"I mean to do that without aid."

"Just as her father, Mr. Grog, would force his way into the stand-house," whispered Lady Lackington, but still loud enough for Lizzy to overhear.

"Not exactly as your Ladyship would illustrate it," said Lizzy, smiling; "but, in seeing the amount of those gifts which have won the suffrages of society, I own that I am not discouraged. I am told," said she, with a great air of artlessness, "that no one is more popular than your Ladyship."

Lady Lackington arose, and stared at her with a look of open insolence; and then turning, whispered something in Beecher's ear.

"After all," muttered he, "_she_ did not begin it. Get your shawl, Lizzy," added he, aloud; "my sister keeps early hours, and we must not break in on them."

Lady Lackington and Lizzy courtesied to each other like ladies of high comedy; it seemed, indeed, a sort of rivalry whose reverence should be most formal and most deferential.

"Have n't you gone and done it!" cried Beecher, as they gained the street. "Georgina will never forget this so long as she lives."

"And if she did I 'd take care to refresh her memory," said Lizzy, laughing; and the mellow sounds rang out as if from a heart that never knew a care.

"I shall require to set out for England to-morrow," said Beecher, moodily, so soon as they had reached the hotel. The speech was uttered to induce a rejoinder, but she made none.

"And probably be absent for several weeks," added he.

Still she never spoke, but seemed busily examining the embroidered coronet on the corner of her handkerchief.

"And as circumstances require--I mean, as I shall be obliged to go alone, and as it would be highly inconvenient, not to say unusual, for a young married woman, more especially in the rank you occupy, to remain in an hotel alone, without friends or relatives, we have thought--that is, Georgy and I have considered--that you should stay with her."

Lizzy only smiled; but what that strange smile might signify it was far beyond Beecher's skill to read.

"There is only one difficulty in the matter," resumed he; "and as it is a difficulty almost entirely created by yourself, you will naturally be the more ready to rectify it." He waited long enough to provoke a question from her, but she seemed to have no curiosity on the subject, and did not speak.

"I mean," added he, more boldly, "that before accepting my sister's hospitality, you must necessarily make some _amende_ for the manner in which you have just treated her."

"In which _I_ treated _her!_" said Lizzy, after him, her utterance being slow and totally passionless.

"Yes, these were my words," said he.

"Have you forgotten how _she_ treated _me?_" asked Lizzy, in the same calm tone.

"As to that," said he, with a sort of fidgety confusion,--"as to that, you ought to bear in mind who she is--what she is--and then it's Georgy's way; even among her equals--those well born as herself--she has always been permitted to exercise a certain sort of sway; in fact, the world of fashion has decreed her a sort of eminence. You cannot understand these things yet, though you may do so, one day or other. In a word, _she_ can do what _you_ cannot, and must not, and the sooner you know it the better."

"And what is it you propose that I should do?" asked she, with seeming innocence.

"Write her a note,--brief if you like, but very civil,--full of excuses for anything that may have given her offence; say all about your ignorance of life, newness to the world, and so on; declare your readiness to accept any suggestions she will kindly give you for future conduct,--for she knows society like a book,--and conclude by assuring her--Well!" cried he, suddenly, for she had started from him so abruptly that he forgot his dictation.

"Go on,--go on," said she, resuming her calm tone.

"You 've put me out," cried he; "I can't remember where I was. Stay--I was saying--What was it? it was something like--"

"Something like 'I 'll not do it any more,'" said Lizzy, with a low laugh; while, at the same instant, she opened her writing-desk and sat down to write.

Now, although Beecher would have preferred seeing her accept this lesson with more show of humility, he was, on the whole, well satisfied with her submission. He watched her as her pen moved across the paper, and saw that she wrote in a way that indicated calm composure and not passion. The note was quickly finished; and as she was folding it, she stopped, and said, "But perhaps you might like to read it?"

"Of course I 'd like to read it," said he, eagerly, taking it op and reading aloud:--

"'The Viscountess Lackington having received Lord Lackington's orders to apologize to Georgina, Viscountess Lackington, for certain expressions which may have offended her, willingly accepts the task as one likely to indicate to her Ladyship the propriety of excusing her own conduct to one who had come to claim her kindness and protection.'

"And would you presume to send her such a note as this?" cried he, as he crushed it up and flung it into the fire.

"Not now," said she, with a quiet smile.

"Sit down, and then write--"

"I'll not write another," said she, rising. She moved slowly across the room; and as she gained the door, she turned and said, "If you don't want Kuffner, I 'd be glad to have him here;" and without awaiting his reply, she was gone.

"Haven't I made a precious mess of it?" cried Beecher, as he buried his head between his hands, and sat down before the fire.

CHAPTER XXX. MRS. SEACOLE'S

In a dense fog, and under a thin cold rain, the "Tigris" steamed slowly into the harbor of Balaklava. She had been chartered by the Government, and sent out with some seventy thousand pair of shoes, and other like indispensables for an army much in want, but destined to be ultimately re-despatched to Constantinople,--some grave omissions in red tapery having been discovered,--whereby she and the shoes remained till the conclusion of the war, when the shoes were sold to the Russians, and the ship returned to England.

Our concern is not, however, with the ship or the shoes, or the patent, barley, the potted meats, or the "printed instructions" with which she was copiously provided, but with two passengers who had come up in her from Constantinople, and had, in a manner, struck up a sort of intimacy by the way. They were each of them men rather advanced in life; somewhat ordinary in appearance, of that commonplace turn in look, dress, and bearing that rarely possesses attraction for the better-off class of travellers, but, by the force of a grand law of compensations, as certainly disposes them to fraternize with each other. There are, unquestionably, some very powerful affinities which draw together men past the prime of life, when they wear bad hats, seedy black coats very wide in the skirt, and Berlin gloves. It is not alone that if they smoke the tobacco is of the same coarse kind, and that brandy-and-water is a fountain where they frequently meet, but there are mysterious points of agreement about them which develop rapidly into close intimacy, and would even rise to friendship if either of them was capable of such a weakness.

They had met, casually, at "Miseri's" at Constantinople, and agreed to go up the Black Sea together. Now, though assuredly any common observer passing them might not readily be able to distinguish one from the other again, both being fat, broad-shouldered, vulgar-looking men of about fifty-four or more, yet each was a sort of puzzle to the other; and in the curiosity thus inspired, there grew up a bond between them that actually served to unite them.

If we forbore any attempt at mystification with our valued reader in an early stage of this history, it is not now, that we draw to its close, we would affect any secrecy. Let us, therefore, at once announce the travellers by their names; one being Terry Driscoll, the other the Reverend Paul Classon.

Driscoll had dropped hints--vague hints only--that he had come out to look after a nephew of his, a kind of scapegrace who was always in trouble; but in what regiment he served, or where, or whether he was yet alive, or had been broke and sent home, were all little casualties which he contemplated and discussed with a strange amount of composure. As for Paul, without ever entering directly upon the personal question, he suffered his ministerial character to ooze slowly out, and left it to be surmised that he was a gentleman of the press, unengaged, and a Christian minister, unattached.

Not that these personal facts were declared in the abrupt manner they are here given to the reader. Far from it; they merely loomed through the haze of their discourse as, walking the deck for hours, they canvassed the war and its objects, and its probable results. Upon all these themes they agreed wonderfully, each being fully satisfied that the whole campaign was only a well-concerted roguery,--a scheme for the dismemberment of Turkey, when she had been sufficiently debilitated by the burden of an expensive contest to make all resistance impossible.

Heaven knows if either of them seriously believed this. At all events, they said it to each other, and so often, so circumstantially, and so energetically that it would be very rash in us to entertain a doubt of their sincerity.

"I have been recommended to a house kept by a Mrs. Seacole," said Classon, as they landed on the busy quay, where soldiers and sailors and land-transport men, with Turks, Wallachs, Tartars, and Greeks, were performing a small Babel of their own.

"God help me!" exclaimed Terry, plaintively, "I 'm like a new-born child here; I know nobody, nor how to ask for anything."

"Come along with me, then. There are worse couriers than Paul Classon."

And bustling his way through the crowd, his Reverence shouldered his carpet-bag, and pushed forward.

It was, indeed, a rare good fortune for Terry to have fallen upon a fellow-traveller so gifted and so accomplished; for not only did Paul seem a perfect polyglot, but he possessed that peculiar bustling activity your regular traveller acquires, by which, on his very entrance into an inn, he assumes the position less of guest than of one in authority and in administration. And so now Paul had speedily investigated the resources of the establishment, and ordered an excellent supper, while poor Driscoll was still pottering about his room, or vainly endeavoring to uncord a portmanteau which a sailor had fastened more ingeniously than necessary.

"I wish I knew what he was," muttered Terry to himself. "He 'd be the very man to help me in this business, if I could trust him."

Was it a strange coincidence that at the same moment Paul Classon should be saying to himself, "That fellow's simplicity would be invaluable if I could only enlist him in our cause; he is a fool well worth two wise men at this conjuncture"?

The sort of coffee-room where they supped was densely crowded by soldiers, sailors, and civilians of every imaginable class and condition. Bronzed, weather-beaten captains, come off duty for a good dinner and a bottle of real wine at Mother Seacole's, now mingled with freshly arrived subs, who had never even seen their regiments; surgeons, commissaries, naval lieutenants, Queen's messengers, and army chaplains were all there, talking away, without previous acquaintance with each other, in all the frankness of men who felt absolved from the rule of ordinary etiquette; and thus, amid discussions of the campaign and its chances, were mingled personal adventures, and even private narratives, all told without the slightest reserve or hesitation: how such a one had got up from his sick-bed, and reported himself well and fit for duty, and how such another had pleaded urgent private affairs to get leave to go home; what a capital pony Watkins had bought for a sovereign, what execrable bitter beer Jones was paying six shillings the bottle for; sailors canvassing the slow advances of landsmen, soldiers wondering why the blue-jackets would n't "go in" and blow the whole mock fortifications into the air; some boasting, some grumbling, many ridiculing the French, and all cursing the Commissariat.

If opinions were boldly stated, and sentiments declared with very little regard for any opposition they might create, there was, throughout, a tone of hearty good-fellowship that could not be mistaken. The jests and the merriment seemed to partake of the same hardy character that marked each day's existence; and many a story was told with a laugh, that could not be repeated at the "Rag," or reported at the Horse Guards. Classon and Driscoll listened eagerly to all that went on around them. They were under the potent spell that affects all men who feel themselves for the first time in a scene of which they have heard much. They were actually in the Crimea. The men around them had actually just come off duty in the trenches: that little dark-bearded fellow had lost his arm in the attack of the Mamelon; that blue-eyed youth, yonder, had led a party in assault on the Cemetery; the jovial knot of fellows near the stove had been "plotting" all night at the Russians from a rifle-pit. There was a reality in all these things that imparted a marvellous degree of interest to individuals that might otherwise have seemed commonplace and ordinary.