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462 subscription. I shall pay when I choose.“ And he could thus get another long grace, or perhaps escape paying altogether, until a new collector apose, who knew not Savernake.

But some people judge a man by what he is at home, and assert that until you have seen the state of feeling between him and his family, you know nothing about him. This is, of course, extremely unfair and improper. What right has anybody to penetrate into domestic life, and thence inhospitably gather information to be used elsewhere. Besides, the rule of judging from these internal discoveries is very unjustly applied. One has heard many a man excused for being a brute to, and a swindler of, persons out of doors, by the plea, “Ah, but if you only saw him at home. He is devotedly attached to Mrs. Bruin- Hawk, and as for his children, they make a perfect fool of him. He can’t be bad.“ But (and it was unlucky for Savernake), few people take the other side, and apologise for a man’s insulting his wife and snubbing his children, on the ground that he does so much good out of doors and has his name on so many charity lists. He is called a hypocrite. Savernake was sometimes called a hypocrite, but chiefly by incautious wives, who did not know the value of money, or that of keeping well with a man to whom their husbands owed money. There came unhappiness once or twice out of the way in which Savernake treated his family.

He had a wife — a blessing which, like the rain, comes upon the just and the unjust, a proof of its providential origin — a son who was learning the law, with a view to combining it with his father’s amiable calling — and a daughter, who was a pretty girl, and as good as she could be in a house where there was little of good thought or acted. Savernake was habitually rather civil to his wife; for, as hath been told, he was a self-indulgent person, and had an instinctive sense that a good deal of extra comfort might be got out of liis home with its mistress tolerably well inclined towards him. Really, therefore, Mrs. Savernake was not very much ill-treated. But as there was no real restraint upon her husband’s temper, except the pleasant one that has been mentioned, and as he was pretty sure to blaze out into savagery when he got tipsy, and as he was pretty sure to get tipsy when he had company, such part of that company as had heard Mr. Jolin Savernake administering marital chiding to Mrs. John Savernake, came away with the impression that he was a most abominable brute. Before a wife refuses to visit any of her husband’s acquaintances, she should be quite sure that she can afford to have that acquintance offended. Little Mrs. George Chalmers was very wretched when her George was captured at breakfast one morning, at the suit of John Savernake — the rupture between plaintiff and defendant was occasioned by Mrs. George’s having, inconsequence of her recollection of Mr. Savernake’s amiabilities to his wife, refused an invitation to meet some rather distinguished victims for whom the usurer wished to make a pleasant party. However, George ought to have told her of his danger, and so she said, with tears, when she went over to see him in B 14, Surrey, bringing him the produce of her pawned jewels.

As for the son, Andrew, there was little to say about him at the time of our story, except that he was a white-faced, sneaking kind of lad, who always looked as if he thought you were going to throw something at him, and was prepared to dodge the missile. 'When his father swore at him, he sulked, and sometimes snapped, and even ventured on a little bad language in return. For the rest, he was a dutiful lad, and would sit on a swell’s doorstep half the night, to be ready to serve him with a writ when he came home joyous and vinous from the club. He limped slightly from a preternatural kick once received by him from the foot of an Irish gentleman, not then accustomed to the amenities of the law; and who, finding the white-faced youth loitering about the door of his chambers, did, as he remarked, “eliminate the ruffian with some promptitude.” Still less is there anything to say about Mr. Andrew Savernake now, inasmuch as he has not nearly half completed a mission on which he has been despatched, at his country’s cost, to a distant, and what is playfully called, a penal settlement.

But Flora Savernake was a pretty and good girl, who having good impulses was very naturally led to separate herself as early as she conveniently could from a house where either hollowness or violence was the order of every day. At the time we are going to speak of she was — but stay. I should like to tell how she managed it. I am afraid she had been reading some French farce, for there was very little attention paid to her studies. Her mother knew nothing, and her father cared nothing about such matters. But Mr. Savernake found out that she had given very serious encouragement to the attentions of one Charles Heneage, a young newspaper man, who had been invited to the house because he could tell a story and sing a song, and who accepted the invitation to the house, because he liked a good dinner and Flora Savernake. Terrible was the storm that burst upon Miss Flora’s curls, and thunderous were the maledictions which the man whose Heart was in the Right Place discharged upon the pretensions of “the beggar that wrote for so much a line, and hadn’t a something shilling in the world.“

Flora was not frightened at the noise and the oaths — she had heard that sort of thing often before. But when her affectionate father proceeded to say that he would lock her up in a bed- room until next day, when he would take her away into Wales, she began to think that matters were growing serious. I suppose she had strange ideas of the terrors of Wales, and supposed that she should be shut up for life in a strong castle and fed on leeks, which was not an inviting prospect to a young lady of nineteen. So she very properly burst into tears, declared that she had never had the least idea of encouraging Mr. Heneage, except as an amusing companion; and if the next time Charles Heneage came, her papa would only be present, he would see that there was no intention, on her part, of offering him hope. To this Mr. Savernake grimly assented, but insisted that he should be concealed during the interview. He would listen to what passed.

Handsome Heneage came and Mr. Savernake was informed of his arrival, and secreted himself