1 84 Lights and Shadows of London Life. 



but desperate. His father had become quite a recluse, devoting him- 

 self exclusively to books, and rarely leaving his own rooms; his 

 mother was nearly a stranger, her time being divided among the 

 different watering places of fashionable resort. The ancient serving 

 man was still there, but time had done its work with him ; his man- 

 ner, formerly precise, had become austere; he was reserved, silent, 

 and withdrew from all the approaches of his once favourite young 

 master with a peevish and morose sullenness. To all questions con- 

 cerning the history and present condition of the niece of his master, 

 who had been an inmate of the house during a brief space in Chal- 

 croft's early youth, he preserved an inviolable silence. It was a 

 subject never broached but to his evident annoyance, and met with 

 an abruptness that made its renewal unavailing. 



Such was the domestic position of Chalcroft when, having taken his 

 degree at a much earlier age than usual, he found himself gazetted 

 to a cornetcy of Dragoons. In a period of profound peace, the army, 

 at its best, is but a school for luxurious idleness, enabling a young 

 man, by the peculiar condition of its economy, to make an appear- 

 ance and move in a sphere utterly incompatible with similar means 

 in any other circumstance of life. It was little wonder then that one, 

 whose boyhood had lacked the common advantages either of precept 

 or example, found the allurements of unrestricted licence and aug- 

 mented facility for indulgence temptations beyond his strength. It 

 were an unwelcome task to follow him in his career, the more so, 

 that it was " the broad way" along which throng so many, failing the 

 friendly hand to point out the pitfalls with which it is beset. A letter, 

 announcing the fatal illness of his father, once more, and for the last 

 time, brought him to his home. His mother was absent, and his 

 arrival but enabled him to pay the last sad services to one whom, 

 though almost unnaturally estranged from him, he had ever loved. 

 Within a week after attending his father's obsequies, he had left a 

 home marked by scarce one single recollection of pleasure, never to 

 return to it. The effects were soon after disposed of, the servants 

 discharged, with the exception of the old retainer, upon whom a 

 small annuity was settled, and the memory of the strange gentleman 

 who lived at the lodge departed from among those who nominally 

 had been for years his neighbours. 



One memory, which through all the wayward wanderings of his 

 life had never slept, was roused into a vivid and keen existence by 

 that temporary visit to the scene of its earliest source. Fondly, but 

 bitterly, did the image of his fair and gentle cousin haunt him as he 

 lingered among the walks they had trodden together. Seated by the 

 calm river that still flowed on as it was wont ere the days came in 

 which they were to dwell apart, he gazed into its lucid mirror as if 

 he sought to meet the sunny looks that he had so often seen reflected 

 within it. The hour of his departure came, but not with it terminated 

 thoughts which that scene revived memories of the past which it 

 had stirred. 



Scarcely a year had elapsed ere another melancholy summons 

 called Chalcroft to the death-bed of his last parent. It was from 

 Bath that he received the notice of his mother's dangerous illness, 



