CHAPTER XXV.

OF ANOTHER SPECIES OF MESALLIANCE.-STORY OF MR. SEDLEY.

Reputation is an idle and most false imposition; oft got without merit, and lost without deserving.-SHAKSPEARE: Othello.

"I HAVE already," continued Fothergill's M.S., "in what I have said of my accomplished friend Sedley, given some insight into his character, which in fact, when I first knew him, and for some time after he quitted me, was one entirely of refinement. He cultivated elegance in every shape, whether in literature or works of art; of which his library, his house, furniture, and household, and particularly his gardens, for which he had a great taste, gave proof. He was always full of animation; had much romance, and a thorough disinterestedness. He was at the same time fastidious to a fault, particularly in regard to women, and from a disgust at what he called the heartless elegance of higher people (a great mistake), thought he had the best chance of finding the companion he wanted in the simplicities which he expected to meet with in a lower station.

"True to this principle, he married a young person of neither birth nor fortune; on the contrary, an ab

solute dependant, but whom he described to me as of exquisite beauty, modesty, and feeling. She was in fact the humble friend of one of his high relations, who needed her as a companion, and with whom he often saw her.

"She is not so cultivated,' said he to me, 'as I could wish, but no matter; she loves me, and will love me the better for making her so. There is a natural and simple elegance about her, with which a husband may do any thing. Her family are, I am afraid, very low. But qu' importe? I marry her, not her family.'

"I had nothing to answer to all this, but sincerely to wish him happy.

"For four years I heard very little of Sedley; and having been often invited, resolved, on leaving Beaumanoir, to pass a few days with him at Sedley House. There at least I should be sure of not encountering the humiliating exhibition of a man of worth and opulence, like Bostock, succumbing to mere pride and fashion, and afraid to consider himself the master of his own house. Accordingly, I took rather an anxious leave of Bostock,—who, however, was hopeful enough of himself to promise to write to me the result of his resolutions,—and I crossed the country to take Sedley by surprise.

"On driving up to the door I was surprised myself; for I was struck with the air of discomfort which every thing seemed to exhibit. The court-yard was full of nettles; the steps of an otherwise handsome portico were disjointed; and some of the windows broken. At the latter, too, I observed at least half-a-dozen

heads, some of children, some adults, male and female, but all staring with vulgar curiosity, as if they had never seen the arrival of a visitor before.

"The door was opened, not by a footman (though Sedley had always been remarkable for clean, goodlooking men servants), but by an absolute draggled, dirty maid.

"But what surprised me still more, when I alighted and got within the passage, was to hear a voice, attempting certainly to whisper, but naturally too coarse to succeed, desiring Hannah (whoever she was) to pull the duster out of the window.

"This was explained to me on entering the room, by perceiving that a duster, or napkin, had been thrust into the fissure of one of the panes of glass which had been broken. The voice it seems had proceeded from a tall, fat, massive-looking dame, with a red face, between forty and fifty years old. She was in a dingy gown and coarse apron, apparently the mother of five or six young people in the room with her, one of them a baby in her arms; two of them grown-up girls, not over clean; the others, children, who retreating round her, and laying hold of her gown, stared at me with their fingers in their mouths, shewing little modesty, but much mauvaise honte.

"Seeing no signs of either my friend or his pretty wife, I set down the portly female for the housekeeper, and the children as her's, though how they all came to be the inhabitants of a handsome reception-room, I could not make out. I was soon satisfied on that head; for the supposed housekeeper, advancing to do

the honours of the room, told me at once that she was Mrs. Snaggs; that she was Mrs. Sedley's mother, and that she was sorry Mr. and Mrs. Sedley were not at home, for they had gone out to take a hairing in their little chay.'

"I bowed my thanks for the information, to which she immediately added, All these here children are my daughter's, for she has one every year, and this baby (dancing it till she grew very hot) is the youngest.' She then added, but these two tall girls be my own.'

"She then made many excuses for the door being opened, as she said, 'by one of the low maids of the house, not even by the lady's maid, which would have been better, but that both she and the butler and footman had been sent out on some business, and as for the boy, who was under the footman, he was never to be found, as indeed was always the case with them boys.'

"I again bowed my compliments for all this intelligence, but, in truth, could say little in commendation of what I saw, whether of my friend's, or her own progeny, from the specimen exhibited by their manners or appearance; nor was I profoundly struck by Mrs. Snaggs herself. I was rather, therefore, relieved when she said to the children, Come, dears, it is your dinner-time, and the gentleman will excuse us ;' then, asking me if I would not have a bit of summut for lunch, which I declined, she left me, very little offended at her want of ceremony, as she called it, in leaving me by myself.

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"My astonishment at all this may be imagined, as

Sedley, I recollected, in announcing his marriage, had told me his wife amply made up for being only in what he called a middling condition of life, by great softness of manners, excellent understanding, and elegance of person. She could not at least, I supposed, resemble her family in any of these respects. This was to be decided hereafter, and to amuse myself till my friend should return from his hairing, I wandered out of doors.

"What I saw there did not give me much notion of his taste for elegant gardening, about which I knew he had formerly been enthusiastic; forming himself upon Walpole and De Lisle. I expected, therefore, when I sought and found the garden, to see, at least, well-kept beds of flowers, and well-pruned trees. The flowers and the trees were there, but any thing but well kept. Moreover, my progress in the principal walks was impeded by lines, which crossed one another in various angles, on which were hung to dry whole regiments of the family linen. This entirely put to flight all notion of the elegance which I expected to find.

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"This is wonderful,' said I to myself; some metamorphosis must have taken place in friend Sedley, since he used to talk so feelingly on the beauties of a garden.' Further research was, however, put an end to by hearing his voice calling me by name, for the clothes-lines interrupted the sight.

"Though heartily glad to see me, he was shocked and abashed in the midst of his gladness. He reddened, and seemed even mortified-was certainly much disconcerted.