THE DEAR GIRL.

By THE AUTHOR OF "BELLA. DONNA," "NEVER
FORGOTTEN," &c.
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CHAPTER VI. MR. BLACKER'S WALK.

THEY had bright mornings at the Dieppe
colony, and bright as one of these we can see
the "trustee of the English chapel," Mr.
Blacker, striding, smiling thoughtfully to the
painful stones, as if he were saying, "Very good,
now —uncommon good, that of Sir Thomas."
He had his head in the air, looking from
side to side with importance and challenge.
He was busy.  Indeed, he was always busy.
"They put dreadful work on me for the little
ee-moluments of the place."  Still, he would
not have given it up for the world, and he
delighted in saluting, not with obsequiousness
but with a prompt confidence, the new
arrivals in his old formula:  "I am Mr.
Blacker, the oldest resident here. I made it
a point to come and call."  The little maid
of the lodgings would come tripping up with
the news of M. Blackaire, the unmelodious
sound of creaking would follow, and his long
person, half stooped, would come upon the
strangers.  This was the operation of "finding
out about these people."  He examined them
on their connexions, friends, and circumstances.
If these are satisfactory;  "Oh, my dear madam,
we must get you along here. They will be
very glad to see you in society.  They are
difficile, as the people here call it, and it
requires nicety.  But leave it to me, and I am
sure it can be done."  The strangers—young
ladies, perhaps—are in fluttering delight, having
come to a place where they did not "know a
soul," and now see a whole vision of social
delights opening.

"Oh, sir, how kind of you."

"Not at all, my dear lady.  We must help
one another down here, smooth the pillow, and
sweeten the path.  We'll begin by degrees; get
half a dozen of the regular stagers—our best,
you know—to call.  I'll manage that.  Once
they take you up, it's all right."

This was in the case of "most desirable
addition to society."  But there were others who
came for vulgar economies, and Mr. Blacker,
looking round the rather mean apartment with
a little alarm and unpleasantness, would stay
only a short while, and be dispiriting in his
conversation.  It was very hard, next to impossible,
to get into Dieppe society.  "You see,
my good lady, questions are asked, and
difficulties are made, and Mrs. Dalrymple says she
won't call upon any stranger too soon; but
you'll do very fairly, by-and-by, you know."
Then going home, he tells Mrs. Blacker they
are "poor sort of creatures."

We see him on this bright morning posting
along with a complimentary smile, looking to
the right and left, sometimes speaking to
himself.  He was walking very fast, for he had
great business on hand.  The small streets
through which he passed glittered like the little
spar boxes they sold in the shops, and these
tiny shops with the gay toys they displayed
in abundance, with the scanty show of useful
necessaries, such as a stray silk or two in a
mercer's window, and the half-dozen hats which
seemed the hatter's whole stock in trade,
looked all on the smallest conceivable scale.
Mr. Blacker, old resident as he was, had the
deepest contempt for the place.  "My dear sir,
take the poorest English country town we have,
it would buy and sell these creatures ten times
over.  Take one of our butchers' shops, with
our noble beef flabbing about in enormous
masses—well, I go into Schneider's there, corner
of Roo Royle, and I see a couple of fellows
cutting and picking and slicing at a few little
wedges of meat."  He had now got to a shop
in "Great-street"—no word was hurtled so
much through the air as "the Grawn-roo"—
over a milliner's, nice and clean looking.  But
in the colony, as with the mind, it was only the
interior merits that were regarded.  We came
to a dirty stable, with a butcher's shambles at
one side, and passed through a dark smelling
door, and so went up-stairs to see my Lady
Colley.

Mr. Blacker passed through the milliner's
shop with a lofty manner, saying, "Up-stairs—
Ong ho?"  He was going to see Mrs. Dalrymple
and her daughters—a widow lady of good
family, who, though she found it convenient
to reside at the colony, was not reduced, had
the art of making herself respected; and if she
saved at all, it was with the view of keeping up
her station, by giving little entertainments.
She gave a tone to the place.  Mr. Blacker, who
was good natured where greater people did not
interfere, and where there were no fashionable
sick calls, as his visits might be styled, had a sort