls 
 saw that her eyes were full of tears — " my dears, I have 
 got a wonderful story to tell you. Listen. 
 
 " There was a girl, once, who had the great misfor- 
 tune to be born rich. It is a thing which many people 
 desire. She, however, who had it knew what a misfor- 
 tune it might become to her. For the possessor of 
 great wealth, more especially if it be a woman, attracts 
 all the designing and wicked people in the world, all 
 the rogues and all the pretended philanthropists to her, 
 as wasps are attracted by honey ; and presently, by sad 
 experience, she gets to look on all mankind as desirous 
 only of robbing and deceiving her. This is a dreadful 
 condition of mind, to fall into, because it stands in the 
 way of love and friendship and trust, and all the sweet 
 confidences which make us happy. 
 
 " This girl's name Avas Messenger. Now, when she 
 was quite young she knew what was going to happen, 
 unless she managed somehow differently from other 
 women in her unhappy position. And she determined 
 as a first step to get rid of a large quantity of her wealth, 
 so that the cupidity of the robbers might be diverted. 
 
 " Now, she had a humble friend — only a dressmaker, 
 — who, for reasons of her own, loved her and would have 
 served her if she could. And this dressmaker came 
 to live at the East End of London. 
 
 " And she saw that the girls who have to work for 
 their bread are treated in sucli a way that slavery 
 would be a better lot for most of them. For they have 
 to work twelve hours in the day, and sometimes more; 
 they sit in close, hot rooms, poisoned by gas ; they get 
 no change of position as the day goes on ; they have no 
 holiday, no respite, save on Sunday ; they draw miser- 
 able wages, and they are indifferentlj^ fed. So that she 
 thought one good- thing Miss Messenger could do was 
 to help those girls, and this was how our Association 
 was founded." 
 
 " But we shall thank you, all the same," said Nelly. 
 
 " Then another thing happened. There was a j'oung 
 — gentleman," Angela went on, "staying at the East 
 End too. He called himself a working-man, said he was 
 
422 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 the son of a sergeant i. the army, but everybody knew 
 he was a gentleman. This dressmaker made his ac- 
 ({uaintance, and talked with him a great deal. He was 
 full of ideas, and one day he proposed that we should 
 have a Palace of Delight. It would cost a great deal 
 of money ; but they talked as if thej^ had that sum, and 
 more, at their disposal. They arranged it all; they 
 provided for everj^thing. When the scheme was fully 
 drawn up, the dressmaker took it to Miss Messenger. 
 O my dear girls! this is the Palace of Delight. It 
 is built as they proposed ; it is finished ; it is our own ; 
 and here is its inventor." 
 
 She took Harry's hand. He stood beside her, gaz- 
 ing upon her impassioned face; but he was silent. " It 
 looks cold and empty now, but when you see it on the 
 opening day; when you come here night after night; 
 when you get to feel the place to be a part, and the best 
 part, of your life, then remember that what Miss Mes- 
 senger did was nothing compared with what this — this 
 young gentleman did. For he invented it." 
 
 "Now," she said, rising — they were all too much 
 astonished to make any demonstration — " now let us 
 examine the building. This hall is your great reception- 
 room. You will use it for the ball nights, when you 
 give your great dances ; a thousand couples may dance 
 here without crowding. On wet days it is to be the 
 playground of the children. It will hold a couple of 
 thousand, without jostling against each other. There 
 is the gallery for the music, as soon as you have got 
 any." 
 
 She led the way to a door on the right. 
 
 "This," she said, "is your theatre." 
 
 It was like a Roman theatre, being built in the form 
 of a semicircle, tier above tier, having no distinction in 
 places, save that some were nearer the stage and some 
 further off. 
 
 "Here," she said, "you will act. Do not think that 
 players will be found for you. If you want a theatre 
 you must find your own actors. If you want an or- 
 chestra you must find your own for your theatre, be- 
 cause in this place everything will be done by your- 
 selves." 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 423 
 
 They came out of the theatre. There was one other 
 door on that side of the hall. 
 
 "This," said Angela, opening it, "is the concert- 
 room. It has an organ and a piano and a platform. 
 When you have got people who can play and sing, you 
 will give concerts." 
 
 They crossed the hall. On the other side were two 
 more great rooms, each as big as the theatre and the 
 concert-room. One was a gymnasimn, fitted up with 
 bars and ropes, and parallel rods and trapezes. 
 
 "This is for the young men," said Angela. "They 
 will be stimulated b}^ prizes to become good gymnasts. 
 The other room is the library. Here they may come, 
 when they please, to read and study." 
 
 It was a noble room, fitted with shelves and the be- 
 ginning of a great library. 
 
 " Let us go upstairs," said Angela. 
 
 Upstairs the rooms were all small, but there were a 
 great many of them. 
 
 Thus there were billiard-rooms, card-rooms, rooms 
 with chess, domiuos, and backgammon-tables laid out, 
 smoking-rooms for men alone, tea and coffee rooms, 
 rooms where women could sit by themselves if they 
 pleased, and a room where all kinds of refreshments 
 were to be procured. Above these was a second floor, 
 which was called the School. This consisted of a great 
 number of quite small rooms, fitted with desks, tables, 
 and whatever else might be necessarj-. Some of these 
 rooms v/ere called music-rooms, and were intended for 
 instruction and practice on different instruments. 
 Others were for painting, drawing, sculpture, model- 
 ling, wood-carving, leather- work, brass- work, embroid- 
 ery, lace- work, and all manner of small arts. 
 
 "In the Palace of Delight," said Angela, "we shall 
 not be like a troop of revellers, thinking of nothing but 
 dance and song and feasting. We shall learn some- 
 thing every day; we shall all belong to some class. 
 Those of us who know already will teach the rest. And 
 oh ! the best part of all has to be told. Everything in 
 the palace will be done for nothing except the mere 
 cleaning and keeping in order. And if anybody is paid 
 anything, it will be at the rate of a working-man's 
 wage — no more. For this is our own palace, the club 
 
424 ALL SORTS AXD CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 of the working-people ; we will not let an^ybod}^ make 
 money out of it. We shall use it for ourselves, and we 
 shall make our enjoyment by ourselves. 
 
 " All this is provided in the deed of trust by which 
 Miss Messenger hands over the building to the people. 
 There are three trustees. One of these, of course, is 
 you— Mr. Goslett." 
 
 "I have been so lost in amazement," said Harry, 
 "that I have been unable to speak. Is this, in very 
 truth, the Palace of Delight that we have battled over 
 so long and so often?" 
 
 " It is none other. And you are a trustee to carry 
 out the intentions of the founder — yourself." 
 
 They went downstairs again to the great hall, 
 
 "Captain Sorensen," Angela whispered, "will you 
 go home with the girls? I will follow in a few min- 
 utes." 
 
 Harry and Angela were left behind in the hall. 
 
 She called the man in charge of the electric light, 
 and said something to him. Then he went away and 
 turned down the light, and they were standing in dark- 
 ness, save for the bright moon which shone through the 
 windows and fell upon the white statues and made them 
 look like two ghosts themselves standing among rows 
 of other ghosts. 
 
 " Harry," said Angela. 
 
 "Do not mock me," he replied: "I am in a dream. 
 This is not real. The place " 
 
 " It is your o\vn Palace of Delight. It will be given 
 to the people in a fortnight. Are you pleased with 
 vour creation?" 
 
 "Pleased? And you?" 
 
 " I am greatly pleased. Harry" — it was the first time 
 she had called him by his Christian name — " I prom- 
 ised you — I promised I would tell you — I would tell you 
 — if the time should come " 
 
 "Has the time come? O my dear love, has the 
 time come?" 
 
 " There is nothing in the way. But oh ! — Harrj- — 
 are you in the same mind? No — wait a moment." She 
 held him by the wrists. " Remember what you are do- 
 ing. Will you choose a lifetime of work among work- 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN 425 
 
 ing-people? You can go back, now, to your old life; 
 but— pei'haps — you will not be able to go back, then." 
 
 " I have chosen, long ago. You know my choice — 
 O love — my love." 
 
 " Then, Harry, if it will make you happy — are you 
 quite sure it will? — you shall marry me on the day 
 when the Palace is opened." 
 
 "You are sure," she said, presently "that you can 
 love me, though I am only a dressmaker?" 
 
 " Could I love you," he replied, passionately, "if you 
 were anything else?" 
 
 " You have never told me, " he said, presently, " your 
 Christian name." 
 
 "It is Angela." 
 
 " Angela ! I should have known it could have been 
 no other. Angela, kind heaven surely sent 3'ou down 
 to stay awhile with me. If, in time to come, you should 
 be ever unhappy with me, dear, if you should not be 
 able to bear any longer with my faults, you would leave 
 me and go back to the heaven whence you came." 
 
 They parted, that night, on the steps of Mrs. Borma- 
 lack's ding}^ old boarding-house, to both so dear. But 
 Harry, for half the night, paced the pavement, trj^ng 
 to calm the tumult of his thoughts. " A life of work — 
 with Angela — with Angela? Why, how small, how 
 pitiful seemed all other kinds of life in which Angela 
 was not concerned !" 
 
 CHAPTER XLYIII. 
 
 MY LADY SWEET. 
 
 My story, alas ! has come to an end, according to the 
 nature of all earthly things. The love vows are ex- 
 changed, the girl has given herself to the man — rich or 
 poor. My friends, if you come to think of it, no girl is 
 so rich that she can give more, or so poor that she can 
 give less, than herself; and in love one asks not for 
 more or less. Even the day is appointed, and nothing 
 is going to happen which will prevent the blessed wed- 
 
426 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 ding-bells from ringing, or the clergyman from the sa- 
 cred joining together of man and of maid, till death do 
 part them. What more to tell? We ought to drop the 
 curtain while the moonlight pours through the windows 
 of the silent palace upon the lovers, wdiile the gods and 
 goddesses, nymphs, naiads, and oreads in marble look 
 on in sympathetic joy. They, too, in the far-off ages, 
 among the woods and springs of Hellas, lived and loved, 
 though their forests know them no more. Yet, because 
 this was no ordinary marriage, and because wo are 
 sorry to part with Angela before the day when she be- 
 gins her w^edded life, we must fain tell of what j^assed 
 in that brief fortnight before the Palace was opened, 
 and Angela's great and noble dream became a reality. 
 
 There was, first of all, a great deal of business to be 
 set in order. Angela had interviews with her lawyers, 
 and settlements had to be drawn up about which Harry 
 knew nothing, though he would have to sign them; 
 then there were the trust-deeds for the Palace. An- 
 gela named Harry, Dick Coppin, the old Chartist, now 
 lier firm and fast friend, and Lord Jocel3"n, as joint 
 trustees. They were to see, first of all, that no one got 
 anything out of the Palace unless it might be work- 
 men's wages for work done. They were to carry out 
 the spirit of the house in making the place support and 
 feed itself, so that whatever amusements, plays, dances, 
 interludes, or mummeries were set afoot, all might be 
 by the people themselves for themselves; and they were 
 to do their utmost to keep out of the discordant ele- 
 ments of politics, religion, and party controversy. 
 
 All the girls knew by this time that Miss Kenned}' 
 was to be married on the second of March — the day 
 when the Palace was to be opened. They also learned, 
 because the details were arranged and talked over every 
 evening, that the opening would be on a very grand 
 scale indeed. Miss Messenger herself was coming to 
 hand it over in person to the trustees on behalf of the 
 people of Stepney and Whitechapel. There was to be 
 the acting of a play in the new theatre, a recital on the 
 new organ, the performance of a concert in the new 
 concert-room, plaj^ing all the evening long by a military 
 band, some sort of general entertainment; and the 
 whole was to be terminated by a gigantic supper given 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 427 
 
 by Miss Messenger herself, to which fifteen hundred 
 guests were bidden — namely, first, all the employees of 
 the brewery with their wives, if they had any, from the 
 chief brewer and the chief accountant down to the hum- 
 blest boy in the establishment; and, second!}', all the 
 girls in the Association, with two or three guests for 
 each; and, thirdly, a couple of hundred or so chosen 
 from a list drawn up by Dick Coppin, and the cobbler, 
 and Harr}'. 
 
 As for Harry, he had now, by Angela's recommen- 
 dation, resigned his duties at the Brewery, in order to 
 throw his whole time into the arrangement for the open- 
 ing day ; and this so greatly occupied him that he some- 
 times even forgot what the day would mean to him. 
 The invitations were sent in Miss Messenger's own 
 name. They were all accepted, although there was nat- 
 urally some little feeling of irritation at the brewery 
 when it became known tliat there was to be a general 
 sitting down of all together. Miss Messenger also ex- 
 pressed her wish that the only beverage at the supper 
 should be Messenger's beer, and that of the best quality. 
 The banquet, in imitation of the Lord Mayor's dinner 
 on the ninth of November, was to be a cold one, and 
 solid, with plenty of ices, jellies, puddings, and fruit. 
 But there was something said about glasses of wine for 
 every guest after supper. 
 
 "I suppose," said Angela, talking over this pleasant 
 disposition of things with Harry, " that she means one 
 or two toasts to be proposed. The first should be to the 
 success of the Palace. The second, I think" — and she 
 blushed — "will be the health of you, Harry, and of 
 me." 
 
 " I think so much of you," said Harry, " all day long, 
 that I never think of Miss Messenger at all. Tell me 
 what she is like, this giver and dispenser of princely 
 gifts. I suppose she really is the owner of boundless 
 wealth?" 
 
 " She has several millions, if j'ou call that boundless. 
 She has been a very good friend to me, and will con- 
 tinue so. " 
 
 "You know her well?" 
 
 "I know her very well. O Harry, do not ask me 
 any more about her or myself. When we are married 
 
428 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 I will tell you all about the friendship of Miss Messen- 
 ger to me. You trust me, do you notV" 
 
 "Trust you! O Angela!" 
 
 " My secret, such as it is, is not a shameful one, Har- 
 ry ; and it has to do with the very girl, this Miss Mes- 
 senger. Leave me with it till the day of our wedding, 
 I wonder how far j^our patience will endure my secrets? 
 for here is another. You know that I have a little 
 money?" 
 
 "1 am afraid, my Angela," said Harry, laughing, 
 " that you must have made a terrible hole in it since 
 you came here. Little or much, what does it matter to 
 us? Haven't we got the two thousand? Think of that 
 tremendous lump." 
 
 "What can it matter?" she cried. "O Harry, I 
 thank Heaven for letting me, too, have this great gift 
 of sweet and disinterested love. I thought it would 
 never come to me." 
 
 " To whom, then, should it come?" 
 
 "Don't, Harry, or — yes — go on thinking me all that 
 you say, because it may help to make me all that you 
 think. But that is not what I wanted to say. AVould 
 you mind very much, Harry, if I asked you to take my 
 name?" 
 
 " I will take an}' name you wish, Angela. If I am. 
 your husband, what does it matter about any other 
 name?" 
 
 "And then one ether thing, HarrJ^ Will your 
 guardian give his consent?" 
 
 '■' Yes, I can answer for him that he will. And he 
 will come to the wedding if I ask him." 
 
 "Then ask him, Harr}*." 
 
 " So," said Lord Jocelyn, " the dressmaker has re- 
 lented, has she? Why, that is well. And I am to give 
 my consent? My dear boy, I only want you to be 
 happy. Besides, I am quite sure and certain that you 
 will be happy." 
 
 " E verj'body is, if he marries the woman he loves, " 
 said the j^oung man sententiously. 
 
 " Yes — yes, if he goes on loving the woman he has 
 married. However, Harry, you have my best wishes 
 and consent, since you are good enough to ask for it. 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 439 
 
 Wait a bit." He got up and began to search about in 
 drawers and desks. " I must give your Jiancee a pres- 
 ent, Harry. See — here is something good. Will you 
 give her, with my best love and good wishes, this? It 
 was once my mother's." 
 
 Harry looked at the gaud, set with pearls and rubies 
 in old-fashioned style. 
 
 "Is it not," he asked, "rather too splendid for a — 
 poor people in our position?" 
 
 Lord Jocelyn laughed aloud. 
 
 "Nothing," he said, "can be too splendid for a beau- 
 tiful woman. Give it her, Harr}", and tell her I am 
 glad she has consented to make you happy. Tell her I 
 am more than glad, Harry. Say that I most heartily 
 thank her. Yes, thank her. Tell her that. Say that 
 I thank her from my heart." 
 
 As the day drew near the girls became possessed of a 
 great fear. It seemed to all as if things were going to 
 undergo some great and sudden change. They knew 
 that the house was secured to them free of rent ; but 
 they were going to lose their queen, that presiding 
 spirit who not only kept them together, but also kept 
 them happy. In her presence there were no little tem- 
 pers, and jealousies were forgotten. When she was 
 with them they were all on their best behavior. Now 
 it is an odd thing in girls, and I really think myself 
 privileged, considering my own very small experience 
 of the sex, in being the first to have discovered this 
 important truth — that, whereas to boys good behavior is 
 too often a gene and a bore, girls prefer behaving well. 
 They are happiest when they are good, niceh' dressed, 
 and sitting all in a row with company manners. But 
 who, when Miss Kennedy went away, would lead them 
 in the drawing-room? The change, however, was go- 
 ing to be greater than they knew or guessed ; the draw- 
 ing-room itself would become before many days a thing 
 of the past, but the Palace would take its place. 
 
 They all brought gifts; they were simple things, but 
 they were offered with willing and grateful hearts. 
 Rebekah brought the one volume of her father's library 
 which was well bound. It was a work written in imi- 
 tation of Hervey's "Meditations," and dwelt princi- 
 pally with tombs, and was therefore peculiarly appro- 
 
430 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 priate as a wedding present. Nelly brought a ring 
 Avliich had been her mother's, and was so sacred to her 
 that she felt it must be given to Miss Kennedy; the 
 other girls gave worked handkerchiefs, and collars, and 
 such little things. 
 
 Angela looked at the table on which she had spread 
 all her wedding presents : the plated teapot from Mrs. 
 Bormalack; the girls' work; Nelly's ring; Rebekah's 
 book; Lord Joceljm's bracelet. She was happier with 
 these trifles than if she had received in Portman S(j[uare 
 the hundreds of gifts and jewelled things which would 
 have poured in for the young heiress. 
 
 And in the short fortnight she thought for every- 
 bod)\ Joscphus received a message that he might im- 
 mediately retire on the pension which he would have 
 received had he been fortunate in promotion, and been 
 compelled to go by ill-health : in other words, he was 
 set free with three hundred pounds a j^ear for life. He 
 may now be seen any day in the Mile End Road or on 
 Stepney Green, dressed in the fashion of a young man 
 of twenty-one or so, walking with elastic step, because 
 he is so young, yet manifesting a certain gravity, as 
 becomes one who attends the evening lectures of the 
 Beaumont Institute in French and arithmetic, and 
 takes a class on the Sabbath in connection with the 
 Wesleyan body. After all, a man is only as old as he 
 feels ; and why should not Josephus, whose youth was 
 cruelly destroyed, feel young again, now that his honor 
 has been restored to him? 
 
 On the morning before the wedding, Angela paid two 
 visits of considerable importance. 
 
 The first was to Daniel Fagg, to whom she carried a 
 small parcel. " My friend," she said, " I have observed 
 your impatience about your book. Your publisher 
 thought that, as j^ou are inexperienced in correcting 
 proofs, it would be best to have the work done for you. 
 And here, I am truly happy to say, is the book itself." 
 
 He tore the covering from the book, and seized it as 
 a mother would seize her child. 
 
 " My book !" he gasped, " my book !" 
 
 Yes, his book; bound in sober cloth, with an equi- 
 lateral triangle on the cover for simple ornament. " The 
 Primitive Alphabet, by Daniel Fagg !" " My book !" 
 
ALL SORTS AND COXDITIO.\S OF MEN. 431 
 
 Angela explained to him that his passage to Mel- 
 bourne was taken, and that he would sail in a week; 
 and that a small sum of money would be put into his 
 hands on landing: and that a hundred copies of the 
 book would be sent to Australia for him, with more if 
 he wanted them. But she talked to idle ears, for Dan- 
 iel was turning over the leaves and devouring the con- 
 tents of his book. 
 
 " At all events," said Angela, " I have made one man 
 happy." 
 
 Then she walked to the Trinity Almshouse, and 
 sought her old friend, Captain Sorensen. 
 
 To him she told her whole story from the verj^ begin- 
 ning, begging only that he would keep her secret till 
 the next evening. 
 
 " But, of course," said the sailor, " I knew, all along, 
 that you were a lady bom and bred. You might de- 
 ceive the folk here, who've no chance, poor things, of 
 knowing a lady when they see one — how should they? 
 But you could not deceive a man who's had his quarter- 
 deck full of ladies. The only question in my mind was, 
 whj^ 3'ou did it." 
 
 " You did not think that what Bunker said was true 
 — did 3'ou, Captain Sorensen?" 
 
 "Nay," he replied. "Bunker never liked you; and 
 how I am to thank you enough for all you've done for 
 my poor girl " 
 
 " Thank me by continuing to be my dear friend and 
 adviser," said Angela. "If I thought it would pleas- 
 ure you to live out of this place " 
 
 "No, no," said the captain, "I could not take j'our 
 money ; any one may accept the provision of the asy- 
 lum and be grateful." 
 
 " I knew you would say so. Stay on, then. Captain 
 Sorensen. And as regards Nelly, my dear and fond 
 Nelly " 
 
 It needs not to tell what she said and promised on 
 behalf of Nelly. 
 
 And at the house the girls were tr^'ing on the new 
 white frocks and white bonnets in which they were to 
 go to the wedding. They were all bridemaids, but 
 Nelly had the post of honor. 
 
433 ALL SORTS A.\D COXDITIOXS OF MEN. 
 
 CHAPTER XLIX. 
 
 "UPROUSE YE THEN, MY MERKY, MERRY MEN." 
 
 At nine in the morning Harry presented himself at 
 the house, no longer his own, for the signing of certain 
 papers. The place was closed for a holiday, bat the 
 girls were already assembling in the show-room, getting 
 their dresses laid out, trying on their gloves, and chat- 
 tering like birds up in the branches on a fine, spring 
 morning. He found Angela sitting with an elderly 
 gentleman — none other than the senior partner of the 
 firm of her solicitors. He had a quantity of documents 
 on the table before him, and as Harry opened the door 
 he heard these remarkable words : 
 
 " So the young man does not know — even at the elev- 
 entli hour?" 
 
 What it was he would learn, Harry cared not to in- 
 quire. He had been told that there was a secret of 
 some sort which he would learn in the course of the 
 day. 
 
 "These papers, Harry," said his bride, "are certain 
 documents which you have to sign, connected with that 
 little fortune of which 1 told you. " 
 
 "I hope," said Harry, "that the fortune, whatever it 
 is, has all been settled upon yourself absolutely." 
 
 "You will find, young gentleman," said the solicitor, 
 gravely, " that ample justice — generous justice — has 
 been done you. Very well, I will say no more." 
 
 " Do 3'ou want me to sign without reading, Angela?" 
 
 " If you will so far trust me." 
 
 He took the pen and signed where he was told to 
 sign, without reading one word. If he had been or- 
 dered to sign awaj' his life and liberty, he would have 
 done so blindly and cheerfully at Angela's bidding. 
 The deed was sig-ned, and the act of signature was wit- 
 nessed. 
 
 So that was done. There now remained only the 
 ceremony. While the solicitor, who evidently disliked 
 the whole proceeding, as irregular and dangerous, was 
 putting up the papers, Angela took her lover's hands 
 
ALL SORTS AND COyDITIOXS OF MEN. 433 
 
 in hers, and looked into his face with her frank and 
 searching look. 
 
 " You do not repent, my poor Harrv^" 
 
 "Repent?" "^ ' 
 
 "You might have done so much better: tou miirht 
 liave married a lady " 
 
 The solicitor, overhearing these words, sat donm and 
 ruobed his nose with an unprofessional smile. 
 
 "Shall I not many a lady?" 
 
 "You might have found a rich bride: you might 
 have led a lazy life, with nothing to do, instead of 
 which— O Harry, there is still time! We are not due 
 at the church for half an hour yet. Think. Do you 
 deliberately choose a life of work and ambition— with 
 —perhaps — poverty ? " 
 
 At this point the solicitor rose from his chair and 
 walked softly to the window, where he remained for 
 five minutes looking out upon Stepney Green with his 
 back to the lovers. If Harry had been watching him, 
 he would have remarked a curious tremulous movement 
 of the shoulders. 
 
 " There is one thing more, Harry, that I have to ask 
 you. 
 
 '■ Of coursj^, you have only to ask me, whatever it is. 
 Could I refuse you anything, who will give me so 
 much?' 
 
 ^ Their fingers were interlaced, their eves were looking 
 into each other. No ; he could refuse her nothing. 
 
 "I give you much? O Harry! what is a woman's 
 gift of herself?" 
 
 Harry restrained himself. The solicitor might be 
 sympathetic ; but, on the whole, it was best to act as if 
 he were not. Law has little to do with love; Cupid 
 has never j^et been represented with the long gown. 
 
 "It is a strange request, Harry. It is connected 
 with m^- — my little foolish secret. You will let me go 
 away directly the service is over, and you will consent 
 not to see me again until the evening, when I shall re- 
 turn. You, with all the girls, will meet me in the 
 porch of the Palace at seven o'clock exactly. And, as 
 ]\Iiss Messenger will come too, you will make j'our — 
 perhaps 3'our last appearance — mj' jwor boy — in the 
 character of a modern English gentleman in evening- 
 28 
 
484 ALL SORl'S AND CONDITIOXS OF MEN. 
 
 dress. Tell your best man that he is to give his arm to 
 Nelly ; the other girls will follow two and two. Oh, 
 Harry, the first sound of the organ in your Palace will 
 be your own wedding march : the first festival in your 
 Palace will be in your own honor. Is not that what it 
 should be?" 
 
 " In 3^ our honor, dear, not mine. And Miss Messen- 
 ger? Are we to give no honor to her who built the 
 Palace?" 
 
 ■' Oh, yes — 3'es — yes !" She put the question by with 
 a careless gesture. " But any one wlio happened to 
 have the money could do such a simple thing. The 
 honor is j'ours because you invented it." 
 
 " From your hands, Angela, I will take all the honor 
 that you please to give. So am I doubly honored." 
 
 There were no wedding bells at all : the organ was 
 mute; the parish church of Stepney was empty; the 
 spectators of the marriage were Mrs. Bormalack and 
 Captain Sorensen, besides the girls and the bride- 
 groom, and Dick, his best man. The captain in the 
 Salvation Army might have been present as well; 
 he had been asked, but he was lying on the sick-bed 
 from which he was never to rise again. Lord and 
 Lady Davenant were there : the former sleek, well con- 
 tented, well dressed in broadcloth of the best ; the latter 
 agitated, restless, humiliated, because she had lost the 
 thing she came across the Atlantic to claim, and was 
 going home, after the splendor of the last three months, 
 to the monotonous level of Canaan City. Who could 
 love Canaan City after the West End of London ! 
 What woman would look forward with pleasura to the 
 dull and uneventful days, the local politics, the chapel 
 squabbles, the little gatherings for tea and supper, after 
 the enjoyment of a carriage and pair and unlimited 
 theatres, operas, and concerts, and footmen, and such 
 dinners as the average American, or the average Eng- 
 lishman either, seldom arrives at seeing, even in vis- 
 ions? Sweet content was gone; and though Angela 
 meant well, and it was kind of her to afford the ambi- 
 tious lady a glimpse of that great world into which she 
 desired to enter, the sight — even this Pisgah glimpse — 
 of a social paradise to which she could never belong 
 
ALL SORTS AND COXDITIOyS OF MEX. 435 
 
 destroyed her peace of mind, and she will for the rest 
 of her life lie on a rock deploring. Not so her husband : 
 his future is assured; he can eat and drink plentifully; 
 he can sleep all the morning undisturbed; he is relieved 
 of the anxieties connected with his Case; and, though 
 the respect due to rank is not recognized in the States, 
 he has to bear none of its responsibilities, and has alto- 
 gether abandoned the grand manner. At the same 
 time, as one who very nearly became a British peer, 
 his position in Canaan Cit}^ is enormously raised. 
 
 They, then, were in the church. They drove thith- 
 er, not in Miss Messenger's carriage, but with Lord 
 Jocelyn. 
 
 They arrived a quarter of an hour before the cere- 
 mony. When the curate who was to perform the cere- 
 mony arrived. Lord Jocelyn sought him in the vestry 
 and showed him a special license by which it was pro- 
 nounced lawful, and even laudable, for Harry Goslett, 
 bachelor, to take unto wife Angela Marsden Messenger, 
 spinster. 
 
 And at sight of that name did the curate's knees be- 
 gin to tremble, and his hands to shake. 
 
 "Angela Marsden Messenger? is it then," he asked, 
 "the great heiress?" 
 
 "It is none other," said Lord Jocelyn. "And she 
 marries my ward — here is my card — by special li- 
 cense. " 
 
 " But^ — but — is it a clandestine marriage?" 
 
 " Not at all. There are reasons why Miss ]\Iessenger 
 desires to be married in Stejmey. With them we have 
 nothing to do. She has, of late, associated herself with 
 many works of benevolence, but anonymousl}-. In fact, 
 my dear sir" — here Lord Jocelyn looked profoundly 
 knowing — ^"my ward, the bridegroom, has always 
 known her under another name, nnd even now does not 
 know whom he is marrying. When we sign the books 
 we must, just to keep the secret a little longer, manage 
 that he shall write his own name without seeing the 
 names of the bride." 
 
 This seemed very irregular in the eyes of the curate, 
 and at first he was for referring the matter to the rec- 
 tor, but finally gave in, on the understanding that he 
 was to be no party to any concealment. 
 
436 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 And presently the weduing party walked slowly up 
 the aisle, and Harry, to his great astonishment, saw his 
 bride on Lord Jocelyn's arm. There were cousins of 
 the Messengers in plenty who should have done this 
 dut}^ but Angela would invite none of them. She 
 came alone to Stepney; she lived and worked in the 
 place alone; she wanted no consultation or discussion 
 with the cousins; she would tell them when all was 
 done ; and she knew very well that so great an heiress 
 as herself could do nothing but what is right, when one 
 has time to recover from the shock, and to settle down 
 and think things over. 
 
 No doubt, though we have nothing to do with the 
 outside world in this story, there was a tremendous 
 rustling of skirts, shaking of heads, tossing of curls, 
 wagging of tongues, and uplifting of hands, the next 
 morning when Angela's cards were received, and the 
 news was in all the papers. And there was such a run 
 upon interjections that the vocabulary broke down, and 
 people were fain to cry to one another in foreign 
 tongues. 
 
 For thus the announcement ran : 
 
 "On Thursday, March 20, at the parish church, 
 Stepney, Harry, son of the late Samuel Goslett, Ser- 
 geant in the ISOth Regiment of the Line, to Angela 
 Marsden, daughter of the late John Marsden Messen- 
 ger, and granddaughter of the late John Messenger, of 
 Portman Square and Whitechapel. " 
 
 This was a pretty blow among the cousins. The 
 greatest heiress in England, who they had hoped would 
 marry a duke, or a marquis, or an earl at least, had 
 positively and actually married the son of a common 
 soldier — well, a non-commissioned officer — the same 
 thing. What did it mean? What could it mean? 
 
 Others, who knew Harry and his storj^ who had 
 sj'mpathy with him on account of his many qualities — • 
 who owned that the obscurity of his birth was but an 
 accident, shared with him by many of the most worthy, 
 excellent, brilliant, useful, well-bred, delightful men of 
 the world — rejoiced over the strange irony of fate 
 which had first lifted this soldier's son out of the gut- 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 437 
 
 ter, and then, with apparent malignity, dropped him 
 back again, only, however, to raise him once more far 
 higher than before. For, indeed, the j^oung man was 
 now rich — with his vats and his mashtubs, his millions 
 of casks, his Old and his Mild and his Bitter, and his 
 Familj^ at nine shillings the nine-gallon cask, and his 
 accumulated millions, " beyond the potential dream of 
 avarice." If he chooses to live more than half his time 
 in Whitechapel, that is no concern of an3'body's; and 
 if his wife chooses to hold a sort of court at the aban- 
 doned East, to surround herself with people unheard of 
 in society, not to say out of it, why should she not? 
 Any of the royal princes might have done the same 
 thing if they h:id chosen and had been well-advised. 
 Further, if, between them, Angela and her husband 
 have established a superior Aquarium, a glorified Crj's- 
 tal Palace, in which all the shows arc open, all the per- 
 formers are drilled and trained amateurs, and all the 
 work actually is done for nothing ; in which the man- 
 agement is by the people themselves, who will have no 
 interference from priest or parson, rector or curate, 
 philanthropist or agitator ; and no patronage from so- 
 cieties, well-intentioned young ladies, meddling benevo- 
 lent persons and officious promoters, starters, and shov- 
 ers-along, with half an eye fixed on heaven and the 
 remaining eye and a half on their own advancement — ■ 
 if, in fact, they choose to do these things, why not? It 
 is an excellent way of spending their time, and a 
 change from the monotony of society. 
 
 Again, it is said that Harry, now Harry Messenger 
 by the provision of old John Messenger's will, is the 
 President, or the Chairman, or the Honorary Secretary — 
 in fact, the spring and stay and prop of a new and 
 most formidable Union or Association, which threat- 
 ens, unless it be nipped in the bud, very considerable 
 things of the greatest importance to the country. It is, 
 in fact, a League of Working-men for the promotion 
 and advancement of their own interests. Its prospectus 
 sets forth that, having looked in vain among the candi- 
 dates for the House of Commons for any representative 
 who had been in the past, or was likely to be in the fu- 
 ture, of the slightest use to them in the House; having 
 found that neither Conservatives, nor Liberals, nor 
 
438 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 Radicals have ever been, or are ever likely to be, pre- 
 pared with any real measure which should in the least 
 concern themselves and their own wants; and fully rec- 
 ognizing the fact that in the debates of the House the 
 interests of labor and the duties of Government toward 
 the laboring classes are never recognized or understood 
 — the working-men of the countr}* hereby form them- 
 selves into a General League or Union, which shall 
 have no other object whatever than the study of their 
 own rights and interests. The question of wages will 
 be left to the different unions, except in such cases 
 where there is no union, or where the men are inarticu- 
 late (as in the leading case, now some ten years old, of 
 the gas-stokers) through ignorance and drink. And 
 the immediate questions before the union will be, first, 
 the dwelling-houses of the working-men, which are to 
 be made clean, safe, and healthy ; next, their food and 
 drink, wliich are to be unadulterated, pure, and genuine, 
 and are to pass through no more hands than is neces- 
 sary, and to be distributed at the actual cost price 
 v/ithout the intervention of small shops; next, instruc- 
 tion, for which purpose the working-men will elect 
 their own school boards, and burn all the foolish read- 
 ing-books at present in use, and abolish spelling as a 
 part of education, and teach the things necessary for 
 all trades ; next, clothing, which will be made for them 
 b}' their own men working for themselves, without 
 troubling the employers of labor at all; next, a news- 
 paper of their own, which will refuse any place to po- 
 litical agitators, leaders, partisans, and professional 
 talkers, and be devoted to the questions which really 
 concern working-men, and especially the question of 
 how best to employ the power which is in their hands, 
 and report continually what is doing, what must be 
 done, and how it must be done. And lastly, emigra- 
 tion, so that in every family it shall be considered nec- 
 essary^ for some to go, and the whole country shall be 
 mapped out into districts, and only a certain number 
 be allowed to remain. 
 
 Now, the world being so small as it is, and English- 
 men and Scotchmen being so masterful that they must 
 needs go straight to the front and stay there, it cannot 
 but happen that the world will presently — that is, in 
 
ALL SORTS AXD COXDITIONS OF MEN. 439 
 
 two generations, or three at the most — be overrun with 
 the good old English blood : whereupon til] the round 
 earth gets too small, which will not happen for another 
 ten thousand years or so, there will be the purest, most 
 delightful, and most heavenly Millennium. Rich peo- 
 ple may come into it if they please, but they will not 
 be wanted : in fact, rich people will die out, and it will 
 soon come to be considered mi imhappy thing, as it un- 
 doubtedly is, to be born rich. 
 
 • 
 
 — " Whose daughters ye are, " concluded the curate, 
 closing his book, " as long as ye do well, and are not 
 afraid with any amazement. " 
 
 Ho led the way into the vestry, where the book lay 
 open, and sitting at the table he made the proper en- 
 tries. 
 
 Then Harry took his place and signed. Now, be- 
 hold ! as he took the pen in his hand. Lord Jocelj-n art- 
 fully held blotting-paper in readiness, and in such a 
 manner as to hide the name of the bride ; then Angela 
 signed ; then the witnesses. Lord Joceh'n and Captain 
 Sorensen. And then there were shaking of hands and 
 kissing. And before they came away the curate ven- 
 tured timidl}^ to whisper congratulations and that he 
 had no idea of the honox*. And then Angela stopped 
 him, and bade him to her wedding-feast that evening 
 at the new Palace of Delight. 
 
 Then Lord Jocelyn distributed largess, the largest 
 kind of largess, among the people of the church. 
 
 But it surely was the strangest of weddings. For 
 when they reached the church door the bride and bride- 
 groom kissed each other, and then he placed her in the 
 carriage, in which the Davenants and Lord Jocelyn 
 also seated themselves, and so they drove olT. 
 
 " We sliall see her again to-night," said Harry. 
 "Come, Dick, we have got a long da}' to get through — 
 seven hours. Let us go for a walk. I can't sit down ; 
 I can't rest; I can't do anything. Let us go for a walk 
 and wrangle." 
 
 They left the girls and strode away, and did not re- 
 turn until it was past six o'clock, and already growing 
 dark. 
 
 The girls, in dreadful lowness of spirits, and feeling 
 
440 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 as flat as so many pancakes, returned to their house and 
 sat down with their hands in their laps, to do nothing 
 for seven hours. Did one ever hear that the maidens 
 at a marriage — do the customs of any country present 
 an example of such a thing — returned to the bride's 
 house without either bride or bridegroom? Did one 
 ever hear of a marriage where the groom left the bride 
 at the church door, and went away for a six hours' 
 walk? 
 
 As for Captain Sorensen, he went to the Palace and 
 pottered about, getting snubbed by the persons in au- 
 thority. There was still much to be done before the 
 evening, but there was time : all would be done. Pres- 
 ently he went away ; but he, too, was restless and agi- 
 tated ; he could not rest at home ; the possession of the 
 secret, the thought of his daughter's future, the strange 
 and unlooked-for ha])piness that had come to him in his 
 old age — these things agitated him; nor could even his 
 fiddle bring him an}^ consolation ; and the peacef ulness 
 of the Almshouse, which generally soothed him, this 
 day irritated him. Therefore he wandered about, and 
 presently appeared at the House, were he took dinner 
 with the girls, and they talked about what would hap- 
 pen. 
 
 The first thing that happened was the arrival of a 
 cart — a spring-cart — with the name of a Regent Street 
 firm upon it. The men took out a great quantity of 
 parcels and brought them into the show-room. All 
 the girls ran down to see what it meant, because on so 
 great a day everj^thing, said Nellj^, must mean some- 
 thing. 
 
 " Name of Hermitage?" asked the man. " This is for 
 3'ou, miss. Name of Sorensen? This is for you." 
 And so on, a parcel for every one of the girls. 
 
 Then he went awaj^, and they all looked at each 
 other. 
 
 " Hadn't you better," asked Captain Sorensen, "open 
 the parcels, girls?" 
 
 They opened them. 
 
 " Oh— h !" 
 
 Behold ! for every girl such a present as none of them 
 had ever imagined ! The masculine pen cannot describe 
 the sweet things which thev found there ; not silks and 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 441 
 
 satins, but pretty things; with boots, because dress- 
 makers are apt to be shabby in the matter of boots ; 
 and with handkerchiefs and pretty scarfs and gloves 
 and serviceable things of all sorts. 
 
 More than this : there was a separate parcel tied up 
 in white paper for every girl, and on it, in pencil, "For 
 the wedding supper at the Palace of Delight." And 
 in it gauze, or lace, for bridemaid's head-dress, and 
 white kid gloves, and a necklace with a locket, and in- 
 side the locket a portrait of Miss Kennedy, and outside 
 her Christian name, Angela. Also, for each girl a lit- 
 tle note, "For , with Miss Messenger's love;" but 
 
 for Nell}", whose parcel was like Benjamin's mess, the 
 note was, "For Nelly, with Miss Messenger's kindest 
 love." 
 
 "That," s?id Rebekah, but without jealousy, "is be- 
 cause j'ou were Miss Kennedy's favorite. Well! Miss 
 Messenger must be fond of her, and no wonder!" 
 
 " No wonder at all," said Captain Sorensen. 
 
 And nobody guessed. Nobody had the least suspi- 
 cion. 
 
 While they were all admiring and wondering, Mrs. 
 Bormalack ran over breathless. 
 
 "My dears!" she cried, "look what's come!" 
 
 Nothing less than a beautiful black silk dress. 
 
 "Now go away. Captain Sorensen," she said; "you 
 men are only hindering. And we've got to try on 
 things. Oh, good gracious! To think that Miss Mes- 
 senger would remember me, of all people in the world! 
 To be sure, Mr. Bormalack was one of her collectors, 
 and she may have heard about me " 
 
 "No," said Rebekah, "it is through Miss Kennedy; 
 no one has been forgotten who knew her." 
 
 At seven o'clock that evening the great hall of the 
 Palace was pretty well filled with guests. Some of 
 them, armed with wbite wands, acted as stewards, and 
 it was understood that on the arrival of Miss Messenger 
 a lane was to be formed, and the procession to the dais 
 at the end of the hall was to pass through that lane. 
 
 Outside, in the vestibule, stood the wedding-party, 
 wailing: the bridegroom, with his best man, and the 
 bridemaids in their white dresses, flowing gauze and 
 
U2 ALL SORTS AXD COXDITIOXS OF MEN. 
 
 necklaces, and gloves, and flowers — a very sweet and 
 beautiful bev}^ of girls; Harry for the last time in his 
 life, he thought with a sigh, in evening-dress. Within 
 the hall there were strange rumors Hying about. It 
 was said that Miss Messenger herself had bee7i married 
 that morning, and that the procession would be for her 
 wedding ; but others knew better : it was Miss Ken- 
 ned3*'s wedding; she had married Harry Goslett, the 
 man they called Gentleman Jack ; and Miss Kennedy, 
 everybod}' knew, was patronized by Miss Messenger, 
 
 At ten minutes past seven, two carriages drew up. 
 From the first of these descended Harry's bride, led by 
 Lord Jocelyn ; and from the second the Davenants. 
 
 Yes, Harry's bride. But whereas in the morning 
 she had been dressed in a plain white frock and white 
 bonnet like her bridemaids — she was now arrayed in 
 white satin, mj'stic, wonderful, with white veil and 
 white flowers, and round her white throat a necklace 
 of sparkling diamonds, and diamonds in her hair. 
 
 Harry stepped forward with beating heart. 
 
 "Take her, boy," said Lord Jocelyn, proudly. "But 
 you have married^-not Miss Kennedy at all — but An- 
 gela Messenger." 
 
 Harr}' took his bride's hand in a kind of stupor. 
 What did Lord Jocelyn mean? 
 
 "Forgive me, Harry," she said, "say you forgive 
 me." 
 
 Then he raised her veil and kissed her forehead before 
 them all. But he could not speak, because all in a mo- 
 ment the sense of what this would mean poured upon 
 his brain in a great wave, and he would fain have been 
 alone. 
 
 It was Miss Kennedy, indeed, but glorified into a 
 great lady ; oh !— oh — Miss Messenger ! 
 
 The girls, frightened, were shrinking together ; even 
 Rebekah was afraid at the great and mighty name of 
 Messenger. 
 
 Angela went among them, and kissed them all with 
 words of encouragement. "Can you not love me, 
 Nelly," she said, "as well when I am rich as when I 
 was poor?" 
 
 Then the chief officers of the brewery advanced, of- 
 fering congratulations in timid accents, because they 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 443 
 
 knew now that Miss Kennedy, the dressmaker, of whom 
 such hard things had been sometimes said in their own 
 presence and b}^ their own wives, was no other than 
 the sole partner in the brewery, and that her husband 
 had worked among them for a daily wage. What did 
 these things mean? They made respectable men afraid. 
 One person there was, however, who at sight of Miss 
 IMessenger, for whom he was waiting with anxious 
 heart, having a great desire to present his own case of 
 unrewarded zeal, turned pale, and broke through the 
 crowd with violence and fled. It was Uncle Bunker. 
 
 And then the stewards appeared at the open doors, 
 and the procession was formed. 
 
 First the stewards themselves — being all clerks of the 
 brewery — walked proudly at the head, carr3ing their 
 white wands like rifles. Next came Harry and the 
 bride, at sight of whom the guests shouted and roared ; 
 next came Dick Coppin with Nellj^, and Lord Jocelyn 
 with Rebekah, and the chief brewer with Ladv Dave- 
 nant, of course in her black velvet and war-paint, and 
 Lord Davenant with Mrs. Bormalack, and the chief 
 accountant with another bridemaid, and Captain Soren- 
 sen with another, and then the rest. 
 
 Then the organ burst into a wedding march, rolling 
 and pealing about the walls and roof of the mighty hall, 
 and amid its melodious thunder, and the shouts of the 
 wedding-guests, Harry led his bride slowl}^ through the 
 lane of curious and rejoicing faces, till they reached the 
 dais. 
 
 When all were arranged with the bride seated in the 
 middle, her husband standing at her right and the 
 bridemaids grouped behind them, Lord Jocelyn stepped 
 to the front and read in a loud voice ])art of the deed of 
 gift, which he then gave with a profmnid bow to An- 
 gela, who placed it in her husband's hands. 
 
 Then she stepped forward and rais:od her veil, and 
 stood before them all, beautiful as the day, and with 
 tears in her eyes. Yet she spoke in firm and clear ac- 
 cents which all could hear. It was her first and last 
 public speech ; for Angela belongs to that rapidly di- 
 minishing body of women who prefer to let the men do 
 all the public speaking. 
 
 "My dear friends," she said, "my kind friends: I 
 
444 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 
 
 wish first that you should clearly understand that this 
 Palace has been invented and designed for you by my 
 husband. All I have done is to build it. Now it is 
 yours, with all it contains. I pray God that it may be 
 used worthih", and for the joy and happiness of all. I 
 declare this Palace of Delight open, the property of the 
 people, to be administered and governed by them, and 
 tliom alone, in trust for each other." 
 
 This was all she said ; and the people cheered again, 
 and the organ played "God Save the Queen." 
 
 With this simple ceremony was the Palace of Delight 
 thrown open to the world. What better beginning 
 could it have than a wedding party? What better 
 omen could there be than that the Palace, like the Gar- 
 den of Eden, should ])egin with the happiness of a 
 wedded pair? 
 
 At this point there presented itself, to those who drew 
 u]) the programme, a grave practical difficulty. It was 
 this. The Palace could only be declared open in the 
 great hall itself. Also, it could be only in the great 
 hall that the banquet could take place. Now, how were 
 the fifteen hundred guests to be got out of the way and 
 amused while the tables were laid and the cloth spread? 
 There could not be, it is true, the splendor and costly 
 plate and epergnes and flowers of my Lord Mayor's 
 great dinner, but ornament of some kind there must 
 be upon the tables ; and even with an army of drilled 
 waiters it takes time to lay covers for fifteen hundred 
 people. 
 
 But there was no confusion. Once more the proces- 
 sion was formed and marched round the hall, headed 
 by the band of the Guards, visiting first the gymna- 
 sium, then the library, then the concert-room, and lastly 
 the theatre. Here they paused, and the bridal party 
 took their seats. The people poured in; when every 
 seat was taken, the stewards invited the rest into the 
 concert-room. In the theatre a little sparkling comedy 
 was played ; in the concert-room a troupe of singers dis- 
 coursed sweet madrigals and glees. Outside the wait- 
 ers ran backward and forward as busy as Diogenes with 
 his tub, but more to the purpose. 
 
 When, in something over an hour, the performances 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 445 
 
 were finished, the stewards found that the tables were 
 laid, one ruitning down the whole length of the hall, 
 and shorter ones across the hall. Everj'body had a card 
 with his place upon it; there was no confusion, and, 
 while trumpeters blared a welcome, they all took their 
 places in due order. 
 
 Angela and her husband sat in the middle of the long 
 table; at Angela's left hand was Lord Jocelyn, at Har- 
 ry's right Lady Davenant. Opposite the bride and 
 bridegroom sat the chief brewer and the chief account- 
 ant. The bridemaids spread out right and left. All 
 Angela's friends and acquaintances of Stepney Green 
 were there, except three. For old Mr. Maliphant was 
 sitting as usual in the boarding-house, conversing with 
 unseen persons, and laughing and brandishing a pipe ; 
 and with him Dtiniel Fagg sat hugging his book. And 
 in his own office sat Bunker, sick at heart. For he re- 
 membered his officious private letter to Miss Messenger, 
 and he felt that he had indeed gone and done it. 
 
 The rest of the long table was filled up by the clerks 
 and superior officers of the brewery; at the shorter 
 tables sat the rest of the guests, including even the 
 draymen and errand-boys. And so the feast began, 
 while the band of the Guards played for them. 
 
 It was a royal feast, with the most magnificent cold 
 sirloins of roast beef and lounds of salt beef, legs of 
 mutton, saddles of mutton, loins of veal, ribs of pork, 
 legs of pork, great hams, huge turkeys, capons, fowls, 
 ducks, and geese, all done to a turn ; so that the honest 
 guests fell to with a mighty will, and wished that such 
 a wedding might come once a month at least, with such 
 a supper. And Messenger's beer, as much as j'ou 
 pleased, for everybody. At a moment like this, would 
 one, even at the high table, venture to ask, to sa)' noth- 
 ing of wishing for, aught but Messenger's beer? 
 
 After the hacked and mangled remains of the first 
 course were removed, there came puddings, pies, cakes, 
 jellies, ices, blanc-mange, all kinds of delicious things. 
 
 And after this was done and eating was stayed and 
 only the memory left of the enormous feed, the chief 
 brewer rose and proposed in a few words the health of 
 the bride and bridegroom. He said that it would be a 
 lasting sorrow to all of them that they had not been 
 
446 ALL SORTS AXD COXDTTIOXS OF MEN. ■ 
 
 present at the auspicious event of the morning; bnt that 
 it was in some measure made uj) to them 'by the happi- 
 ness they had enjoyed together that evening. If an}'- 
 tliing, he added, could make them pray more hcartil}- 
 for the ha{)piness of the bride, it would be the thought 
 that she refused to be married from her house in Hie 
 West End, but came to Stepney among the workmen 
 and managers of her own brewery, and preferred to cele- 
 brate her wedding-feast in the magnificent hall whi<-h 
 she had given to the people of the place. And he had 
 one more good thing to tell them. Miss Messenger, 
 when she gave that precious thint^, her hand, retained 
 her name. There would still be a Messenger at the 
 head of the good old house. 
 
 Harry replii'd in a few words, and the wedding-cake 
 went round. Then Dick Coi)i)in proposed success to the 
 Palace of Delight. 
 
 "Hany,'* whispered Angela, " if you love m3, speak 
 now, from your very heart." 
 
 Ho sprang to his feet, and spoke to the people as they 
 had never heard any yet speak. 
 
 After telling them what the Palace was, what it was 
 meant to be, a place for the happiness and recreation of 
 all; how they were to make their own amusements for 
 themselves; how there were class-rooms where all kinds 
 of arts and accomplishments would be taught ; how, to 
 insure order and good behavior, it was necessary that 
 they should form their own volunteer police; how there 
 were to be no politics and no controversies within those 
 ^valls, and how the management of all was left to com- 
 mittees of their own choosing, he said : 
 
 " Friends all, this is indeed such a thing as the world 
 has never yet seen. You have been frequently invited 
 to join together and combine for the raising of wages ; 
 you are continually invited to follow leaders who prom- 
 ise to reform land laws, when you have had no land and 
 never will have any; to abolish the House of Lords, in 
 which 3'ou have no part, share, or lot ; to sweep away a 
 church which does not interfere with you; but who 
 have nothing — no nothing to offer you, out of which 
 any help or advantage will come to you. And j^ou are 
 always being told to consider life as a long period of 
 resignation under inevitable suffering ; and you are told 
 
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 447 
 
 to submit your reason, your will, yourselves, to author- 
 ity, and all will be well with you. No one yet has given 
 you the chance of making yourselves happy. In this 
 place you will find, or j^ou will make for yourselves, all 
 the things which make the lives of the rich happy. 
 Here you will have music, dancing, singing, acting, 
 painting, reading, games of skill, games of chance, com- 
 panionship, cheerfulness, light, warmth, comfort — ev- 
 erything. When these things have been enjoyed for a 
 time they will become a necessity for you, and a part 
 of the education for your young people. They will go 
 on to desire other things which cannot be found by any 
 others for you, but which must be found by yourselves 
 and for 3'ourselves. My wife has placed in your hands 
 the materials for earthly joy ; it lies with you to learn 
 how to use them ; it lies with you to find what other 
 things are necessary ; how the people, who have all the 
 power there is, must find out what they want, and help 
 themselves to it, standing shoulder to shoulder by means 
 of that power; how those enemies are not the rich, 
 whom your brawlers in Whitechapel Road ignorantly 
 accuse, but quite another kind — and you must find out 
 for yourselves wlio these are. It is not by setting poor 
 against rich, or by hardening the heart of rich against 
 poor, that you will succeed ; it is by independence and 
 by knowledge. All sorts and conditions of men are 
 alike. As are the vices of the rich, so are your own ; 
 as are your virtues, so are theirs. But, hitherto, the 
 rich have had things which you could not get. Noav 
 all that is altered : in the Palace of Delight we are equal 
 to the richest; there is nothing which we, too, cannot 
 have ; what they desire we desire ; what they have we 
 shall have ; we can all love ; we can all laugh ; we can 
 all feel the power of music ; we can dance and sing ; or 
 we can sit in peace and meditate. In this Palace, as in 
 the outer world, remember that jou have the power. 
 The time for en\w, hatred, and accusations has gone 
 by ; because we working-men have, at last, all the power 
 there is to have. Let us use it well. But the Palace 
 will be for joy and happiness, not for political wrangles. 
 Brothers and sisters, we will no longer sit down in res- 
 ignation ; we will take the same joy in this world that 
 the rich have taken. Life i.- short fur us all; let us 
 
448 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIOXS OF MEN. 
 
 make the most of it for ourselves and for each other. 
 There are so many jo\'s within our reach; there are 
 so many miseries we can abolish. In this house, which 
 is a Temple of Praise, we shall all together continually 
 bethinking how to bring more sunshine into our lives, 
 more change, more variety, more happiness." 
 
 A serious ending ; because Harry spoke from his heart. 
 As he took his seat in deej) silence, tlie organ broke 
 forth again and phiyed, while tlie people atood, the 
 grand ( )ld Hundrt'dtli Psalm. 
 
 A serious ending to the feast; but life is serious. 
 
 Ten minutes later the bride rose, and the band played 
 a joyful march, while the wedding-procession once more 
 formed and marched down the hall, and the people 
 poured out into the streets to cheer, and Angela and her 
 husl)and drovi' away for tlieir honeymoon. 
 
 Tlie Palace of Dt'light is in working order now, and 
 Stepney is already tnuisformed. A new period began 
 on the ojwning night for ^dl who were piesent. For 
 the first time they understood that life may be happy; 
 for the first time they resolved that they would find out 
 for themselves the secret of happiness. The angel with 
 the fiaming sword has at last stepi)ed from the gates of 
 the earthly Paradise, and we may now enter therein 
 and taste, unreproved, of all the fruits except the apples 
 of the Tree of Life — which has been removed, long 
 since, to another place, 
 
 THE END. 
 
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