LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XX, Issue 1540, 25 January 1879, Page 3

LITERATURE.

THE MASTER OF THE GOLDEN HOUSE. ["London Society."] (Continued.) 1 That is all very well, Mr Stuart; but boyo and girls have good healthy appetites, and cannot live upon air. Ido not know whether you are able, or are likely to be able, to maintain a wife ?' I really did not at all like this style of remark. But of course good mothers must look r.fter the temporalities of their daughters. ' Alas, madam, if I am to be as candid as yourself, I cannot honestly say yes, I have nothing. I have less than nothing, because I have a lot of college debts. If I take a good degree I may do very well. And people tell me that I should have a very good chance at an Indian Civil Service examination.'

• I think it would break my heart if my girl went to India I think, if God gives a mother an only daughter, she was meant to be her love and comfort all her days, not to be expatriated from her.' ' And now I suppose, since I have told you the truth and how poor I am, you will tell me to go about my business.' ' No, indeed, Mr Stuart, I will tell you nothing of the kind. You are so young that I expect worldly matters will yet come all Tight with you. But you are an honest man, and I put honesty and love before aU human things. Only stop a time, Mr Stuart; and by and by you shall come and see us. My poor husband had a very good income but very bad health ; and as no in surance company would take his life, we had to save, and we had not saved very much when his last illness came.' • I see ; I understand.' ' And now I must tell you, Mr Stuart, that Eleanor has another suitor besides yourself.' ' I can very well believe that she has a good many.' ' And this one tells me that be has the brightest financial prospects. He tells me that he has a good and increasing income, and that in all probability he will be Mr Bamfylde's acknowledged heir.' ' You cannot mean Mr Simpson.' ' Yc3, I mean him, and no one else.

' He will never make Eleanor happy.' • I agree with you. I am sura we both like you very much better than wo do Mr Simpson, But tlen you see this world's goods are all the wrong way.' ' Exactly. 'Tis true, 'tia pity ; pity is 'tis true.'

' Just so. But now I will tell yon, Mr Stnart, He came to me because he thought that if he could win me he would have a better chance with my child. He said that if he and Eleanor combined their claims it would settle all difficulty about the nearest succession to Mr Bampfylde'a kinship

ami ostites. Whm I fished him how that could be, he colored up and was confused, self-detected in a mistake. Ho t'ied to recall his words ; but I always liaten carefully, and I was quite certain that there cou d be uo possible mistake. And I have now eot my suspicious about Mr Simpson. Be is not a man who. like your imprudent self, would be perfectly ready to marry a dovrerless damsel.'

'O, I don't known ! Monster as he is, I suppose he has the feelings of human kind about him.'

* !'»ut fetill, here is thia difficulty, you see, 'f his talking about combining his claim with Eleanor's. If our claim is worth nothing at ell—and I have no reason to think otherwise —why in the world should he talk of combining iS with Irs own 1 Now this man knows our case much bet'er than we know it ourselves, in all probability. I know nothing at all about it my3e!f. My daughter has some vague impression that my poor dear husband has some pedigree papers; but I never took any interest in anything of Ihj sort, and have no recollection.'

This is all of this interesting conversation which is worth recording, It left two effects on my mind and conduct. It checked my impetuous feelings towards Ele*nor. We had some wanderings and billiard-playing ; hut I perhaps saved her from the suspicion that anything warmer lurked benea:h the innocent openness and gaiety. Secondly, I began to entertain a feeling of great animosity and suspicion towards Simpson. I glared at his particular golden knocker, and the knocker glared back again towards mo. ' And how are you getting on in that wildgoose chase of yours after an heir?' asked Blogram. 'O, very bad, very bad,' groaned poor Bampfylde. We three were by ourselves in the library. Simpson was -with Eleanor and her mamma in the billiard room, giving the young lady a lesson. I could not monopolise her altogether ; and beside?, I took a real interest in listening 10 the talk of these two wonderfal old men

' I suppose our young friend is not in the competition;' and Blogram good-naturedly-laid a careless hand on my shoulder. 'No ; I only wish he v/aa. All the other way.' ' I suppose that young lawyer is the favorite in the running.' ' He has the most plausible and best sustained claim. How do you like him, Blogram ?' ' Don't like him at all. The longer I look him the less I like him.' ' Then don't look at him. I mean to try nd like him myself.' ' But you see I have read faces so long and so often that they are as an open book. I could teli you pages and pages of that man's history, because they are to be read in the wrinkles of his forehead, the crow'sfeet around his eyes, the lines of that weak and wicked mouth.' Here Blogram fell into one of his dreamy monds. "J he very air is one A r ast wandering library, where all the syllables that have been uttered are imprinted, and it is scientifically conceivable that every word which we have spoken may be rendered back to us again. Man is a self-registering being. He sums up all his history in his countenance and bearing Just as you tell the age of trees by their concentric rings, so there is a true art by which we may decipher the moral history of human beings. Trust me that Seymour Simpson is a bad lot.' ' How is he a bad lot ?' I asked.

' Not merely negatively; not only by sensuality and selfishness and an absence of brain development; but depend upon it there are hideous possibilities of crime in that man's nature. He is one of that class of people who go on decorously for years, and than you are suddenly sta tied by hearing of some crime which they have committed. It may be a sly crime like forgery, or a violent crime like murder. But that fellow has got the possibility of crime in his nature.'

' Pleasant for me !' groaned Bampfylde. 'I may make a will in his favour, and he may poison me next day to get the money,' ' Then don't make a will.'

'I must. I shall go eff the hooks before very long, and I am sure my ghost would haunt this place if I had left it without its pr per master.' ' Every symptom of incipient insanity,' growled Blcgrum. ' Better postpone it till Christmas. Y<u will have more cheerful views with the Ynledog and the wasiailcup.' Bampfylde continued in a more cheerful tone, 'I only wish that nice girl, Eleanor Egerton, could establish a claim.' ' I feel pretty certain,' said Blogram, ' that the girl is right, and that there is some connection between the names of Egerton and Bampfylde. I have a most miserable memory. It is crowded with the mopt tivial details, which every wise min would desire to forget But I remember this much. They were making a railway through a most purely silvan country. But wait a moment, and I will tell you.' Here this curious man closed his eyes, as if going; to sleep. «I am summoning up a picture on mv retina,' he said, in an explanatory way ' Yes, here is a deep cutting, and above it a wood, and a rock comes sharply out from some turf; and on the left, a mile's distance is an old gray square-towered church. I don't remember the name of the place, and perhaps I never heard it. But in an old village inn I sat over the fire with the landlord, and heard the gossip of the neighborhood, and of an intermarriage between an Egerton and a Bampfylde.' Having said this much, Blogram relapsed into one of his deepest fits of meditation, ' How extraordinary !' I murmured. 1 Wonderful man !' said Bampfylde. ' That fellow will set us all right yat.'

This was the last evening of our visit. Wa were all invited to renew our visit at Christmas, and our respective chambers would be reserved for us. Old Bampfylde gave a whimsical port of intimation that at Christmas ho would really settle hi* will. He would not say that it would a lasting will, but it would bo a will which might be repealed or modified, or which might permanently standi • You will have all your golden knocker rooms crowded with claimants.' ' Then I will make you one of the family. You shall be as one of the family, and in one of my private rooms.' CHAPTER VII. ( XFOBD. I have now to mention some remarkable circumstances which befell me while endeavoring to unravel this doubtful matter of a pedigree. I was sitting one day in my Oxford rooms somewhat moodily, when there came a light tap at the inner door, the ' oak' being uusported.' I had heard a step moving along the passage—a step unlike any other human step, not that of uudegraduate, or scout, or dun. or laundress—and that step had come to my door, and there had ensued a decidedly femine knocking. It was Eleanor Egerton. 'Mamma's down just below in the Broad Walk. I persuaded her to let me run upstairs, and I would bring you down to her. We want to consult you about some very important business.' * Old Bampfylde's business, I suppose ?' ' Just so. Yes.'

' I suppose that, having exhausted the British Museum, you are now going to set to work on the Bodleian ?'

' Bo quiet, sir. Yon must not make fun of me. I am sure Mr Bampfylde was very jruch pleased with the result of my labors at the British Museum. All the same, you must take us to we the Bodleian. But now come and see mamma.' The gist of her communication to me was this: Mr Bampfylde had in the kindest possiblo way pointed out to her that up to the present time ho had quite failed to c nnect her own firmly history with the pretty little pedigree which she had worked out at the British Museum ; but, at the same time, he quite conceived that suci) a link might yet be supplied, Nellie hail been troubling herself incessantly about completing the missing links, and now she thought that very possibly she had a clue towards doing

' Toor papa was very fond of pedigrees. I remember that he had one from old Uncle Richard which he annotated himself. If I could only get hold of that pedigree !' 1 Where do you think it is ?'

' We warehoused a good deal of our furniture ; but we sold a la-ge quantity to a furniture-man in our neighbourhood, who, of course, intended to sell again N>w ilr'3 furniture there was an old round table full of drawers, and one of these drawerß had the pedigree and some old family letters In our grief aud distress at the loss of poor papa, I feel certain that these papers must have been overlooked in the table-drawers. We have made a point of destroying no naper which he ever wrote or in which he took the slightest intere»t; and as we are sure thai we have not destroyed these papers, which we knew to exist, I cannot help thinking that we mav recover them.' ' ft is very unlikely, I am afraid. The broker may have destroyed all loose papers at once, or he may have sold the table.'

That afternoon we had been on the water. We had gone as far as Sandford Lock, and Eleanor herself for a short time had insisted on handling an oar. 'lf there is time, dear, I think I should like to go to the service at Now College,' said Mrs Egerton ; ' I am so fend of sacred music, and I suppose you have hardly any finer in Oxford.'

How well I remember that afternoon service! It was rapidly growing dusk as we entered the ante-chapel. We made our way to the stalls assigned us. We listened to the intonation of the silvery voice, to the loud glad burst of the exultant anthem. I thought of Thackeray's lines to the good girl going to church, while her lover, the graceless reprobate, hovers about the church-door, ' seeing at heaven's gate angels within it.' She was so still and cmiet that for the time I was banished from her presence and knowledge. 'lf there is a beauty of holinesp,' I thought,' 'is there not also a holiness of beauty ?' Was there not a sanctuary in that hushed and holy heart which harmonised with this noble sanctuary of man's art and devising ? And in that quiet sanctuary how would ifc b« possible for a wretched • careless worldling like myself find the way ? I felt that it could only be done by hard work and by striving to be a better man. In my own heart I believed that her mother stood my friend, and that there would come a time when, joyously, naturally, and with Heaven's help and blessing, I should be to that good woman even as a son, anel her daughter would be my wife. (To be continued)