CHAPTER XX.

Some manne hath good, but chyldren hath he none; Some manne hath both, but he can get none healthe. Some hath all three, but up to honour's throne Can he not crepe by no manner of stelth. To some she sendeth chyldren, riches, welthe, Honour, worship, and reverence all his lyfe, But yet she pyncheth him with a shrewde wyfe-- Be content With such reward as Fortune hath you sent.

Sir Thomas More.

De Molton's health remained for some weeks in a most precarious state, during which period they had time and opportunity for opening their whole hearts to each other.

The religious sentiments which, although never before much called forth, were latent in both their bosoms, were more fully developed; and in sorrow, in fear, and in distress, the communion of feeling and interchange of thought became more complete than in the earlier years of their marriage.

When he recovered--for he did recover,--they found themselves thoroughly, entirely, and reasonably happy. The first time that he came into the drawing-room, when she had arranged his arm-chair by the fire, and drawn the narrow curtains, placed the table close to him, and settled little Emma on a stool at his feet, she looked round with delight, and could not help expressing that she thought the room an exceedingly nice one, and that really a horse-hair sofa was not so very uncomfortable.

"Take care, Blanche," replied De Molton, playfully; "we must be happy without deceiving ourselves: we must see things as they really are. Do not, because you are glad to see me here, fancy this little room a splendid apartment, or a horse-hair sofa a luxurious seat, lest the moment of disenchantment should come. No, no! we will be happy in spite of a bad room and wretched furniture; but we will indulge in no visions."

"How right you always are! All will go well, now you are recovering. Yes, you will at last make me reasonable too: and you will teach me to keep all my feelings, good as well as bad, under proper control! And yet, I do not know how it is, the room does really look different in my eyes; and I almost think I do not slip off the sofa as much as I used to do!" He smiled at her again; and she laughed gaily at herself.

As he gradually recovered, some friends were admitted to see him. Lady Westhope rejoiced, not only at the restoration of his health, but at the restoration of confidence between them. Mr. Stapleford pathetically lamented that De Molton should have been taken ill in this horrid nutshell, and asked when they should move to a more habitable part of the town.

"Not at all," answered Blanche.

"You are not in earnest? What can you find to admire in this apartment, dear Lady Blanche?"

"Its cheapness," replied Blanche resolutely: "do you not know, Mr. Stapleford, that we are very poor?"

The courage to utter these few words would spare many persons many moments of doubt, and hesitation, and awkwardness, and many unavailing efforts to make an effect.

Mr. Stapleford bowed with much respect, and a glance, which seemed to say, "You have made a bad bargain! with your beauty, thus to have thrown yourself away!"

But his glance met that of Lady Blanche, which seemed to answer, "I am very poor, but I do not repent my bargain."

Blanche's object was no longer to make a decent appearance in the eyes of others, but to render her husband's home happy. De Molton no longer felt humbled at their poverty, when she no longer seemed affected by it. He candidly detailed his expenditure and his plans: she took great pains to dress her own hair, and soon acquired the proficiency of a Mrs. Jones, or of a milliner's apprentice; she gaily sprung into a Brighton fly with a bounding step, and willingly went into any agreeable society that presented itself: and she found that, though no longer the leader of fashion in point of dress, she was handsome and agreeable enough to be equally sought and liked.

In one of her tête-à-têtes with Lady Westhope, they were both exclaiming at the worldliness of some mutual acquaintance, who courted a woman whom no one esteemed or loved; whom no one thought either agreeable or handsome, solely on account of her position in the world.

"At least Frank and I have one comfort," exclaimed Blanche, in the corner of whose heart there still lurked a remnant of vanity: "if we are sought, it must be for our intrinsic merits. There can be no interested motive in any attention or kindness that is shown to us; and that is a reflection which puts one in better humour with one's self."

"Yes," answered Lady Westhope; "and if we were so inclined, we might moralize on this subject as well as on more serious ones. 'This is a world of compensations,' as Lady Montreville says she has learned from her old nurse. You remember Milly Roberts, who was always toddling after her lovely children in St. James's Square? It is quite refreshing when one is in London to converse with Milly Roberts, and hear good sense, good feeling, and philosophy uttered so unconsciously. Lady Montreville says she has taught her almost all she knows of right and wrong; and, among other things, that we must not look for perfect happiness in this world,--that the most fortunate are not without their troubles, as she expresses it, nor the most unfortunate without their own peculiar blessings. I have reasoned myself into a very respectable degree of contentment, and I only hope that the sight of you and your husband, as you now are, may not disturb my philosophical, and, I hope I may add, religious view of my own fate, as much as the sight of you three months ago tended to confirm and strengthen it."

Blanche had time to prove that her cheerfulness under privation was not the effort of a moment, but a resolution founded upon principle, and persevered in from the same motive; and De Molton also had time to prove that the tenderness of his wife had softened the sternness which was the only flaw in his character; and to become as gentle as he was firm in the performance of his duty; when an event occurred which prevented their late-acquired virtues from being any longer put to so severe a trial.

By the death of a very rich godfather, De Molton became possessed of a small independence. It was very small; but it enabled him to retire on half-pay, till he might be wanted for the active service of his country, and to take a small cottage in the immediate vicinity of Cransley, where Blanche was able to realise her preconceived notions of refined poverty and elegant indigence. They kept a cow, and their butter equalled that at Temple Loseley; their cream was no longer blue milk; they baked at home; and instead of a knocker on the door, they had a bell with a respectable countrified sound. They had a garden, a small one certainly; but its flowers were as bright as those at Cransley, and the primroses decidedly blew a week earlier! They had a veranda, and it did not darken the room much. In short, they had all appliances and means to boot requisite for real happiness.

They were enabled, while their children were so young, to lay by something to assist in their education as they grew older; and they began to think that Milly Roberts was wrong, and that some fortunate people were without "their troubles," when Mr. Stapleford paid them a morning visit from Cransley, and enlightened their minds as to the one only point on which their fate might admit of amelioration.

After expressing his astonishment at their not knowing all the innumerable pieces of scandal which he retailed to them; at their not having read all the new novels of the last spring; at their not having seen the new actress, heard the last singer, visited the last exhibition, and become intimate with the last brides of the season; he exclaimed, "Why, dear Lady Blanche, you will let the grass grow over your intellect, as you are letting it grow over the gravel before your door! One can see by your road and your conversation that Cransley has been uninhabited, and that Lady Westhope has been in London, while you have been in the country, for the last six months!"

"Oh, come and help us, Mr. Stapleford! we will soon get rid of the weeds out of doors. Emma, fetch the gardening basket; Henry, bring your old knife; Arthur, where is my rake? and Frank, if you will get the roller, we will make our little bit of gravel quite nice before Lady Westhope calls."

"Of course I am _à vos ordres_, Lady Blanche; but, I assure you, I shall be vastly more useful in polishing your mind than your garden. People who ruralize all the year round, and cannot therefore be _au courant_ of what is going on in the world, should never let slip an opportunity of instruction."

"There is some truth in what you say," replied Blanche, as she looked up from her labours, with sparkling eyes, and a complexion dazzling in its brightness from the warmth of the day and the nature of her employment: then shaking back her curls, she bade him seat himself on the bench beneath the young acacia, and tell her "everything, about everybody."

"Well then, Lord D. did not propose, after all, to Miss C.; but set off for Paris, just as the family was on the tip-toe of expectation, thinking every double knock was the peer come to propose in person, and every single knock was a special messenger bearing a written offer of his hand and heart."

"I did not know Miss C. was grown up: does she turn out pretty?"

"Heavens! Lady Blanche, she has been out these two years! and everybody thinks her quite gone off. She was pretty when the duke made such a fuss with her at her first ball; but Mrs. L. thought it an insult to her charms."

"Mrs. L's charms! I thought she was so very plain!"

"Plain! why, she has been a beauty these three years. Lady G. betted Captain S. an amber-headed cane, to an ivory fan, that within a month she would talk her into being a beauty: and she did so, in three weeks and two days,--five days within the prescribed period. When once Lady G. had given her a start, she had the ingenuity to keep it. Her portrait now adorns the Annuals, and the Duke has worn her chains for two years and a half.--But I must not linger here any longer, or I shall be late at dinner. Good morning, dear Lady Blanche; your simplicity is quite piquant, and absolutely refreshes me. You dine at Cransley to-morrow, when I will finish rubbing the rust off your mind."

That evening Lady Blanche remarked to De Molton: "The only little drawback to our perfect happiness is, that certainly one does grow very dull, and very stupid, knowing nothing that goes on in the world! Yet, after all, how much better to be like you, than like Mr. Stapleford! Yes, notwithstanding the grass that has grown over our minds, I do believe ours is the happiest position in life,--that we have the fewest troubles and the greatest number of blessings. I think I may now say with truth, and without enthusiastic nonsense, that we are happier than if we possessed the mines of Golconda. I told you so when we left Sir Frederick Vyneton's villa after our honeymoon; and you then declared how happy you should be if I said the same at the end of two years. I could not have said so then; but I can now, after eight years of marriage." We need not add that De Molton was indeed perfectly happy, nor that he told his wife he was so.

THE END.

LONDON: Spottiswoodes and Shaw, New-street Square.

Transcribers note: "Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_)."