books, well pleased with the impressive air they gave our walls, we undertook to warehouse. We had a servant, the best creature in the world, who was almost as idiotic as the kitten; so idiotic that she suffered us to physic her when she felt out of sorts. Idiocy was the maid's only fault. She would, instead of sweeping our rooms of a morning, make expeditions to buy bunches of wallflowers for their decora tion; a sweet fancy suggested by her knowledge that young masters wrote poems upon posies. He Such was the home of Moses.

A fine chance was refused me by that very superior man, Mr. Snidge, who wanted somebody to be imprisoned twelve hours a day in his surgery in Fetter-lane, and take the chance of any recreation that might offer in the way of dispensing, bleeding, and tooth-drawing. In the eyes of Snidge I, Smilt, late of Smilt and Plog, was too young for his place. His reason, perhaps, may have been, that only an old, wellseasoned, nicely torpid man, could have survived a year of it. Then, there was a splendid advertisement in the Times. "Apply at seven hundred and ninety, Euston-square, between seven and nine in the evening." Fifty of us were crammed into a parlour, taking turns to walk into a study, and pass muster before a man with a name very well known to me. "What, Smilt!" 'What, Brown!" "This is no place, Smilt, for a man like you." Delicate way of telling Smilt that Brown would rather not.

"Meet me on Wednesday at the Great Prize Cucumber Hotel in Exeter," wrote Jacob Hartiman, to whose advertisement, dated from the far west, I had replied. "You won't be so absurd," said Robinson and Jones and Smith"you won't be so absurd as to post off upon a wild-goose chase to Exeter upon the merest chance of an engagement!" But I was so absurd. I went to Exeter, and there for the first time saw Hartiman, doctor and squire in his own town. He is terribly old now, and I am getting dim of sight. For forty years we have been friends, and not the shadow of an unkind thought has ever crept between us. Now, as Hartiman has two legs, he is not one of the subjects of this present revelation. But he had twenty-eight legs-seven creatures upon four legs-in his stable. Can you ride ?" he asked, when we first met at Exeter. "In a gig," I answered. "Never was upon a horse but once. Nevertheless, whatever must be, can be. As between horse and rider, one has to run and the other to sit, I think I can sit."

gentleman ought to be able to break in his own horses; so, he bought unbroken monsters who kicked gigs to splinters, and impartially threw over their necks, bad rider and good. If a man cannot ride, and wishes to avoid exposure, let him select a vicious and unmanageable horse that would toss and tear a Ducrow. Whatever may betide him, he will then be able to maintain his self-respect under misfortune.

But these four-legged partners of my daily rounds were really not to blame. I opened my series of visits to the parish poor, ir state, attended by a groom in livery, who was to teach me the country, and who was retained also by various half-crowns in the capacity of ridingmaster. My charger was a chesnut mare, who' never ran away with anybody. She had a mouth hard as the muzzle of a cannon, and was almost as much of an idiot as our poor, dear, departed kitten. This animal, who must have heard ghostly muezzins, threw me at sundry times by dropping unexpectedly upon her knees; and when she chose to go down on her knees, no act of forecast short of tying her head to the bough of a tree would prevent it. Whenever there was a choice of two roads, the way most after her heart was to stand still, and take neither. I had no mind to make serious use of the whip: for that is an article of manufacture in the utility of which civilised man now puts, I believe, little faith. As long as our mutual friend Sniggles, the groom, went with us, a corner could usually be turned in ten minutes, by means of some little dismounting, leading, pushing, and persuasion. When, however, I was left alone with my four-legged friend, and had to measure my own skill in argument against that of a horse, truly we spent many a meditative half-hour in the crossways under a direction post. As long, however, as she was not bothered by turnings, this good creature went on, without stopping, at a tolerable shambling pace, with a drop of a foot or a stumble every two minutes. Whether there be a mesmeric power in the mere act of attention, or

bridle in the chesnut lady's mouth, I soon observed that whenever I let my mind travel beyond her ears, and, forgetting her paces, thought about my patients and my posies, though we might be trotting on the very smoothest causeway, down we went.

Herein was a delusion; for, as Hartiman's assistant, I was thrown once a week at first, and afterwards pretty punctually once a quar-whether there were really some sense of the ter. But who minds being spilt when scrambling upon four legs up the everlasting hills, or galloping under the greenwood and over the breezy western roads? In the west, at any rate, it never was my fate to be spilt ignominiously at a patient's door. The discreetly eternal silences were always the sole witnesses Now, when I had thus learnt how needful it to any disaster. Even the evidence of a broad is for a man to carry his thoughts, when riding, facing of road dirt did not matter very much in in his horse's head, and keep his own head in friendly Somerton. If there was tattle in that his pocket, other steeds were suffered to belittle town, I never heard it. To the best of my come my acquaintances. There was an old ears, everybody loved his equals, and devoutly racer, who flew the rounds, and I liked him. believed in his superiors, reckoning superiority Once, on a hard turnpike road, he came down, by worldly wealth. Although in Somerton I and shot me far ahead of him. The fault was was not one of their roses, yet I lived near mine, for I was wearing my own head instead of one of their roses. I partook of the conven-his; but we were both up in an instant, skull tional respect paid to Mr. Hartiman's worldly position, and of the natural respect paid by all people within twenty miles of our town, to his frank and ever genial character. Moreover, there was this. He had a notion that a country

uncracked and knees unbroken. The only sorrow, worse than a bruised face, that came of these acquaintances, was brought to me by the great horse Teetotum. He was bon and preposterously tall, and always span round

steadily on his own axis when I approached to horse, but was content only to follow me on mount him at a patient's door. He was a new foot, and visit the sick in our little town of purchase in my time, and it was my misfortune Somerton. She had a good appetite, enlarged first to ride him to the country-house of a sub-in flesh, panted a good deal when our walk stantial farmer, whose confidence in "only the was up-hill, ran to and fro within bounds of a assistant" I desired to win. It was easy to get very strict discretion, and gave me nothing but off the horse, and in the house all might go well. the simple flattery of her canine affection. She But when I came out, and when the farmer's was a steady every-day person, who had even a wife and eldest daughter stood respectfully at sense of Sunday in her nature. When I went their front door, behold the great Teetotum how out on Sunday morning, without offering to he spins! Ah! well! There are memories still follow me as usual, she jumped into the windowglowing, over which we have to rake the ashes of sill, and from that post of observation watched the past. After that day, when I entered a village for my return from church. But a time came on Teetotum, and travelled down from the upper when, having bought a promising lot of paregions of his back at the door of the first tients, I left the far west, and travelled to the patient, I led that monster about while I walked centre of the earth (within Great Britain). Fan from one house to another, and took good care went with me, and being unused to the puncnever to go through the agonies of remounting tualities of travelling, was lost upon the way, at until we had come out at the other side of the Bristol. village. Dark visions of an unprotected female in disThis beginning of horsemanship gave me four-tress haunted me all the way to this old house footed acquaintances, not friends. Once, how- at Ortemly, in which I have grown grey. I ever, fairly settled in the open country, I, of knew only one man in Bristol, a long lank, course, sought also four-footed friends. Now rambling hawker, who had reached sometimes was the time to keep a dog! even the distant Somerton. He might be at I began modestly by entering into society home or abroad: at any rate, to him I wrote, as with a young sheep-dog, who received the pro-to the one possible helper. By him the forlorn fessional name of Blister, for which the familiar damsel was found under the protection of a term is Bliss. Bliss was a happy young dog hackney coachman, and in a few days she reached of full growth, with eyes like jewels, teeth like me in a hamper, labelled "a Live Dog, with a shark's, and all a puppy's ecstasy in using Care." them on anything that could be bitten through. The house I took, was haunted. For a black Every morning, when I first appeared before terrier who had once lived there, it was a yarrow him, he flew at me with barks of affection, fixed constantly to be revisited, and to be explored his teeth firmly in a skirt of my dressing-gown, daily in every corner. The terrier lost no time to pull at it and shake it, as a fiercely cordial in declaring his affection for the mature beauty man might shake you by the hand. How many from the west, his love was returned, and blessed days I had enjoyed my Bliss, might have been with a litter of four puppies. Puppies are not ascertained at any period by numbering the born to be drowned. These were, moreover, very rents in the tail of my dressing-gown, as clearly handsome. So they were allowed houseroom as men ascertain the age of trees by counting until they were of age to be sent out into the the rings in the wood. Having breakfasted world. When they were all of age to run with with me, my friend sat on his tail at the door of case, the sedate Madam Spaniel, with her four my lodging till he saw me mounted. Then, no little ones behind her, and the terrier ghost ingenuity could stay him from joining all my usually at her side, waited for me outside the rounds, and making it his business to preach to doors of all the patients I had in the village, the sheep of the whole country-side, gathered and dogged my heels in all pedestrian excursions. by him together on the hills in crowded and But the tender puppies required sometimes to be excited congregations. One morning, however, carried. Three of these puppies established when there was a round of almost forty miles themselves in other homes. The mother sudfor us, he was not indulged with any slacken-denly died in the midst of her dinner. There ings of pace for his particular convenience. remained to me, therefore, only one dog-my He came home very tired, and after that last dog, Master Squeak-in-doors: while out of day satisfied himself with the courtesy of walk-doors there was a friend on all fours in the ing out to see me off, but steadily declined to stable-my first horse. follow.

This active creature went astray, and was a lost dog. Then it became necessary to supply his place; and as it appeared probable that a less boisterous comrade was to be desired as his successor, I bought with gold the friendship of a mild old lady, a thin spaniel with glossy black hair. She had answered for years to the hereditary name of Fan, which is among dogs what Smith is among men.

Now, therefore, I was blessed with a fourfooted being who would never go out with the

Pegasus looked well worth the high price she had cost; a noble creature, with fine paces, though she had all her four feet damaged by thrush. Falling at last suddenly lame, she obliged me to walk before her, fifteen miles through mud and rain, slowly conducting her to her own stable: which she left only to be sold, when her paces were recovered, for what she was worthfive pounds. But the good soul had mettle enough for a hundred legs, and we were friends together. She had but one bad habit, and it was one that I thought unsociable. When

I mounted her, she always chose the moment of my setting one foot in the stirrup; for bolting off with all her speed. I had to acquire the art of flying after her into the saddle, and, for want of an education at Astley's, was continually being laid prostrate at patients' doors. Once when my foot had caught in the stirrup, I was dragged before a row of patients' windows after the manner of Hector. But the heart of that Pegasus was sounder than her feet. We often exchanged little endearments, and I am confident that it was her intention to oblige me by that over promptitude of service. We were each of us professionally eager to get on.

The dog Squeak was my last friend on all fours. Upon his being shot, I married. He grew to be the handsomest, and busiest, and merriest dog in the world. The quickness of his sympathy met every shade upon the face he -watched. In-doors, his mind was his master's; out of doors, he was his own master, and it was for him always to appoint, and for nobody to dictate, whether he should be out of doors or in. As a puppy, he was a devourer of literature, and ate most of the corners from my books and journals. So he became wise. As to his other meals, he was not to dine with me, forsooth! A tyrannical housekeeper, if he were heard to be near me at dinner-time, dragged him away by the neck. Very well. He had only to take care that he was not heard. He announced his arrival by a sly scratch at the door, audible by no ears beyond mine, and ate his meat, as still as a stuffed dog-which he always was when he had finished. He was not to sleep of nights at the foot of my bed, forsooth! A tyrannical housekeeper resolved to lock him out. Very well. He had only to scramble up to the kitchen roof, whence it was an easy leap into my bedroom through a window-pane. He was a bold dog, who did not regard shut windows as any obstacles to his advancement. Before I understood him well, I shut him up once or twice in a room, when I did not wish him to go out with me; but as he always came after me with a flying leap through a clatter of glass, and broke the window-frame itself sometimes, he had his way left open for him. He was a right fellow to make his way in the world. The bedroom window I allowed to be mended seven times. Money was spent on glaziers' bills, and walkingstick on admonition. Soon tired of beating my dog, I allowed him to beat me. He was still remorselessly to be locked out; I had therefore the prudence to leave him the seventh smash in my window as an entrance hole. The only difference made by the housekeeper's discipline was that the dog had a run in the mud every night to give him a new relish for his corner of the counterpane. As for tying him up, nobody thought of that. He was such an incarnation of determined freedom, that nobody short of a

King of Naples could have thought of putting him in chains.

Once, indeed, he was in bondage; caught in a poacher's wire during his independent rambles through adjoining game preserves, where trespassers were rigorously to be prosecuted and all dogs were to be shot. We lost our comrade for two days, and then he came home, dirty, starved, and haggard, with the wire about his neck; he had broken it after some thirty hours of struggling. But there was a twinkle of roguery in his eye even then, and he was off to the preserves again, certainly none the later for his lesson.

We had a farm-yard near us, from which my friend upon all fours, when he stayed at home, would hunt me up a fowl, or the old cock himself sometimes, fetching in the indignant bird unhurt between his teeth, and depositing him in triumph at my feet upon the study floor. What man could quarrel with his generous and fearless nature? He never feared and never hurt any one in his life-except some other dog who challenged him to fight. He simply disregarded pain. If a dog, not smaller and weaker than himself, insulted him, he fought and would fight. Beat him who might, he meant to have his fight out, and he always finished it to his own satisfaction. For the weak, he had heroic tenderness. A little kitten used to nestle on his clean warm coat when he lay sleeping, and regarded him as a feather bed. If he awoke, and found the kitten asleep on his back, he would lie still, like a kind-hearted gentleman. The sight of a bone itself would not induce him to leap suddenly up and throw her off.

Yet he liked bones. He has disgraced me by following me out of a patient's home with a large piece of bacon in his mouth. He was bold enough, when tempted by the savour of a knuckle of veal boiling in the pot, to put his fore-feet on the side of a patient's kitchen fire and jerk the meat out of the pot upon the kitchen floor. And he made friends with those whom he thus persecuted. To some he boldly gave his confidence, visiting at their houses on his own account, not as a mean haunter of back doors, but as a friend of the family. If he liked people, he visited them fairly, walked into their drawing-rooms, and sat down with them for half an hour or so, by their fireside. He was the cleanest of true gentlemen, for he swam twice a day across a broad and rapid river; he was not the dog to let himself be conveyed with me ignominiously in the ferry-boat over the water that ran through the middle of my rounds. Of course there could be only one end to the life of such a dog. He was shot by a gamekeeper.

Now ready, price 5s. 6d., bound in cloth,

THE SECOND VOLUME, Including Nos. 27 to 50, and the Christmas Double Number, of ALL THE YEAR ROUND.

The right of Translating Articles from ALL THE YEAR ROUND is reserved by the Authors.

Published at the Office, No. 26, Wellington Street, Strand. Printed by C. WHITING, Beaufort House, Strand

ALL THE YEAR ROUND.

No. 55.]

A WEEKLY JOURNAL.

CONDUCTED BY CHARLES DICKENS.

WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

SATURDAY, MAY 12, 1860.

THE WOMAN IN WHITE.

THE HOUSEKEEPER'S NARRATIVE CONTINUED. THE next event that occurred was of so singular a nature, that it might have caused me a feeling of superstitious surprise, if my mind had not been fortified by principle against any pagan weakness of that sort. The uneasy sense of something wrong in the family which had made me wish myself away from Blackwater Park, was actually followed, strange to say, by my departure from the house. It is true that my absence was for a temporary period only but the coincidence was, in my opinion, not the less remarkable on that account.

My departure took place under the following circumstances:

On the day when the servants all left, I was again sent for to see Sir Percival. The undeserved slur which he had cast on my management of the household, did not, I am happy to say, prevent me from returning good for evil to the best of my ability, by complying with his request as readily and respectfully as ever. It cost me a struggle with that fallen nature which we all share in common, before I could suppress my feelings. Being accustomed to self-discipline, I accomplished the sacrifice.

I found Sir Percival and Count Fosco sitting together, again. On this occasion his lordship remained present at the interview, and assisted in the development of Sir Percival's views.

[PRICE 2d.

the benefit of my assistance, by proceeding myself to Torquay in their interests.

It was impossible, for a person in my situation, to meet any proposal, made in these terms, with a positive objection.

I could only venture to represent the serious inconvenience of my leaving Blackwater Park, in the extraordinary absence of all the in-door servants, with the one exception of Margaret Porcher. But Sir Percival and his lordship declared that they were both willing to put up with inconvenience for the sake of the invalids. I next respectfully suggested writing to an agent at Torquay; but I was met here by being reminded of the imprudence of taking lodgings without first seeing them. I was also informed that the Countess (who would otherwise have gone to Devonshire herself) could not, in Lady Glyde's present condition, leave her niece; and that Sir Percival and the Count had business to transact together, which would oblige them to remain at Blackwater Park. In short, it was clearly shown me, that if I did not undertake the errand, no one else could be trusted with it. Under these circumstances, I could only inform Sir Percival that my services were at the disposal of Miss Halcombe and Lady Glyde.

It was thereupon arranged that I should leave the next morning; that I should occupy the day after in examining all the most convenient houses in Torquay; and that I should return, with my report, on the third day. A memorandum was written for me by his lordship, stating the various requisites which the place I was sent to take must be found to possess ; and a note of the pecuniary limit assigned to me, was added by Sir Percival.

The subject to which they now requested my attention, related to the healthy change of air by which we all hoped that Miss Halcombe and Lady Glyde might soon be enabled to profit. Sir Percival mentioned that both the ladies would My own idea, on reading over these instrucprobably pass the autumn (by invitation of tions, was, that no such residence as I saw deFrederick Fairlie, Esquire) at Limmeridge scribed could be found at any watering-place in House, Cumberland. But before they went England; and that, even if it could by chance be there, it was his opinion, confirmed by Count discovered, it would certainly not be parted with Fosco (who here took up the conversation, and for any period, on such terms as I was percontinued it to the end), that they would benefit mitted to offer. I hinted at these difficulties to by a short residence first in the genial climate of both the gentlemen; but Sir Percival (who unTorquay. The great object, therefore, was to dertook to answer me) did not appear to feel engage lodgings at that place, affording all the them. It was not for me to dispute the question. comforts and advantages of which they stood in I said no more; but I felt a very strong conneed; and the great difficulty was to find an ex-viction that the business on which I was sent perienced person capable of choosing the sort of away was so beset by difficulties that my errand residence which they wanted. In this emergency, was almost hopeless at starting. the Count begged to inquire, on Sir Percival's behalf, whether I would object to give the ladies

Before I left, I took care to satisfy myself that Miss Halcombe was going on favourably.

VOL. III.

55