bottom of the board, keeping the temper of the
committee, and leading the dear creatures along
the thorny ways of business, hat in hand. I do
suppose this was the most accomplished
philanthropist (on a small independence) that England
ever produced. As a speaker at charitable
meetings, the like of him for drawing your tears
and your money was not easy to find. He was
quite a public character. The last time I was
in London, my mistress gave me two treats.
She sent me to the theatre to see a dancing–
woman who was all the rage; and she sent me
to Exeter Hall to hear Mr. Godfrey. The lady
did it, with a band of music. The gentleman
did it, with a handkerchief and a glass of water.
Crowds at the performance with the legs. Ditto
at the performance with the tongue. And, with
all this, the sweetest-tempered person (I allude
to Mr. Godfrey)—the simplest and pleasantest
and easiest to please—you ever met with. He
loved everybody. And everybody loved him.
What chance had Mr. Franklin—what chance
had anybody of average reputation and
capacities—against such a man as this?

On the fourteenth came Mr. Godfrey's
answer.

He accepted my mistress's invitation,
from the Wednesday of the birthday to the
evening of Friday—when his duties to the
Ladies' Charities would oblige him to return to
town. He also enclosed a copy of verses on
what he elegantly called his cousin's "natal
day." Miss Rachel, I was informed, joined Mr.
Franklin in making fun of the verses at dinner;
and Penelope, who was all on Mr. Franklin's
side, asked me, in great triumph, what I thought
of that. "Miss Rachel has led you off on a
false scent, my dear," I replied; "but my nose
is not so easily mystified. Wait till Mr.
Ablewhite's verses are followed by Mr. Ablewhite
himself."

My daughter replied, that Mr. Franklin might
strike in, and try his luck, before the verses
were followed by the poet. In favour of this
view, I must acknowledge that Mr. Franklin
left no chance untried of winning Miss Rachel's
good graces.

Though one of the most inveterate smokers I
ever met with, he gave up his cigar, because
she said, one day, she hated the stale smell of it
in his clothes. He slept so badly, after this
effort of self-denial, for want of the composing
effect of the tobacco to which he was used, and
came down morning after morning looking so
haggard and worn, that Miss Rachel herself
begged him to take to his cigars again. No!
he would take to nothing again that could cause
her a moment's annoyance; he would fight it
out resolutely, and get back his sleep, sooner or
later, by main force of patience in waiting for it.
Such devotion as this, you may say (as some of
them said down-stairs), could never fail of
producing the right effect on Miss Rachel—backed
up, too, as it was, by the decorating work
every day on the door. All very well—but
she had a photograph of Mr. Godfrey in her
bedroom; represented speaking at a public
meeting, with all his air blown out by the
breath of his own eloquence, and his eyes,
most lovely, charming the money out of your
pockets. What do you say to that? Every
morning—as Penelope herself owned to me—
there was the man whom the women couldn't
do without, looking on, in effigy, while Miss
Rachel was having her hair combed. He would
be looking on, in reality, before long—that was
my opinion of it.

June the sixteenth brought an event which
made Mr. Franklin's chance look, to my mind,
a worse chance than ever.

A strange gentleman, speaking English with
a foreign accent, came that morning to the
house, and asked to see Mr. Franklin Blake on
business. The business could not possibly have
been connected with the Diamond, for these
two reasons—first, that Mr. Franklin told me
nothing about it; secondly, that he
communicated it (after the strange gentleman had
gone away again) to my lady. She probably
hinted something about it next to her daughter.
At any rate, Miss Rachel was reported to have
said some severe things to Mr. Franklin, at the
piano that evening, about the people he had
lived among, and the principles he had adopted,
in foreign parts. The next day, for the first
time, nothing was done towards the decoration
of the door. I suspect, some imprudence of
Mr. Franklin's on the Continent—with a woman
or a debt at the bottom of it—had followed him
to England. But that is all guesswork. In
this case, not only Mr. Franklin, but my lady
too, for a wonder, left me in the dark.

On the seventeenth, to all appearance, the
cloud passed away again. They returned to
their decorating work on the door, and seemed
to be as good friends as ever. If Penelope was
to be believed, Mr. Franklin had seized the
opportunity of the reconciliation to make an
offer to Miss Rachel, and had neither been
accepted nor refused. My girl was sure (from
signs and tokens which I need not trouble you
with) that her young mistress had fought Mr.
Franklin off by declining to believe that he was
in earnest, and had then secretly regretted
treating him in that way, afterwards. Though
Penelope was admitted to more familiarity with
her young mistress than maids generally are—
for the two had been almost brought up
together as children—still I knew Miss Rachel's
reserved character too well to believe that she
would show her mind to anybody in this way.
What my daughter told me, on the present
occasion, was, as I suspected, more what she
wished than what she really knew.

On the nineteenth another event happened.
We had the doctor in the house professionally.
He was summoned to prescribe for a person
whom I have had occasion to present to you in
these pages—our second housemaid, Rosanna
Spearman.