CHAPTER VI
“Timon. Each thing’s a thief
The laws, your curb and whip, in their rough power
Have unchecked theft.
The sweet degrees that this brief world affords,
To such as may the passive drugs of it
Freely command.”—Timon of Athens.
On the day and at the hour fixed for the interview with the stranger who had visited Mr. Beaufort, Lord Lilburne was seated in the library of his brother-in-law; and before the elbow-chair, on which he lolled carelessly, stood our old friend Mr. Sharp, of Bow Street notability.
“Mr. Sharp,” said the peer, “I have sent for you to do me a little favour. I expect a man here who professes to give Mr. Beaufort, my brother-in-law, some information about a lawsuit. It is necessary to know the exact value of his evidence. I wish you to ascertain all particulars about him. Be so good as to seat yourself in the porter’s chair in the hall; note him when he enters, unobserved yourself—but as he is probably a stranger to you, note him still more when he leaves the house; follow him at a distance; find out where he lives, whom he associates with, where he visits, their names and directions, what his character and calling are;—in a word, everything you can, and report to me each evening. Dog him well, never lose sight of him—you will be handsomely paid. You understand?”
“Ah!” said Mr. Sharp, “leave me alone, my lord. Been employed before by your lordship’s brother-in-law. We knows what’s what.”
“I don’t doubt it. To your post—I expect him every moment.”
And, in fact, Mr. Sharp had only just ensconced himself in the porter’s chair when the stranger knocked at the door—in another moment he was shown in to Lord Lilburne.
“Sir,” said his lordship, without rising, “be so good as to take a chair. Mr. Beaufort is obliged to leave town—he has asked me to see you—I am one of his family—his wife is my sister—you may be as frank with me as with him,—more so, perhaps.”
“I beg the fauvour of your name, sir,” said the stranger, adjusting his collar.
“Yours first—business is business.”
“Well, then, Captain Smith.”
“Of what regiment?”
“Half-pay.”
“I am Lord Lilburne. Your name is Smith—humph!” added the peer, looking over some notes before him. “I see it is also the name of the witness appealed to by Mrs. Morton—humph!”
At this remark, and still more at the look which accompanied it, the countenance, before impudent and complacent, of Captain Smith fell into visible embarrassment; he cleared his throat and said, with a little hesitation,—
“My lord, that witness is living!”
“No doubt of it—witnesses never die where property is concerned and imposture intended.”
At this moment the servant entered, and placed a little note, quaintly folded, before Lord Lilburne. He glanced at it in surprise—opened, and read as follows, in pencil,—
“My LORD,—I knows the man; take caer of him; he is as big a roge as ever stept; he was transported some three year back, and unless his time has been shortened by the Home, he’s absent without leve. We used to call him Dashing Jerry. That ere youngster we went arter, by Mr. Bofort’s wish, was a pall of his. Scuze the liberty I take.
“J. SHARP.”
While Lord Lilburne held this effusion to the candle, and spelled his way through it, Captain Smith, recovering his self-composure, thus proceeded:
“Imposture, my lord! imposture! I really don’t understand. Your lordship really seems so suspicious, that it is quite uncomfortable. I am sure it is all the same to me; and if Mr. Beaufort does not think proper to see me himself, why I’d best make my bow.”
And Captain Smith rose.
“Stay a moment, sir. What Mr. Beaufort may yet do, I cannot say; but I know this, you stand charged of a very grave offence, and if your witness or witnesses—you may have fifty, for what I care—are equally guilty, so much the worse for them.”
“My lord, I really don’t comprehend.”
“Then I will be more plain. I accuse you of devising an infamous falsehood for the purpose of extorting money. Let your witnesses appear in court, and I promise that you, they, and the young man, Mr. Morton, whose claim they set up, shall be indicted for conspiracy—conspiracy, if accompanied (as in the case of your witnesses) with perjury, of the blackest die. Mr. Smith, I know you; and, before ten o’clock to-morrow, I shall know also if you had his majesty’s leave to quit the colonies! Ah! I am plain enough now, I see.”
And Lord Lilburne threw himself back in his chair, and coldly contemplated the white face and dismayed expression of the crestfallen captain. That most worthy person, after a pause of confusion, amaze, and fear, made an involuntary stride, with a menacing gesture, towards Lilburne; the peer quietly placed his hand on the bell.
“One moment more,” said the latter; “if I ring this bell, it is to place you in custody. Let Mr. Beaufort but see you here once again—nay, let him but hear another word of this pretended lawsuit—and you return to the colonies. Pshaw! Frown not at me, sir! A Bow Street officer is in the hall. Begone!—no, stop one moment, and take a lesson in life. Never again attempt to threaten people of property and station. Around every rich man is a wall—better not run your head against it.”
“But I swear solemnly,” cried the knave, with an emphasis so startling that it carried with it the appearance of truth, “that the marriage did take place.”
“And I say, no less solemnly, that any one who swears it in a court of law shall be prosecuted for perjury! Bah! you are a sorry rogue, after all!”
And with an air of supreme and half-compassionate contempt, Lord Lilburne turned away and stirred the fire. Captain Smith muttered and fumbled a moment with his gloves, then shrugged his shoulders and sneaked out.
That night Lord Lilburne again received his friends, and amongst his guests came Vaudemont. Lilburne was one who liked the study of character, especially the character of men wrestling against the world. Wholly free from every species of ambition, he seemed to reconcile himself to his apathy by examining into the disquietude, the mortification, the heart’s wear and tear, which are the lot of the ambitious. Like the spider in his hole, he watched with hungry pleasure the flies struggling in the web; through whose slimy labyrinth he walked with an easy safety. Perhaps one reason why he loved gaming was less from the joy of winning than the philosophical complacency with which he feasted on the emotions of those who lost; always serene, and, except in debauch, always passionless,—Majendie, tracing the experiments of science in the agonies of some tortured dog, could not be more rapt in the science, and more indifferent to the dog, than Lord Lilburne, ruining a victim, in the analysis of human passions,—stoical in the writhings of the wretch whom he tranquilly dissected. He wished to win money of Vaudemont—to ruin this man, who presumed to be more generous than other people—to see a bold adventurer submitted to the wheel of the Fortune which reigns in a pack of cards;—and all, of course, without the least hate to the man whom he then saw for the first time. On the contrary, he felt a respect for Vaudemont. Like most worldly men, Lord Lilburne was prepossessed in favour of those who seek to rise in life: and like men who have excelled in manly and athletic exercises, he was also prepossessed in favour of those who appeared fitted for the same success.
Liancourt took aside his friend, as Lord Lilburne was talking with his other guests:—
“I need not caution you, who never play, not to commit yourself to Lord Lilburne’s tender mercies; remember, he is an admirable player.”
“Nay,” answered Vaudemont, “I want to know this man: I have reasons, which alone induce me to enter his house. I can afford to venture something, because I wish to see if I can gain something for one dear to me. And for the rest (he muttered)—I know him too well not to be on my guard.” With that he joined Lord Lilburne’s group, and accepted the invitation to the card-table. At supper, Vaudemont conversed more than was habitual to him; he especially addressed himself to his host, and listened, with great attention, to Lilburne’s caustic comments upon every topic successively started. And whether it was the art of De Vaudemont, or from an interest that Lord Lilburne took in studying what was to him a new character,—or whether that, both men excelling peculiarly in all masculine accomplishments, their conversation was of a nature that was more attractive to themselves than to others; it so happened that they were still talking while the daylight already peered through the window-curtains.
“And I have outstayed all your guests,” said De Vaudemont, glancing round the emptied room.
“It is the best compliment you could pay me. Another night we can enliven our tete-a-tete with ecarte; though at your age, and with your appearance, I am surprised, Monsieur de Vaudemont, that you are fond of play: I should have thought that it was not in a pack of cards that you looked for hearts. But perhaps you are blase betimes of the beau sexe.”
“Yet your lordship’s devotion to it is, perhaps, as great now as ever?”
“Mine?—no, not as ever. To different ages different degrees. At your age I wooed; at mine I purchase—the better plan of the two: it does not take up half so much time.”
“Your marriage, I think, Lord Lilburne, was not blessed with children. Perhaps sometimes you feel the want of them?”
“If I did, I could have them by the dozen. Other ladies have been more generous in that department than the late Lady Lilburne, Heaven rest her!”
“And,” said Vaudemont, fixing his eyes with some earnestness on his host, “if you were really persuaded that you had a child, or perhaps a grandchild—the mother one whom you loved in your first youth—a child affectionate, beautiful, and especially needing your care and protection, would you not suffer that child, though illegitimate, to supply to you the want of filial affection?”
“Filial affection, mon cher!” repeated Lord Lilburne, “needing my care and protection! Pshaw! In other words, would I give board and lodging to some young vagabond who was good enough to say he was son to Lord Lilburne?”
“But if you were convinced that the claimant were your son, or perhaps your daughter—a tenderer name of the two, and a more helpless claimant?”
“My dear Monsieur de Vaudemont, you are doubtless a man of gallantry and of the world. If the children whom the law forces on one are, nine times out of ten, such damnable plagues, judge if one would father those whom the law permits us to disown! Natural children are the pariahs of the world, and I—am one of the Brahmans.”
“But,” persisted Vaudemont, “forgive me if I press the question farther. Perhaps I seek from your wisdom a guide to my own conduct;—suppose, then, a man had loved, had wronged, the mother;—suppose that in the child he saw one who, without his aid, might be exposed to every curse with which the pariahs (true, the pariahs!) of the world are too often visited, and who with his aid might become, as age advanced, his companion, his nurse, his comforter—”
“Tush!” interrupted Lilburne, with some impatience; “I know not how our conversation fell on such a topic—but if you really ask my opinion in reference to any case in practical life, you shall have it. Look you, then Monsieur de Vaudemont, no man has studied the art of happiness more than I have; and I will tell you the great secret—have as few ties as possible. Nurse!—pooh! you or I could hire one by the week a thousand times more useful and careful than a bore of a child. Comforter!—a man of mind never wants comfort. And there is no such thing as sorrow while we have health and money, and don’t care a straw for anybody in the world. If you choose to love people, their health and circumstances, if either go wrong, can fret you: that opens many avenues to pain. Never live alone, but always feel alone. You think this unamiable: possibly. I am no hypocrite, and, for my part, I never affect to be anything but what I am—John Lilburne.”
As the peer thus spoke, Vaudemont, leaning against the door, contemplated him with a strange mixture of interest and disgust. “And John Lilburne is thought a great man, and William Gawtrey was a great rogue. You don’t conceal your heart?—no, I understand. Wealth and power have no need of hypocrisy: you are the man of vice—Gawtrey, the man of crime. You never sin against the law—he was a felon by his trade. And the felon saved from vice the child, and from want the grandchild (Your flesh and blood) whom you disown: which will Heaven consider the worse man? No, poor Fanny, I see I am wrong. If he would own you, I would not give you up to the ice of such a soul:—better the blind man than the dead heart!”
“Well, Lord Lilburne,” said De Vaudemont aloud, shaking off his reverie, “I must own that your philosophy seems to me the wisest for yourself. For a poor man it might be different—the poor need affection.”
“Ay, the poor, certainly,” said Lord Lilburne, with an air of patronising candour.
“And I will own farther,” continued De Vaudemont, “that I have willingly lost my money in return for the instruction I have received in hearing you converse.”
“You are kind: come and take your revenge next Thursday. Adieu.”
As Lord Lilburne undressed, and his valet attended him, he said to that worthy functionary,—
“So you have not been able to make out the name of the stranger—the new lodger you tell me of?”
“No, my lord. They only say he is a very fine-looking man.”
“You have not seen him?”
“No, my lord. What do you wish me now to do?”
“Humph! Nothing at this moment! You manage things so badly, you might get me into a scrape. I never do anything which the law or the police, or even the news papers, can get hold of. I must think of some other way—humph! I never give up what I once commence, and I never fail in what I undertake! If life had been worth what fools trouble it with—business and ambition—I suppose I should have been a great man with a very bad liver—ha ha! I alone, of all the world, ever found out what the world was good for! Draw the curtains, Dykeman.”
CHAPTER VII
“Org. Welcome, thou ice that sitt’st about his heart
No heat can ever thaw thee!”
—FORD: Broken Heart.
“Nearch. Honourable infamy!”
—Ibid.
“Amye. Her tenderness hath yet deserved no rigour,
So to be crossed by fate!”
“Arm. You misapply, sir,
With favour let me speak it, what Apollo
Hath clouded in dim sense!”
—Ibid.
If Vaudemont had fancied that, considering the age and poverty of Simon, it was his duty to see whether Fanny’s not more legal, but more natural protector were, indeed, the unredeemed and unmalleable egotist which Gawtrey had painted him, the conversation of one night was sufficient to make him abandon for ever the notion of advancing her claims upon Lord Lilburne. But Philip had another motive in continuing his acquaintance with that personage. The sight of his mother’s grave had recalled to him the image of that lost brother over whom he had vowed to watch. And, despite the deep sense of wronged affection with which he yet remembered the cruel letter that had contained the last tidings of Sidney, Philip’s heart clung with undying fondness to that fair shape associated with all the happy recollections of childhood; and his conscience as well as his love asked him, each time that he passed the churchyard, “Will you make no effort to obey that last prayer of the mother who consigned her darling to your charge?” Perhaps, had Philip been in want, or had the name he now bore been sullied by his conduct, he might have shrunk from seeking one whom he might injure, but could not serve. But though not rich, he had more than enough for tastes as hardy and simple as any to which soldier of fortune ever limited his desires. And he thought, with a sentiment of just and noble pride, that the name which Eugenie had forced upon him had been borne spotless as the ermine through the trials and vicissitudes he had passed since he had assumed it. Sidney could give him nothing, and therefore it was his duty to seek Sidney out. Now, he had always believed in his heart that the Beauforts were acquainted with a secret which he more and more pined to penetrate. He would, for Sidney’s sake, smother his hate to the Beauforts; he would not reject their acquaintance if thrown in his way; nay, secure in his change of name and his altered features, from all suspicion on their part, he would seek that acquaintance in order to find his brother and fulfil Catherine’s last commands. His intercourse with Lilburne would necessarily bring him easily into contact with Lilburne’s family. And in this thought he did not reject the invitations pressed on him. He felt, too, a dark and absorbing interest in examining a man who was in himself the incarnation of the World—the World of Art—the World as the Preacher paints it—the hollow, sensual, sharp-witted, self-wrapped WORLD—the World that is all for this life, and thinks of no Future and no God!
Lord Lilburne was, indeed, a study for deep contemplation. A study to perplex the ordinary thinker, and task to the utmost the analysis of more profound reflection. William Gawtrey had possessed no common talents; he had discovered that his life had been one mistake; Lord Lilburne’s intellect was far keener than Gawtrey’s, and he had never made, and if he had lived to the age of Old Parr, never would have made a similar discovery. He never wrestled against a law, though he slipped through all laws! And he knew no remorse, for he knew no fear. Lord Lilburne had married early, and long survived, a lady of fortune, the daughter of the then Premier—the best match, in fact, of his day. And for one very brief period of his life he had suffered himself to enter into the field of politics the only ambition common with men of equal rank. He showed talents that might have raised one so gifted by circumstance to any height, and then retired at once into his old habits and old system of pleasure. “I wished to try,” said he once, “if fame was worth one headache, and I have convinced myself that the man who can sacrifice the bone in his mouth to the shadow of the bone in the water is a fool.” From that time he never attended the House of Lords, and declared himself of no political opinions one way or the other. Nevertheless, the world had a general belief in his powers, and Vaudemont reluctantly subscribed to the world’s verdict. Yet he had done nothing, he had read but little, he laughed at the world to its face,—and that last was, after all, the main secret of his ascendancy over those who were drawn into his circle. That contempt of the world placed the world at his feet. His sardonic and polished indifference, his professed code that there was no life worth caring for but his own life, his exemption from all cant, prejudice, and disguise, the frigid lubricity with which he glided out of the grasp of the Conventional, whenever it so pleased him, without shocking the Decorums whose sense is in their ear, and who are not roused by the deed but by the noise,—all this had in it the marrow and essence of a system triumphant with the vulgar; for little minds give importance to the man who gives importance to nothing. Lord Lilburne’s authority, not in matters of taste alone, but in those which the world calls judgment and common sense, was regarded as an oracle. He cared not a straw for the ordinary baubles that attract his order; he had refused both an earldom and the garter, and this was often quoted in his honour. But you only try a man’s virtue when you offer him something that he covets. The earldom and the garter were to Lord Lilburne no more tempting inducements than a doll or a skipping-rope; had you offered him an infallible cure for the gout, or an antidote against old age, you might have hired him as your lackey on your own terms. Lord Lilburne’s next heir was the son of his only brother, a person entirely dependent on his uncle. Lord Lilburne allowed him L1000. a year and kept him always abroad in a diplomatic situation. He looked upon his successor as a man who wanted power, but not inclination, to become his assassin.
Though he lived sumptuously and grudged himself nothing, Lord Lilburne was far from an extravagant man; he might, indeed, be considered close; for he knew how much of comfort and consideration he owed to his money, and valued it accordingly; he knew the best speculations and the best investments. If he took shares in an American canal, you might be sure that the shares would soon be double in value; if he purchased an estate, you might be certain it was a bargain. This pecuniary tact and success necessarily augmented his fame for wisdom.
He had been in early life a successful gambler, and some suspicions of his fair play had been noised abroad; but, as has been recently seen in the instance of a man of rank equal to Lilburne’s, though, perhaps, of less acute if more cultivated intellect, it is long before the pigeon will turn round upon a falcon of breed and mettle. The rumours, indeed, were so vague as to carry with them no weight. During the middle of his career, when in the full flush of health and fortune, he had renounced the gaming-table. Of late years, as advancing age made time more heavy, he had resumed the resource, and with all his former good luck. The money-market, the table, the sex, constituted the other occupations and amusements with which Lord Lilburne filled up his rosy leisure.
Another way by which this man had acquired reputation for ability was this,—he never pretended to any branch of knowledge of which he was ignorant, any more than to any virtue in which he was deficient. Honesty itself was never more free from quackery or deception than was this embodied and walking Vice. If the world chose to esteem him, he did not buy its opinion by imposture. No man ever saw Lord Lilburne’s name in a public subscription, whether for a new church, or a Bible Society, or a distressed family, no man ever heard of his doing one generous, benevolent, or kindly action,—no man was ever startled by one philanthropic, pious, or amiable sentiment from those mocking lips. Yet, in spite of all this, John Lord Lilburne was not only esteemed but liked by the world, and set up in the chair of its Rhadamanthuses. In a word, he seemed to Vaudemont, and he was so in reality, a brilliant example of the might of Circumstance—an instance of what may be done in the way of reputation and influence by a rich, well-born man to whom the will a kingdom is. A little of genius, and Lord Lilburne would have made his vices notorious and his deficiencies glaring; a little of heart, and his habits would have led him into countless follies and discreditable scrapes. It was the lead and the stone that he carried about him that preserved his equilibrium, no matter which way the breeze blew. But all his qualities, positive or negative, would have availed him nothing without that position which enabled him to take his ease in that inn, the world—which presented, to every detection of his want of intrinsic nobleness, the irreproachable respectability of a high name, a splendid mansion, and a rent-roll without a flaw. Vaudemont drew comparisons between Lilburne and Gawtrey, and he comprehended at last, why one was a low rascal and the other a great man.
Although it was but a few days after their first introduction to each other, Vaudemont had been twice to Lord Lilburne’s, and their acquaintance was already on an easy footing—when one afternoon as the former was riding through the streets towards H–, he met the peer mounted on a stout cob, which, from its symmetrical strength, pure English breed, and exquisite grooming, showed something of those sporting tastes for which, in earlier life, Lord Lilburne had been noted.
“Why, Monsieur de Vaudemont, what brings you to this part of the town?—curiosity and the desire to explore?”
“That might be natural enough in me; but you, who know London so well; rather what brings you here?”
“Why I am returned from a long ride. I have had symptoms of a fit of the gout, and been trying to keep it off by exercise. I have been to a cottage that belongs to me, some miles from the town—a pretty place enough, by the way—you must come and see me there next month. I shall fill the house for a battue! I have some tolerable covers—you are a good shot, I suppose?”
“I have not practised, except with a rifle, for some years.”
“That’s a pity; for as I think a week’s shooting once a year quite enough, I fear that your visit to me at Fernside may not be sufficiently long to put your hand in.”
“Fernside!”
“Yes; is the name familiar to you?”
“I think I have heard it before. Did your lordship purchase or inherit it?”
“I bought it of my brother-in-law. It belonged to his brother—a gay, wild sort of fellow, who broke his neck over a six-barred gate; through that gate my friend Robert walked the same day into a very fine estate!”
“I have heard so. The late Mr. Beaufort, then, left no children?”
“Yes; two. But they came into the world in the primitive way in which Mr. Owen wishes us all to come—too naturally for the present state of society, and Mr. Owen’s parallelogram was not ready for them. By the way, one of them disappeared at Paris—you never met with him, I suppose?”
“Under what name?”
“Morton.”
“Morton! hem! What Christian name?”
“Philip.”
“Philip! no. But did Mr. Beaufort do nothing for the young men? I think I have heard somewhere that he took compassion on one of them.”
“Have you? Ah, my brother-in-law is precisely one of those excellent men of whom the world always speaks well. No; he would very willingly have served either or both the boys, but the mother refused all his overtures and went to law, I fancy. The elder of these bastards turned out a sad fellow, and the younger,—I don’t know exactly where he is, but no doubt with one of his mother’s relations. You seem to interest yourself in natural children, my dear Vaudemont?”
“Perhaps you have heard that people have doubted if I were a natural son?”
“Ah! I understand now. But are you going?—I was in hopes you would have turned back my way, and—”
“You are very good; but I have a particular appointment, and I am now too late. Good morning, Lord Lilburne.” Sidney with one of his mother’s relations! Returned, perhaps, to the Mortons! How had he never before chanced on a conjecture so probable? He would go at once!—that very night he would go to the house from which he had taken his brother. At least, and at the worst, they might give him some clue.
Buoyed with this hope and this resolve, he rode hastily to H–, to announce to Simon and Fanny that he should not return to them, perhaps, for two or three days. As he entered the suburb, he drew up by the statuary of whom he had purchased his mother’s gravestone.
The artist of the melancholy trade was at work in his yard.
“Ho! there!” said Vaudemont, looking over the low railing; “is the tomb I have ordered nearly finished?”
“Why, sir, as you were so anxious for despatch, and as it would take a long time to get a new one ready, I thought of giving you this, which is finished all but the inscription. It was meant for Miss Deborah Primme; but her nephew and heir called on me yesterday to say, that as the poor lady died worth less by L5,000. than he had expected, he thought a handsome wooden tomb would do as well, if I could get rid of this for him. It is a beauty, sir. It will look so cheerful—”
“Well, that will do: and you can place it now where I told you.”
“In three days, sir.”
“So be it.” And he rode on, muttering, “Fanny, your pious wish will be fulfilled. But flowers,—will they suit that stone?”
He put up his horse, and walked through the lane to Simon’s.
As he approached the house, he saw Fanny’s bright eyes at the window. She was watching his return. She hastened to open the door to him, and the world’s wanderer felt what music there is in the footstep, what summer there is in the smile, of Welcome!
“My dear Fanny,” he said, affected by her joyous greeting, “it makes my heart warm to see you. I have brought you a present from town. When I was a boy, I remember that my poor mother was fond of singing some simple songs, which often, somehow or other, come back to me, when I see and hear you. I fancied you would understand and like them as well at least as I do—for Heaven knows (he added to himself) my ear is dull enough generally to the jingle of rhyme.” And he placed in her hands a little volume of those exquisite songs, in which Burns has set Nature to music.
“Oh! you are so kind, brother,” said Fanny, with tears swimming in her eyes, and she kissed the book.
After their simple meal, Vaudemont broke to Fanny and Simon the intelligence of his intended departure for a few days. Simon heard it with the silent apathy into which, except on rare occasions, his life had settled. But Fanny turned away her face and wept.
“It is but for a day or two, Fanny.”
“An hour is very—very long sometimes,” said the girl, shaking her head mournfully.
“Come, I have a little time yet left, and the air is mild, you have not been out to-day, shall we walk—”
“Hem!” interrupted Simon, clearing his throat, and seeming to start into sudden animation; “had not you better settle the board and lodging before you go?”
“Oh, grandfather!” cried Fanny, springing to her feet, with such a blush upon her face.
“Nay, child,” said Vaudemont, laughingly; “your grandfather only anticipates me. But do not talk of board and lodging; Fanny is as a sister to me, and our purse is in common.”
“I should like to feel a sovereign—just to feel it,” muttered Simon, in a sort of apologetic tone, that was really pathetic; and as Vaudemont scattered some coins on the table, the old man clawed them up, chuckling and talking to himself; and, rising with great alacrity, hobbled out of the room like a raven carrying some cunning theft to its hiding-place.
This was so amusing to Vaudemont that he burst out fairly into an uncontrollable laughter. Fanny looked at him, humbled and wondering for some moments; and then, creeping to him, put her hand gently on his arm and said—