Second Thoughts.

BY F. C. BURNAND.

CHAPTER III.

GOING ON WITH MISS RACHEL.

REGULARLY at half-past nine she

On Second Thoughts it will be as well to explain that "She" means Miss Rachel.

Regularly at half-past nine she drew on a pair of gloves to work in, commencing by cleaning the bird-cages and making the canaries comfortable; and punctually at one she drew them off, and sat down to luncheon, after hearing Master Dick's head, just above the table, say a simple grace.

Miss Rachel had a hobby and pets. Her great pet was a dog, her greater a horse, and her greatest any young girl who would attach herself to her.

During this explanation, my father has been giving the Doctor an educational treatise.

"Miss Maud Caswall is the young lady whom my sister has chosen as governess," observed Dr. Pincott.

"I know no just cause or impediment," quoth my father, cheerfully.

Dr. Pincott sighed, and while my father is turning over in his mind how he can best steer clear of a painful subject-you will observe that he had been quoting from the official form of "banns”— we will go on with Miss Rachel.

And, on Second Thoughts, with Miss Maud Caswall. Ladies first : by courtesy, and not in the order of creation.

Miss Maud Caswall was about this time nineteen, middling height, good figure, a trifle too long in the waist.

On Second Thoughts, this may have been the fault of the dress. And also, you and I may differ about waists.

Fine fair hair in profusion.

At

[On Second Thoughts, perhaps not real; how am I to know? The fashion when she was nineteen, and I fifteen, was not as now. fifteen was I suspicious? I never had any sisters.]

Thinly-pencilled eyebrows, or rather thin pencil rarks where the eyebrows ought to have been. I can say it safely at this time of day, for as she has grown older she has become a less painstaking artist, and the Indian ink is sometimes thicker on one side than the other.

On Second Thoughts I mistrust her hair; her present hair. Let bygones be bygones.

There was always a sncer about her nose and mouth, which was, and is, to me decidedly unpleasant; and her eyes were big and grey.

Miss Rachel took a fancy to her at an evening party, where the young lady was performing on the piano, and straightway asked her to come and stay with her. And so from time to time she spent a fortnight, or a month, with Miss Rachel; and suffered no loss by it, I'll warrant you

When the Doctor's wife died, and Miss Rachel administered the domestic affairs, Miss Maud was of no little assistance in cheering the melancholy widower, and on his going abroad for change of scene, her companionship was an absolute necessity to Miss Rachel.

Maud played the piano to perfection. To me she appeared like a clockwork figure-time, tune, and no feeling. I have listened to a mechanical piano, of Parisian make, with equal satisfaction. There was little light and shade in her performances. Whatever light there was, was all of the firework kind. A brilliant monotony.

Miss Rachel didn't know "God save the Queen" from Sir Roger de Coverley; but her brother Ralph had cultivated a taste for music, and therefore Miss Rachel insisted upon Maud practising for at least an hour every day while she was out of earshot among the pickles. Music and painting were to Miss Rachel simply wonderful arts, and she wondered "how people did it." But if unable to distinguish one tune from another, she could not only tell you the points of a horse, but could drive one, or a pair, with a precision that whisked you safely round the sharpest right-angled corner, and when you got accustomed to it as Maud did after two or three dozen times of nervous lipbiting and gripping the elbow-cushion-would cause the most timid passenger not the slightest uneasiness.

cats.

She abominated anything like meanness or slyness; and detested

Maud loved reading: Miss Rachel didn't. She liked Maud to read aloud as a means of getting an afternoon's siesta, and Maud would rather do this than stop in the middle of an exciting novel. Maud, when complimented upon her skill in music, would own with great

humility that she had determined to assist her family by turning her musical education to account, and would indistinctly hint at the pain and degradation of a public concert, and the daughter of a gentleman who had, it was vaguely rumoured, once kept several packs of hounds.

Mr. Caswall, years ago, had fallen, magnâ ruinâ, like Humpty Dumpty, and had never been able to get on his wall again. In falling he must have dropped all his "H's," as when I met him his stock was out.

On Second Thoughts, though it has never struck me before, this is why he was only brushed up and let out once a week to dine at Dr. Pincott's with his daughter, when there was no company expected. I strolled in by accident, and Mr. Caswall was favouring the party with a song. It was about

"The 'untsman and 'is 'ounds
Appear upon the grounds;

We tighten our belts

While the 'oar frost melts,

And Sol is 'id be'ind the 'ills.

With a A O tantivy !

'Ark, for'ard, tantivy."

His daughter was accompanying him on the piano as I came in, and her smile was one of the sweetest, as you may imagine, when I applauded heartily, and hoped that I didn't interrupt.

These drawing-room concerts used to take place, as did several similar merry meetings, during Master Dick's school-time.

In the course of the evening she came and stood by me while I was looking over that refuge of the drawing-room-destitute-a picturebook. That trap for the scandalous, a photographic portrait album, being then unknown.

"That is pretty, is it not ?" she asked, indicating a landscape with her small, sharp forefinger. "That is in Yorkshire. Papa comes from Yorkshire, and all Yorkshiremen leave out their "H's." It is curious to our ears, is it not ?"

I said (what could I say?) that no one would observe it.

On Second Thoughts, I wish I hadn't said this. Transparent humbug. She merely replied, "Indeed ?" and left me.

Dr. Pincott subsequently told me the same tale, with instances of great men who had never been able to correct this notable Cockneyism in their speech. Miss Rachel, too, was in the story.

I recollect saying to myself at the time, "Why are these people so

anxious to make out this old uneducated snob a ruined Yorkshire squire ?"

I asked myself this at night, after winding up my watch.

"I should like to know," I repeated to myself twice.

Second Thoughts (with the light out). Bother Yorkshire; it's no business of mine.

And then, I should say, I slept.

CHAPTER IV.

"Infirm of purpose."-Macbeth, Act ii., sc. 2.

I REMEMBER Dr. Pincott saying to my father, "No, sir, I shall never marry again."

He was even annoyed with my father's answer, "We shall see.” "Never," said Dr. Pincott, as he slammed our front gate.

My father who had accompanied him down the garden for the special purpose of preventing him in slamming the gate, gave a little "hum" of disappointment, lifted the latch, re-closed the gate quietly, looked down the lane after the Doctor, returned to the house meditatively, and going into the study, sat down to his "Dictionary of Possibilities." Letter R, on Resolutions.

[I found this in a pocket-book, note, date, and all, only the book hadn't then been christened the "Dictionary."]

DR. PINCOTT has removed from our village some months since. "By Jove!" exclaims Dick, his nephew, in my study, with an open letter in his hand.

I give up the dictionary work, and ask what is the matter. "Matter!" he cries. "Good heavens! My uncle! What an ass!" Acting on Second Thoughts, it appears, Dr. Pincott has married again. My father was prophetic in saying "We shall see." A good phrase: exactly the phrase for a writer on Possibilities.

"Aunt Rachel's fault," cries Dick, pacing the room. "Surely," I say, "you will not suffer by it."

Dick does not call me "old man now, nor allude to himself as D. P.

"Suffer! I have suffered enough already," he cries. "I can't go home without being snubbed, I can't take a friend, I can't smoke, I can't confound it, I can't do anything." He paused, and presently commenced again kicking the fender. "And how do I know I shan't lose every penny? I stand next to my uncle. If there are brats, I'm cut out. It's infernally hard."

"You must make friends with your stepmother," I suggested.

"Friends with her! A sneak. Do you know the lot—old Caswall, with his 'oss, and 'is 'ounds, and 'is 'unting." He couldn't help laughing at his own imitation, which was uncommonly good, and thoroughly appreciated by the audience. An angry man's jest at his own expense, is a crisis safely passed. Fearful, indeed, is a dumb man's wrath.

So Miss Maud was Mrs. Pincott at last. She had served her time.

"Perhaps you've heard the worst," I said. "Your uncle's no longer a young man, and he's not a Solomon."

"No, he's not," laughed Master Dick.

"You misapprehend me," I told him, whereat he laughed the more. "Let us see," he said, still mirthful, "what a year will bring forth." During this year the "Dictionary of Possibilities" progressed wonderfully

CHAPTER VI.

MORE THAN HALF A YEAR AFTER.

DICK PINCOTT gives me an invitation to his college, and departs. Pondering over the Dictionary, I bethink me of the youth just gone. I find myself saying to myself, I don't know why, "Mischief will come of this." Of what? I will write to him, and give him some sound advice.

Whereupon, I wrote him a long letter, several sides, folded it, addressed it, and stamped it.

Second Thoughts, don't send it: tear it up.

An Irish friend of mine wisely remarked to me one day, "Bedad, sorr, 'twould be the saving of a mighty deal of trouble and botheration, if we only tore up most of our letters before we sent 'em."

As my father said to the Doctor, "We shall see."