a degree that Mrs. Baggett could not bring herself to understand it. And there was present to him a manner of speech which practice had now made habitual, but which he had originally adopted with the object of hiding his shamefacedness under the veil of a dashing manner. He would speak as though he were quite free with his thoughts, when, at the moment, he feared that thoughts should be read of which he certainly had no cause to be ashamed. His fellowship, his poetry, and his early love were all, to his thinking, causes of disgrace, which required to be buried deep within his own memory. But the true humility with which he regarded them betokened a character for which he need not have blushed. But that he thought of those matters at all—that he thought of himself at all—was a matter to be buried deep within his own bosom.
Through his short dark-brown hair the grey locks were beginning to show themselves—signs indeed of age, but signs which were very becoming to him. At fifty he was a much better-looking man than he had been at thirty—so that that foolish, fickle girl, Catherine Bailey, would not have rejected him for the cruelly sensuous face of Mr. Compas, had the handsome iron-grey tinge been then given to his countenance. He, as he looked at the glass, told himself that a grey-haired old fool, such as he was, had no right to burden the life of a young girl, simply because he found her in bread and meat. That he should think himself good-looking, was to his nature impossible. His eyes were rather small, but very bright; the eyebrows black and almost bushy; his nose was well-formed and somewhat long, but not so as to give that peculiar idea of length to his face which comes from great nasal prolongation. His upper lip was short, and his mouth large and manly. The strength of his character was better shown by his mouth than by any other feature. He wore hardly any beard, as beards go now—unless indeed a whisker can be called a beard, which came down, closely shorn, about half an inch below his ear. "A very common sort of individual," he said of himself, as he looked in the glass when Mary Lawrie had been already twelve months in the house; "but then a man ought to be common. A man who is uncommon is either a dandy or a buffoon."
His clothes were all made after one pattern and of one colour. He had, indeed, his morning clothes and his evening clothes. Those for the morning were very nearly black, whereas for the evening they were entirely so. He walked about the neighbourhood in a soft hat such as clergymen now affect, and on Sundays he went to church with the old well-established respectable chimney-pot. On Sundays, too, he carried an umbrella, whereas on week-days he always had a large stick; and it was observed that neither the umbrella nor the stick was adapted to the state of the weather.
Such was Mr. Whittlestaff of Croker's Hall, a small residence which stood half-way up on the way to the downs, about a mile from Alresford. He had come into the neighbourhood, having bought a small freehold property without the knowledge of any of the inhabitants. "It was just as though he had come out of the sun," said the old baker, forgetting that most men, or their ancestors, must have come to their present residences after a similar fashion. And he had brought Mrs. Baggett with him, who had confided to the baker that she had felt herself that strange on her first arrival that she didn't know whether she was standing on her head or her heels.
Mrs. Baggett had since become very gracious with various of the neighbours. She had the paying of Mr. Whittlestaff's bills, and the general disposal of his custom. From thence arose her popularity. But he, during the last fifteen years, had crept silently into the society of the place. At first no one had known anything about him; and the neighbourhood had been shy. But by degrees the parsons and then the squires had taken him by the hand, so that the social endowments of the place were more than Mr. Whittlestaff even desired.
CHAPTER III.
MARY LAWRIE.
There is nothing more difficult in the writing of a story than to describe adequately the person of a hero or a heroine, so as to place before the mind of the reader any clear picture of him or her who is described. A courtship is harder still—so hard that we may say generally that it is impossible. Southey's Lodore is supposed to have been effective; but let any one with the words in his memory stand beside the waterfall and say whether it is such as the words have painted it. It rushes and it foams, as described by the poet, much more violently than does the real water; and so does everything described, unless in the hands of a wonderful master. But I have clear images on my brain of the characters of the persons introduced. I know with fair accuracy what was intended by the character as given of Amelia Booth, of Clarissa, of Di Vernon, and of Maggie Tulliver. But as their persons have not been drawn with the pencil for me by the artists who themselves created them, I have no conception how they looked. Of Thackeray's Beatrix I have a vivid idea, because she was drawn for him by an artist under his own eye. I have now to describe Mary Lawrie, but have no artist who will take the trouble to learn my thoughts and to reproduce them. Consequently I fear that no true idea of the young lady can be conveyed to the reader; and that I must leave him to entertain such a notion of her carriage and demeanour as must come to him at the end from the reading of the whole book.
But the attempt must be made, if only for fashion sake, so that no adventitious help may be wanting to him, or more probably to her, who may care to form for herself a personification of Mary Lawrie. She was a tall, thin, staid girl, who never put herself forward in any of those walks of life in which such a young lady as she is called upon to show herself. She was silent and reserved, and sometimes startled, even when appealed to in a household so quiet as that of Mr. Whittlestaff. Those who had seen her former life had known that she had lived under the dominion of her step-mother, and had so accounted for her manner. And then, added to this, was the sense of entire dependence on a stranger, which, no doubt, helped to quell her spirit. But Mr. Whittlestaff had eyes with which to see and ears with which to hear, and was not to be taken in by the outward appearance of the young lady. He had perceived that under that quiet guise and timid startled look there existed a power of fighting a battle for herself or for a friend, if an occasion should arise which should appear to herself to be sufficient. He had known her as one of her father's household, and of her step-mother's; and had seen probably some little instance of self-assertion, such as had not yet made itself apparent to Mrs. Baggett.
A man who had met her once, and for a few minutes only, would certainly not declare her to be beautiful. She, too, like Mr. Whittlestaff, was always contented to pass unobserved. But the chance man, had he seen her for long, would surely remark that Miss Lawrie was an attractive girl; and had he heard her talk freely on any matter of interest, would have called her very attractive. She would blaze up into sudden eloquence, and then would become shame-stricken, and abashed, and dumfounded, so as to show that she had for a moment forgotten her audience, and then the audience—the chance man—would surely set his wits to work and try to reproduce in her a renewal of that intimacy to which she had seemed to yield herself for the moment.
But yet I am not describing her after the accepted fashion. I should produce a catalogue of features, and tell how every one of them was formed. Her hair was dark, and worn very plain, but with that graceful care which shows that the owner has not slurred over her toilet with hurried negligence. Of complexion it can hardly be said that she had any; so little was the appearance of her countenance diversified by a change of hue. If I am bound to declare her colour, I must, in truth, say that she was brown. There was none even of that flying hue which is supposed to be intended when a woman is called a brunette. When she first came to Croker's Hall, health produced no variation. Nor did any such come quickly; though before she had lived there a year and a half, now and again a slight tinge of dark ruby would show itself on her cheek, and then vanish almost quicker than it had come. Mr. Whittlestaff, when he would see this, would be almost beside himself in admiration.
Her eyes were deep blue, so deep that the casual observer would not at first recognise their colour. But when you had perceived that they were blue, and had brought the fact home to your knowledge, their blueness remained with you as a thing fixed for ever. And you would feel, if you yourself
