SIOBJC-QB- 01/I\; 1IYES-JI^9M:V55^R;TO ^I^ CONDUCTED-BY VriTH WHLCB IS INCO^POI^TED " '^0lfs£fl0LD*W01^s" So. 350. NEW SBKHS. SATURDAT, MARCH 27, 1875 sail •<• Diamond's appreciation of himself was CHARMING FELLOW. likely to be a just one, and he was a little BT FKAKCKS ELEAKOB TBOLLOPB. vexed and discomfited, that his tutor had «r " Auxrr UASOASTT'S TROUBLI," given him no word of praise behind his PBoaBzas," &c., Ac. back. Mra. Errington saw that she had made an impression, and began to heighten CHAPTEE VI. and embellish her stetemente accordingly. IT is exceedingly disagreeable to find " But, my dear boy," said she, " how can. that a scheme you have set your heart on, we expect him to recognise talente like or a prospect which smUes before you, is youra—gentlemanly teleats, so to apeak P displeasing to the persona who surround The man himself is a mere plodder. Why, you. It gives a cold shock to the glow of he was a sizar at college !" anticipation. Algy felt himself to be a very generous Algernon did not perhaps care to sym­ fellow for continuing to " stend up for old pathise very keenly vrith other folks' Diamond," as he phrased it. pleasure, but he certainly desired that "Well, ma'am, plenty of great men they should be pleased vritii what pleased have been poor scholara. Dean Swift him, which is not quito the same thing. was a sizar." Hia mother informed him—perhaps with "And Dean Swift died in a madhouse! a dash of the Ancram colouring; although So you see, Algy!" i we have seen how unjustly the worthy Mrs. Errington plumed herself a good lady was suspected of falsehood by Dr. deal upon this retort, and retumed to the Bodkin on a lato occasion—that Mr. atteck upon Mr. Diamond with fresh Diamond disapproved of his refusing Mr. vigour; being one of those persons whose Filthorpe's offer, and of his resolve to go mode of warfare is elephantine, and who, to London. Dr. Bodkin, Algernon knew, never content with merely killing their did not approve it; neither did Minnie, enemy, must ponderously stamp and mash although she had never said so in words. every semblance of humanity out of him. How unpleasantly chUly people were, to Algernon did not like all this. His be sure! vanity was—at least during this period of Mra. Errington did not like Mr. Diamond. hia Ufe—a great deal more vulnerable than She mistmstod him. His silence and gra­ his mother's. And she, although she rity, his odd sarcastic smiles, and taciturn doated on him, would say unpleasant politeness, made her uneasy. Despite the things, indignantly repeat mortifying re­ patronising way in which she had spoken marks which had been made, and in a of him to Minnie Bodkin, in her heart hundred ways unconsciously wound the she thought the young man to be horribly sensitive love of approbation which was presuming. one of Algernon's tenderest (not to say " I'm sure he doesn't appreciate you at weakest) points. all, Algy," she declared, winding up a list It was all very disagreeable. But it of Mr. Diamond's defecte and misdemea- was not the worst he had to look forward nonra with this culminating accusation. to. There was one person who would be Algy had a shrewd notion that Mr. so cast down, so despairing, at the news VOL. XIII. 830 ^ yL ^ [Conducted by 554 [Mardh 27,1876.1 ALL THB TBAB BOUND. of his going away, that—that—it wonld descriptions she gave of hor ancestral be quite painful for a fellow to witness home in Warwickshire, Rhoda's imagina­ such grief. And yet it could not bcex- tion put in the hoy as the central figure tiected—it conld never have been expected of the piece. She could see hki in the 1-that he *hottld stay in Whitford all hiB great hall hung round with armour; life! Be must point that out to Rhoda. although she knew that he had never been in the fanuly mansion in his life ; in the Poot Rhoda! grand drawing - room, with its purple For ten years, that is to say for more carpet, and gilt furniture ; above aU, in the than half her life, Algernon Errii^on long portrait gallery, of which Rhod(* was had been an idol, a hero, to her. Prom never tired of hearing. Heaven kiiows the firat day when, peeping from behind how she, innocently, and Mre. Errington, the parlour door, she had beheld the exercising her hereditary talent, em­ strangers enter—Mrs. Errington, majestic, bellished and transformed the old brick in a huge hat and plume, such as young honse in ite deer park, or what enchanted readers may have seen in obsolete fashion landscapes the child at all evente conjured books (the mode was so absurd fifty years np, among the gentle slopes and tufted • ago, and had none of that simple elegance woods of Warwickshire 1 which distinguishes your costume, my dear young lady), and Algy, a lovely fair Even the period !of hobbledehoydom, child, in a black velvet suit and faUing fatal to beauty, to grace, almost to civilised collar—from that moment the boy had humanity in most school-boys, Algernon been a radiant apparition in her imagina­ passed through triumphantly. He had a tion. How small, and poor, and shabby she great sense of humour, and fastidious felt, as she peeped out of the parlour at pampered habite of mind and body, which that beautiful, blooming mother and son! enabled him to look down with more or Not poor and shabby in a milliner's sense less disdain—a good-humoured disdain, of the word, but UteraUy of no account, or always, Algy was never bitter—npon beauty, or value, in the world, little shy tbe obstreperous youth at the Whitford motherless thing! She had an intense Grammar School. delight in beauty, this Whitford grocer's One fight he had. He -waa foreed into daughter. And all her little life the it by circumstences, against his vrill. Not craving for beauty in her had been sterved: that he was a coward, but he had a not wUfuUy, bnt because the very concep­ greater, and more candidly expressed tion of such food as would wholesomely regard for the ease and comfort of his have fed it, was wanting in the people bcSy, than his schoolfeUows conceived to with whom she lived. be compatible vrith pluck. However, our That was a great day when she first, by young friend, if less stoical, was a great chance, attracted Mrs. Errington's notice. deal cleverer than the majority of hig She was too timid and too simple to peera; and perceiving that the moment had scheme for that end, as many chUdren arrived when he must either fight or lose would have done, although she tremblingly casto altogether, he frankly accepted the desired it. What a surprisingly splendid former alternative. He fought a boy sight was the tortoise-sheU work-box, full bigger and heavier than himself, got of amber satin and. sUver! What a beaten (not severely, bnt fairly well beaten) delightful revelation the sound of the old and bore his defeat—in the dialect of his harpsichord, touched by Mrs. Errington's oompeera, " took his licking "—admirably. plump white fingera! What a perennial He was quite as popular afterwards, as if source of wonder and admiration were he had thrashed his adversary, who was a that lady's accomplishments, and conde­ loutish boy, the cock of the school, as to scension, and kind soft voice ! strength. Had he bruised his way lo the As to Algernon, there never was such a perUous glory of being cock of the school clever and brilliant little boy. At eight himself, it would have behoved him to years old he could sing little songs to his maintein it against aU comers; which is mother's accompaniment, in the sweetost an anxions and harassing position. Algy piping voice. He could recite little veraes. had not vanquished the victor, but he had He even drew quite so that you could tell " teken his Ucking Uke a trump," and, on —or Rhoda could—his trees, houses, and the whole, may be said to have achieved men from one another. his reputetion, at the smaUest cost possible under the circumstences. In all the stories his mother told about the greatness of hor family, and in aU the His mother and Rhoda almost shrieked C9<r cS= "^^ Oharles Dtckeiu.] A CHARMING FELLOW. [March 27,1876.] 555 at beholding his bmised cheek, and bleed­ no one knew exactly whither. And during ing lip, wben he came home one half- these same holidays, Mrs. Errington, who holiday, from the field of battle. Algy said she required change of air, had taken laughed as weU as his swollen features lodgings in a little quiet Welsh viUage, would let him, and calmed their feminine and obtained Mr. Maxfield's permission to apprehensions. Nor would he accept his have Rhoda with her. fond parent's enthusiastic praise of his That was a time of joy for the girl. It heroism, mingled with denunciations of did not at all detract from Rhoda's happi­ " that murderous young ruffian, Master ness, that she was required to wait hand Mannit." and foot on Mrs. Errington; to bring her "Pooh, ma'am," said the hero, "it's all her breakfast in bed; to trim her caps, to bmtel and low enough.