I SERVED Edward as his second clerk faithfully, punctually,diligently. What was given me to do I had the power and thedetermination to do well. Mr. Crimsworth watched sharply fordefects, but found none; he set Timothy Steighton, his favouriteand head man, to watch also. Tim was baffled; I was as exact ashimself, and quicker. Mr. Crimsworth made inquiries as to how Ilived, whether I got into debt--no, my accounts with my landladywere always straight. I had hired small lodgings, which Icontrived to pay for out of a slender fund--the accumulatedsavings of my Eton pocket-money; for as it had ever beenabhorrent to my nature to ask pecuniary assistance, I had earlyacquired habits of self-denying economy; husbanding my monthlyallowance with anxious care, in order to obviate the danger ofbeing forced, in some moment of future exigency, to begadditional aid. I remember many called me miser at the time, andI used to couple the reproach with this consolation--better to bemisunderstood now than repulsed hereafter. At this day I had myreward; I had had it before, when on parting with my irritateduncles one of them threw down on the table before me a 5l. note,which I was able to leave there, saying that my travellingexpenses were already provided for. Mr. Crimsworth employed Timto find out whether my landlady had any complaint to make on thescore of my morals; she answered that she believed I was a veryreligious man, and asked Tim, in her turn, if he thought I hadany intention of going into the Church some day; for, she said,she had had young curates to lodge in her house who were nothingequal to me for steadiness and quietness. Tim was "a religiousman" himself; indeed, he was "a joined Methodist," which did not(be it understood) prevent him from being at the same time anengrained rascal, and he came away much posed at hearing thisaccount of my piety. Having imparted it to Mr. Crimsworth, thatgentleman, who himself frequented no place of worship, and ownedno God but Mammon, turned the information into a weapon of attackagainst the equability of my temper. He commenced a series ofcovert sneers, of which I did not at first perceive the drift,till my landlady happened to relate the conversation she had hadwith Mr. Steighton; this enlightened me; afterwards I came to thecounting-house prepared, and managed to receive the millowner'sblasphemous sarcasms, when next levelled at me, on a buckler ofimpenetrable indifference. Ere long he tired of wasting hisammunition on a statue, but he did not throw away the shafts--heonly kept them quiet in his quiver.

Once during my clerkship I had an invitation to Crimsworth Hall;it was on the occasion of a large party given in honour of themaster's birthday; he had always been accustomed to invite hisclerks on similar anniversaries, and could not well pass me over;I was, however, kept strictly in the background. Mrs.Crimsworth, elegantly dressed in satin and lace, blooming inyouth and health, vouchsafed me no more notice than was expressedby a distant move; Crimsworth, of course, never spoke to me; Iwas introduced to none of the band of young ladies, who,enveloped in silvery clouds of white gauze and muslin, sat inarray against me on the opposite side of a long and large room;in fact, I was fairly isolated, and could but contemplate theshining ones from affar, and when weary of such a dazzling scene,turn for a change to the consideration of the carpet pattern.Mr. Crimsworth, standing on the rug, his elbow supported by themarble mantelpiece, and about him a group of very pretty girls,with whom he conversed gaily--Mr. Crimsworth, thus placed,glanced at me; I looked weary, solitary, kept down like somedesolate tutor or governess; he was satisfied.

Dancing began; I should have liked well enough to be introducedto some pleasing and intelligent girl, and to have freedom andopportunity to show that I could both feel and communicate thepleasure of social intercourse--that I was not, in short, ablock, or a piece of furniture, but an acting, thinking, sentientman. Many smiling faces and graceful figures glided past me, butthe smiles were lavished on other eyes, the figures sustained byother hands than mine. I turned away tantalized, left thedancers, and wandered into the oak-panelled dining-room. No fibreof sympathy united me to any living thing in this house; I lookedfor and found my mother's picture. I took a wax taper from astand, and held it up. I gazed long, earnestly; my heart grew tothe image. My mother, I perceived, had bequeathed to me much ofher features and countenance--her forehead, her eyes, hercomplexion. No regular beauty pleases egotistical human beingsso much as a softened and refined likeness of themselves; forthis reason, fathers regard with complacency the lineaments oftheir daughters' faces, where frequently their own similitude isfound flatteringly associated with softness of hue and delicacyof outline. I was just wondering how that picture, to me sointeresting, would strike an impartial spectator, when a voiceclose behind me pronounced the words--

"Humph! there's some sense in that face."

I turned; at my elbow stood a tall man, young, though probablyfive or six years older than I--in other respects of anappearance the opposite to common place; though just now, as I amnot disposed to paint his portrait in detail, the reader must becontent with the silhouette I have just thrown off; it was all Imyself saw of him for the moment: I did not investigate thecolour of his eyebrows, nor of his eyes either; I saw hisstature, and the outline of his shape; I saw, too, hisfastidious-looking RETROUSSE nose; these observations, few innumber, and general in character (the last excepted), sufficed,for they enabled me to recognize him.

"Good evening, Mr. Hunsden," muttered I with a bow, and then,like a shy noodle as I was, I began moving away--and why?Simply because Mr. Hunsden was a manufacturer and a millowner,and I was only a clerk, and my instinct propelled me from mysuperior. I had frequently seen Hunsden in Bigben Close, wherehe came almost weekly to transact business with Mr. Crimsworth,but I had never spoken to him, nor he to me, and I owed him asort of involuntary grudge, because he had more than once beenthe tacit witness of insults offered by Edward to me. I had theconviction that he could only regard me as a poor-spirited slave,wherefore I now went about to shun his presence and eschew hisconversation.

"Where are you going?" asked he, as I edged off sideways. I hadalready noticed that Mr. Hunsden indulged in abrupt forms ofspeech, and I perversely said to myself--

"He thinks he may speak as he likes to a poor clerk; but my moodis not, perhaps, so supple as he deems it, and his rough freedompleases me not at all."

I made some slight reply, rather indifferent than courteous, andcontinued to move away. He coolly planted himself in my path.

"Stay here awhile," said he: "it is so hot in the dancing-room;besides, you don't dance; you have not had a partner to-night."

He was right, and as he spoke neither his look, tone, nor mannerdispleased me; my AMOUR-PROPRE was propitiated; he had notaddressed me out of condescension, but because, having repairedto the cool dining-room for refreshment, he now wanted some oneto talk to, by way of temporary amusement. I hate to becondescended to, but I like well enough to oblige; I stayed.

"That is a good picture," he continued, recurring to theportrait.

"Do you consider the face pretty?" I asked.

"Pretty! no--how can it be pretty, with sunk eyes and hollowcheeks? but it is peculiar; it seems to think. You could have atalk with that woman, if she were alive, on other subjects thandress, visiting, and compliments."

I agreed with him, but did not say so. He went on.

"Not that I admire a head of that sort; it wants character andforce; there's too much of the sen-si-tive (so he articulated it,curling his lip at the same time) in that mouth; besides, thereis Aristocrat written on the brow and defined in the figure; Ihate your aristocrats."

"You think, then, Mr. Hunsden, that patrician descent may be readin a distinctive cast of form and features?"

"Patrician descent be hanged! Who doubts that your lordlings mayhave their 'distinctive cast of form and features' as much as we----shire tradesmen have ours? But which is the best? Not theirsassuredly. As to their women, it is a little different: theycultivate beauty from childhood upwards, and may by care andtraining attain to a certain degree of excellence in that point,just like the oriental odalisques. Yet even this superiority isdoubtful. Compare the figure in that frame with Mrs. EdwardCrimsworth--which is the finer animal?"

I replied quietly: "Compare yourself and Mr. Edward Crimsworth,Mr Hunsden."

"Oh, Crimsworth is better filled up than I am, I know besides hehas a straight nose, arched eyebrows, and all that; but theseadvantages--if they are advantages--he did not inherit from hismother, the patrician, but from his father, old Crimsworth, who,MY father says, was as veritable a ----shire blue-dyer as everput indigo in a vat yet withal the handsomest man in the threeRidings. It is you, William, who are the aristocrat of yourfamily, and you are not as fine a fellow as your plebeian brotherby long chalk."

There was something in Mr. Hunsden's point-blank mode of speechwhich rather pleased me than otherwise because it set me at myease. I continued the conversation with a degree of interest.

"How do you happen to know that I am Mr. Crimsworth's brother? Ithought you and everybody else looked upon me only in the lightof a poor clerk."

"Well, and so we do; and what are you but a poor clerk? You doCrimsworth's work, and he gives you wages--shabby wages they are,too."

I was silent. Hunsden's language now bordered on theimpertinent, still his manner did not offend me in the least--itonly piqued my curiosity; I wanted him to go on, which he did ina little while.

"This world is an absurd one," said he.

"Why so, Mr. Hunsden?"

I wonder you should ask: you are yourself a strong proof of theabsurdity I allude to."

I was determined he should explain himself of his own accord,without my pressing him so to do--so I resumed my silence.

"Is it your intention to become a tradesman?" he inquiredpresently.

"It was my serious intention three months ago."

"Humph! the more fool you--you look like a tradesman! What apractical business-like face you have!"

"My face is as the Lord made it, Mr. Hunsden."

"The Lord never made either year face or head for X---- What goodcan your bumps of ideality, comparison, self-esteem,conscientiousness, do you here? But if you like Bigben Close,stay there; it's your own affair, not mine."

"Perhaps I have no choice."

"Well, I care nought about it--it will make little difference tome what you do or where you go; but I'm cool now--I want to danceagain; and I see such a fine girl sitting in the corner of thesofa there by her mamma; see if I don't get her for a partner ina jiffy! There's Waddy--Sam Waddy making up to her; won't I cuthim out?"

And Mr. Hunsden strode away. I watched him through the openfolding-doors; he outstripped Waddy, applied for the hand of thefine girl, and led her off triumphant. She was a tall,well-made, full-formed, dashingly-dressed young woman, much inthe style of Mrs. E. Crimsworth; Hunsden whirled her through thewaltz with spirit; he kept at her side during the remainder ofthe evening, and I read in her animated and gratified countenancethat he succeeded in making himself perfectly agreeable. Themamma too (a stout person in a turban--Mrs. Lupton by name)looked well pleased; prophetic visions probably flattered herinward eye. The Hunsdens were of an old stem; and scornful asYorke (such was my late interlocutor's name) professed to be ofthe advantages of birth, in his secret heart he well knew andfully appreciated the distinction his ancient, if not highlineage conferred on him in a mushroom-place like X----,concerning whose inhabitants it was proverbially said, that notone in a thousand knew his own grandfather. Moreover theHunsdens, once rich, were still independent; and report affirmedthat Yorke bade fair, by his success in business, to restore topristine prosperity the partially decayed fortunes of his house.These circumstances considered, Mrs. Lupton's broad face mightwell wear a smile of complacency as she contemplated the heir ofHunsden Wood occupied in paying assiduous court to her darlingSarah Martha. I, however, whose observations being less anxious,were likely to be more accurate, soon saw that the grounds formaternal self-congratulation were slight indeed; the gentlemanappeared to me much more desirous of making, than susceptible ofreceiving an impression. I know not what it was in Mr. Hunsdenthat, as I watched him (I had nothing better to do), suggested tome, every now and then, the idea of a foreigner. In form andfeatures he might be pronounced English, though even there onecaught a dash of something Gallic; but he had no English shyness:he had learnt somewhere, somehow, the art of setting himselfquite at his ease, and of allowing no insular timidity tointervene as a barrier between him and his convenience orpleasure. Refinement he did not affect, yet vulgar he could notbe called; he was not odd--no quiz--yet he resembled no one elseI had ever seen before; his general bearing intimated complete,sovereign satisfaction with himself; yet, at times, anindescribable shade passed like an eclipse over his countenance,and seemed to me like the sign of a sudden and strong inwarddoubt of himself, his words and actions-an energetic discontentat his life or his social position, his future prospects or hismental attainments--I know not which; perhaps after all it mightonly be a bilious caprice.