CHAPTER XIV. Canst thou so easily pronounce Farewell, HAVARD. THAT a person so prudent and well-principled as Mr. Francis Welsted should have involved himself in a quarrel, in the midst of his successes in better society, might perhaps never strike the reader; and therefore it becomes my duty (part of which consists in concealing nothing from his knowledge, which it is important he should know, let who may be compromised,) to enlighten him on this point of the story. Nobody, except a parent, would have imagined that an attachment so ardent and strong, as that of Miss Elizabeth Tickle and Mr. Stevens, could be broken off at the bidding of superior authority, or doubt, unless some paramount principle militated against it, that the sudden separation of two fond hearts would be the most certain incitement to some more violent measures on the part of the lovers ;-certain it is, that at the moment in which Mr. Tickle was at the supper-table, consigning his late usher safely to the bosom of his family in the country, the said usher was walking up and down before the academy, whistling "Soger Laddie," in hopes of attracting the ear and notice of Miss Elizabeth, but in vain She was, as we have already seen, most unsentimentally employed in swallowing a very hearty supper; and all the satisfaction Mr. Stevens obtained, in return for paddling up and down in a muddy road for two hours, eyed suspiciously by the watchmen, and saluted disagreeably by the patrol, was the sight of lights beaming through the crevices of the parlour window-shutters, and the sound of an occasional horse-laugh, ill enough VOL. II. Y calculated to gratify an "outside passenger," under his circumstances. Every class of people has of course its peculiar mode of love-making, and indeed the many disclosures which are made in the course of law proceedings upon amatory subjects, prove the vast variety of methods adopted to attain the same object. Mr. Stevens was placed in that sphere, of which the inhabitants delight in moon-light walks in the vicinity of the metropolis; going to a play to see a new tragedy, weeping during the performance into white pocket-handkerchiefs, and eating oranges or crunching apples between the acts; making perhaps a Sunday excursion to Richmond in a steam-boat, or a party to the great oak at Fairlop Fair in a glass-coach: and it must be confessed that Elizabeth Tickle's taste was wonderfully accommodating to this system. She delighted in little dances, and walks home after them, and what are called walks out in the morning, to be met somewhere and joined by her beloved, and then to come in hungry, and eat a hearty dinner of roasted mutton or hot round of boiled beef, with huge carrots and greasy greens, and then have some nice toast or muffins with tea, and play Pope Joan with fiche at sixpence per dozen by way of an exciting wind-up; always remembering to make sundry waggish allusions to matrimony, which that elegant diversion so fortunately favours, and never forgetting those gentle pressures of feet under the table, which are the most decided and general evidences of mutual affection in such society. Now, it so happened that Stevens determined, wher he quitted Tickle, to keep up a correspondence, if possible, with his daughter, and marry her eventually in spite of him. The twopenny-post was liable to interruption ; Dixon warned him that he could not be privy to any clandestine intercourse; Ronfleur was sure to have made some blunder, had he been trusted; and as for the servants, they valued their places too much, to risk stratagems without higher bribes than it suited an ex-usher like Mr. Stevens to supply them with. In the dreadful dilemma in which Mr. Stevens found himself placed, he bethought him of addressing a pathetic appeal to his successor in office, imagining that the least Welsted could do, having got his place, would be to forward his views upon the girl; for which purpose, he actually wrote Frank a letter, inclosing one to Elizabeth, and begging him to deliver it and secure her answer; or failing of that, as a gentleman, not to betray him. The situation was an awkward one for Francis. He had no desire to take part in a rebellion against the existing government of Montgomery Place, nor could he make up his mind to return the letter to the lover, of whose feelings he made a most flattering estimate, by a comparison with his own: to betray him was farthest from his thoughts; but he felt that to give the letter to the girl, in open defiance and contravention of her father's authority, whose servant in fact he was, would be equally improper; and therefore, after a short deliberation with himself, he inclosed the letters to Mr. Stevens, directed as he desired, to No. 14, Little Phoenix Row, Upper Caroline Street, Bethnal Green, stating his regret that he could not, consistently with his princples, make himself a party to such a concealment, in the family which he had so recently entered, and in which he was so delicately situated. This letter produced an abusive, vulgar, and ungentlemanly answer; which was as cowardly as it was illprincipled, because the writer knew that the feeling which had induced Welsted to keep his former address secret would actuate him at present; and it was while this was pending, and Welsted debating what step he should take, that the Sunday arrived on which he was destined to dine at the earl's. This naturally stopped any active measures, but he determined, on the following morning, to visit the residence or hiding-place of his antagonist, and argue the point with him amicably, so long as it might be possible, and then resort to other measures if he found him unreasonably violent, and entitled to any other mode of proceeding. A circumstance, however, wholly unexpected on the part of the elders of the family, brought matters to a crisis, and rendered all doubt for discussion needless. Elizabeth had invited herself to old Mrs. Biddle's at dinner after church, on that very Sunday, and thus secured permission to quit the academy unsuspected and unmolested; to which peaceful home, however, she did not think proper to return; and when search was made for her at the house to which she had professed to go, no intelligence could be obtained either of herself or her place of destination. Harriet, who was in her confidence, never breathed a syllable of suspicion ; and not until the following morning discovered, by accident, a letter in her sister's room, announcing that she had taken the decisive step of eloping with Stevens; and, moreover, that she should be his wife before they next heard from her. "Tis an ill wind that blows nobody good," says a proverb, which hereafter I intend to illustrate; and Tickle and his wife having communed together upon the indiscretion of their daughter, and either of them having pacified the other, by the consoling reflections that "it was well it was no worse;" and that "what was done could not be undone;" and that "it was too late to shut the stable-door when the steed was stolen ;" and sundry other equally conclusive adages, the father softened and the mother melted, and agreed that it would be perfectly ridiculous to maintain any thing like hostility towards the young couple, as the affair had happened; suddenly discovering that, at all events, Stevens was really a very respectable young man, and had been always very civil and attentive in his office. This is quite natural,--for, in fact, there existed no earthly objection to the ci-devant usher, who was a perfectly suitable husband for Miss Tickle; and the only ground upon which the democratic parent had expelled him his house, was the inferiority of his birth, relatively to his daughter's rank in society. This anomaly was of a piece with all the rest of the consistency, by which political feeling in such persons is regulated; and indeed the whole affair was one which, as it caused no surprise in the neighbourhood of Hackney, would not be very likely to excite any interest in my readers, had it not afforded Welsted an opportunity of pleading favourably for the person who had vilified and injured him; and, moreover, of resigning his office in favour of the Benedict; thus bringing back into the bosom of her family the blushing bride, relieving himself from the trammels, of which he was now so eager to divest himself, and freeing the head of the house from the embarrassment of having entered into an engagement with a new usher, whose services, if Stevens were to return, would be superfluous and useless. Never, indeed, did a coincidence more happily occur, and every body seemed pleased with the new arrangement, except Harriet Tickle and poor old Ronfleur. Harriet was tinderly tender, and so susceptible to the approaches of sparks, that she had drunk love's poison even in the short stay of Welsted, a fact which she took no pains to conceal, if one might judge by the expression of her eloquent eyes. Ronfleur heard of Frank's departure with sorrow, because, of all the persons with whom he had associated under that roof, no other human being had sympathized with his sorrows, no other being had listened to his story without occasionally smiling, or perhaps laughing outright at his mistakes and bad English. To Francis it seemed the language of the heart, regulated by no set forms, constructed on no given principles; it was eloquent because it was true; and if in the course of the narrative, a selfconfessed fault had been developed, the tear which trickled down the old man's cheek was quite sufficient, in Welsted's mind, to blot it out eternally. When Frank parted from him, the grateful Frenchman pressed his hand to his lips with fervour and sincerity, and when he turned from him to quit the apartment, raised his eyes to heaven, and, shrugging up his shoulders, sighed deeply, as if he had lost his only friend on earth. Mrs. Tickle, when she was made acquainted with the bright prospects of Mr. Welsted, seemed anxious to redouble her assiduities and expressions of gratitude; and when Frank earnestly and decidedly declined any re |