Part 30 (2/2)

'I would have credited nothing short of the books, but there I find that not above a fifth part of our manufacture goes to respectable houses, where it is applied properly. The profitable traffic, which it is the object to extend, is the supply of the gin palaces of the city. The leases of most of those you see about here belong to the firm, it supplies them, and gains enormously on their receipts. It is to extend the dealings in this way that my legacy is demanded.'

The enormity only gradually beginning to dawn upon Phoebe, all she said was a meditative--'You would not like that.'

'You did not realize it,' he said, nettled at her quiet tone. 'Do not you understand? You and I, and all of us, have eaten and drunk, been taught more than we could learn, lived in a fine house, and been made into ladies and gentlemen, all by battening on the vice and misery of this wretched population. Those unhappy men and women are lured into the gaudy palaces at the corners of the streets to purchase a moment's oblivion of conscience, by stinting their children of bread, that we may wear fine clothes, and call ourselves county people.'

'Do not talk so, Robert,' she exclaimed, trembling; 'it cannot be right to say such things--'

'It is only the bare fact! it is no pleasure to me to accuse my own father, I a.s.sure you, Phoebe, but I cannot blind myself to the simple truth.'

'He cannot see it in that light.'

'He _will_ not.'

'Surely,' faltered Phoebe, 'it cannot be so bad when one does not know it is--'

'So far true. The conscience does not waken quickly to evils with which our lives have been long familiar.'

'And Mervyn was brought up to it--'

'That is not my concern,' said Robert, too much in the tone of 'Am I my brother's keeper?'

'You will at least tell your reasons for refusing.'

'Yes, and much I shall be heeded! However, my own hands shall be pure from the wages of iniquity. I am thankful that all I have comes from the Mervyns.'

'It is a comfort, at least, that you see your way.'

'I suppose it is;' but he sighed heavily, with a sense that it was almost profanation to have set such a profession in the balance against the sacred ministry.

'I know _she_ will like it best.'

Dear Phoebe! in spite of Miss Fennimore, faith must still have been much stronger than reason if she could detect the model parsoness in yonder firefly.

Poor child, she went to bed, pondering over her brother's terrible discoveries, and feeling as though she had suddenly awakened to find herself implicated in a web of iniquity; her delightful parcel of purchases lost their charms, and oppressed her as she thought of them in connection with the rags of the squalid children the rector had described, and she felt as if there were no escape, and she could never be happy again under the knowledge of the price of her luxuries, and the dread of judgment. 'Much good had their wealth done them,' as Robert truly said. The house of Beauchamp had never been nearly so happy as if their means had been moderate. Always paying court to their own station, or they were disunited among themselves, and not yet amalgamated with the society to which they had attained, the younger ones pa.s.sing their elders in cultivation, and every discomfort of change of position felt, though not acknowledged. Even the mother, lady as she was by birth, had only belonged to the second-rate cla.s.s of gentry, and while elevated by wealth, was lowered by connection, and not having either mind or strength enough to stand on her own ground, trod with an ill-a.s.sured foot on that to which she aspired.

Not that all this crossed Phoebe's mind. There was merely a dreary sense of depression, and of living in the midst of a grievous mistake, from which Robert alone had the power of disentangling himself, and she fell asleep sadly enough; but, fortunately, sins, committed neither by ourselves, nor by those for whom we are responsible, have not a lasting power of paining; and she rose up in due time to her own calm suns.h.i.+ny spirit of antic.i.p.ation of the evening's meeting between Robin and Lucy--to say nothing of her own first dinner-party.

CHAPTER IV

And instead of 'dearest Miss,'

Jewel, honey, sweetheart, bliss, And those forms of old admiring, Call her c.o.c.katrice and siren.--C. LAMB

The ladies of the house were going to a ball, and were in full costume: Eloisa a study for the Arabian Nights, and Lucilla in an azure gossamer-like texture surrounding her like a cloud, turquoises on her arms, and blue and silver ribbons mingled with her blonde tresses.

Very like the clergyman's wife!

<script>