"Only becomingly so, Mr. Dempsey,--a proper sense of self-respect, a due feeling for your future position in life,--I never saw more than that, I must say. Now, I could n't help remarking the way that young lady threw herself into the chair, and the glance she gave at the room. It was number eight, Mr. Dempsey, with the chintz furniture, and the looking-gla.s.s over the chimney! Well, really you 'd say, it was poor Leonard's room, with the settee bed in the corner,--the look she gave it!"

"Indeed!" exclaimed Dempsey, who really felt horrified at this undervaluing judgment of what every boarder regarded as the very sanctum of the Fumbally Temple.

"Truth, every word of it!" resumed Mrs. Fum. "I thought my ears deceived me, as she said to her mother, 'Oh, it 's all very neat and clean!'--neat and clean, Mr. Dempsey! The elegant rug which I worked myself--the pointer--and the wild duck."

"Like life, by Jove, if it was n't that the dog has only three legs."

"Perspective, Mr. Dempsey, don't forget its perspective; and if the bird's wings are maroon, I could n't help it, it was the only color to be had in the town."

"The group is fine,--devilish fine!" said Paul, with the air of one whose word was final.

"'Neat and clean' were the expressions she used. I could have cried as I heard it." Here the lady, probably in consideration for the omission, wiped her eyes, and dropped her voice to a very sympathetic key.

"She meant it well, depend upon it, Mrs. Fum, she meant it well."

"And the old lady," resumed Mrs. Fumbally, deaf to every consolation, "lay back in her chair this way, and said, 'Oh, it will all do very well,--you 'll not find us troublesome, Mrs. Flumary!' I haven't been the head of this establishment eight-and-twenty years to be called Flumary. How these airs are to be tolerated by the other boarders, I'm sure is more than I can say."

It appeared more than Mr. Dempsey could say also, if one might p.r.o.nounce from the woe-begone expression of his face; for, up to this moment totally wrapped up in the mysterious portion of the affair, he had lost sight of all the conflicting interests this sudden advent would call into activity.

"That wasn't all," continued Mrs. Fumbally; "for when I told them the dinner-hour was five, the old lady interrupted me with, 'For the present, with your permission, we should prefer dining at six.' Did any one ever hear the like? I 'll have a pretty rebellion in the house, when it gets out! Mrs. Mackay will have her tea upstairs every night; Mr.

Dunlop will always breakfast in bed. I would n't be surprised if Miss Boyle stood out for broth in the middle of the day."

"Oh!" exclaimed Paul, holding up both hands in horror.

"I vow and protest, I expect that next!" exclaimed Mrs. Fum, as folding her arms, and fixing her eyes rigidly on the grate, she sat, the ideal of abused and injured benevolence. "Indeed, Mr. Dempsey," said she, after a long silence on both sides, "it would be a great breach of the regard many years of intimacy with you has formed, if I did not say, that your affections are misplaced. Beauty is a perishable gift."

Paul looked at Mrs. Fumbally, and seemed struck with the truth of her remark.

"But the qualities of the miud, Mr. Dempsey, those rare endowments that make happy the home and hearth. You 're fond of beef hash with pickled onions," said she, smiling sweetly; "well, you shall have one to-day."

"Good creature!" muttered Paul, while he pressed her hand affectionately. "The best heart in the world!"

"Ah, yes," sighed the lady, half soliloquizing, "conformity of temper,--the pliancy of the reed,--the tender attachment of the ivy."

Paul coughed, and drew himself up proudly, and, as if a sudden thought occurred to him that he resembled the oak of the forest, he planted his feet firmly, and stood stiff and erect.

"You are not half careful enough about yourself, Mr. Dempsey,--never attend to changing your damp clothes,--and I a.s.sure you the climate here requires it; and when you come in cold and wet, you should always step in here, on your way upstairs, and take a little something warm and cordial. I don't know if you approve of this," suiting the action to the words. Mrs. Fum had opened a small cupboard in the wall, and taken out a quaint-looking flask, and a very diminutive gla.s.s.

"Nectar, by Jove,--downright nectar!"

"Made with some white currants and ginger," chimed in Mrs. Fum, simply, as if to imply, "See what skill can effect; behold the magic power of intelligence!"

"White currants and ginger!" echoed Paul, holding out the gla.s.s to be refilled.

"A trifle of spirits, of course."

"Of course! could n't be comforting without it."

"That's what poor dear Fumbally always called, 'Ye know, ye know!' It was his droll way of saying 'Noyau!'" Here Mrs. F. displayed a conflict of smiles and tears, a perfect April landscape on her features. "He had such spirits!"

"I don't wonder, if he primed himself with this often," said Dempsey, who at last relinquished his gla.s.s, but with evident unwillingness.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 266]

"He used to say that his was a happy home!" sobbed Mrs. Fum, while she pressed her handkerchief to her face.

Paul did not well know what he should say, or if, indeed, he was called upon to utter a sentiment at all; but he thought he could have drunk another gla.s.s to the late Fum's memory, if his widow had n't kept such a tight grip of the flask.

"Oh, Mr. Dempsey, who could have thought it would come to this?" The sorrowful drooping of her eyelids, as she spoke, seemed to intimate an allusion to the low state of the decanter, and Dempsey at once replied,--

"There's a very honest gla.s.s in it still."

"Kind--kind creature!" sobbed Mrs. Fum, as she poured out the last of the liquor. And Paul was sorely puzzled, whether the encomium applied to the defunct or himself. "Do you know, Mr. Dempsey," here she gave a kind of hysterical giggle, that might take any turn,--hilarious, or the reverse, as events should dictate,--"do you know that as I see you there, standing before the fire, looking so pleasant and cheerful, so much at home, as a body might say, I can't help fancying a great resemblance between you and my poor dear Fum. He was older than you,"

said she, rapidly, as a slight cloud pa.s.sed over Paul's features;-"older and stouter, but he had the same jocose smile, the same merry voice, and even that little fidgety habit with the hands. I know you 'll forgive me,--even that was his."

This was in all probability strictly correct, inasmuch as for several years before his demise the gifted individual had labored under a perpetual "delirium tremens."

"He rather liked this kind of thing," said Paul, pantomiming the action of drinking with his now empty gla.s.s.

"In moderation,-only in moderation."

"I 've heard that it disagreed with him," rejoined Paul, who, not pleased with his counterpart, resolved on showing a knowledge of his habits.

"So it did," sighed Mrs. Fum; "and he gave it up in consequence."

"I heard that, too," said Paul; and then muttered to himself, "on the morning he died."

A gentle tap at the door now broke in upon the colloquy, and a very slatternly servant woman, with bare legs and feet, made her appearance.

"What d'ye want, Biddy?" asked her mistress, in an angry voice. "I 'm just settling accounts with Mr. Dempsey, and you bounce in as if the house was on fire."

"It 's just himsel 's wanted," replied the northern maiden; "the leddie canna get on ava without him, he maun come up to number 'eight,' as soon as he can."

"I 'm ready," quoth Paul, as he turned to arrange his cravat, and run his hand through his hair; "I 'm at their service."

"Remember, Mr. Dempsey, remember, that what I've spoken to you this day is in the strictest confidence. If matters have proceeded far with the young lady upstairs, if your heart, if hers be really engaged, forget everything,--forget _me_."

Mrs. Fumbally's emotion had so overpowered her towards the end of her speech, that she rushed into an adjoining closet and clapped-to the door, an obstacle that only acted as a sound-board to her sobs, and from which Paul hastened with equal rapidity to escape.

An entire hemisphere might have separated the small chamber where Mr.

Dempsey's late interview took place from the apartment on the first floor, to which he now was summoned, and so, to do him justice, did Paul himself feel; and not all the stimulating properties of that pleasant cordial could allay certain tremors of the heart, as he turned the handle of the door.

Lady Eleanor was seated at a writing-table, and Helen beside her, working, as Mr. Dempsey entered, and, after a variety of salutations, took a chair, about the middle of the room, depositing his hat and umbrella beside him.

"It would seem, Mr. Dempsey," said Lady Eleanor, with a very benign smile, "it would seem that we have made a very silly mistake; one, I am bound to say, you are quite exonerated from any share in, and the confession of which will, doubtless, exhibit my own and my daughter's cleverness in a very questionable light before you. Do you know, Mr.

Dempsey, we believed this to be an inn."

"An inn!" broke in Paul, with uplifted hands.

"Yes, and it was only by mere accident we have discovered our error, and that we are actually in a boarding-house. Pray now, Helen, do not laugh, the blunder is quite provoking enough already."