‘Gertrude,’ at last said Linda, when Gertrude
thought that the subject had been put to rest at any
rate for that night, ’don’t you think
mamma would be pleased if she knew that you had engaged
yourself to Harry Norman?’
‘No,’ said Gertrude, evincing her strong
mind by the tone in which she spoke; ’I do not.
If mamma wished it, she would have told me; for she
never has any secrets. I should be as wrong to
engage myself with Harry as you would be with Alaric.
For though Harry has property of his own, while poor
Alaric has none, he has a very insufficient income
for a married man, and I have no fortune with which
to help him. If nothing else prevented it, I
should consider it wicked in me to make myself a burden
to a man while he is yet so young and comparatively
so poor.’
Prudent, sensible, high-minded, well-disciplined Gertrude!
But had her heart really felt a spark of love for
the man of whom she spoke, how much would prudent,
sensible, high-minded considerations have weighed
with her? Alas! not a feather.
Having made her prudent, high-minded speech, she turned
round and slept; and poor Linda also turned round
and bedewed her pillow. She no longer panted
to tell her sister of Alaric’s love.
On the next morning the two young men returned to
town, and the customary dullness of the week began.
SIR GREGORY HARDLINES
Great changes had been going on at the Weights and
Measures; or rather it might be more proper to say
that great changes were now in progress. From
that moment in which it had been hinted to Mr. Hardlines
that he must relax the rigour of his examinations,
he had pondered deeply over the matter. Hitherto
he had confined his efforts to his own office, and,
so far from feeling personally anxious for the amelioration
of the Civil Service generally, had derived no inconsiderable
share of his happiness from the knowledge that there
were such sinks of iniquity as the Internal Navigation.
To be widely different from others was Mr. Hardlines’
glory. He was, perhaps, something of a Civil Service
Pharisee, and wore on his forehead a broad phylactery,
stamped with the mark of Crown property. He thanked
God that he was not as those publicans at Somerset
House, and took glory to himself in paying tithes
of official cumin.
But now he was driven to a wider range. Those
higher Pharisees who were above him in his own pharisaical
establishment, had interfered with the austerity of
his worship. He could not turn against them there,
on their own ground. He, of all men, could not
be disobedient to official orders. But if he could
promote a movement beyond the walls of the Weights
and Measures; if he could make Pharisees of those
benighted publicans in the Strand; if he could introduce
conic sections into the Custom House, and political
economy into the Post Office; if, by any effort of
his, the Foreign Office clerks could be forced to
attend punctually at ten; and that wretched saunterer,
whom five days a week he saw lounging into the Council
Office—if he could be made to mend his
pace, what a wide field for his ambition would Mr.
Hardlines then have found!
