58

THE CRISIS OF MY EXISTENCE.

BY AN OLD BACHELOR.

I'm not a sentimental man now. I have passed that state of existence long since, as a man whose whiskers have got bushy while the hair on his crown has got thin, and whose eyes are surrounded by little nascent crows' feet, decidedly ought to have done. I confess that I prefer a good dinner to the most enchanting of balls, claret to polkas, and a jolly bacchanalian ditty to the pretty small talk of the most dainty damsel that ever floated through a quadrille in ringlets and clear muslin.

"Horrid wretch!" I hear some young lady reader exclaim, as she peruses this confession, and prepares to throw down the book in disgust. Stay one moment, fair lady, I beseech you, and you shall have a little genuine sentimental reminiscence of my "days of auld lang syne"-and then-then you may throw down the book if you please and call me a "horrid wretch" if you can.

What a pretty, little, gauzy, fairy-like creature was Angelica Staggers when first I met her! The very recollection of her at this moment makes a faint vibration of my heart perceptible to me, while then the sound of her name would startle me like the postman's rap at the street door. Bill Staggers (it isn't a pretty name, Staggers-but then, Angelica!) was a schoolfellow of mine. Schoolboys don't talk much about their sisters, because they get laughed at if they do: so that I knew little more than the bare fact that Staggers had a sister. In after years when we left school, and Staggers went into his father's counting-house in the city, and I into my father's office in Gray's Inn, the matter was different.

Staggers introduced me to his family. This consisted of his papa, a pompous old fellow who always wore a dress coat in the street as well as at home, and whose pendant watch-seals would certainly have drawn him under water if he had ever had the misfortune to tumble overboard from a Margate steamer; of mamma, who was a lady of vast dimensions, with the usual superfluity of colour in her cheeks and cap ribbons on her head; of a sister of Mr. Staggers, senior, who might have been agreeable if she had not given you the idea of being pinched everywhere-pinched in her waist, pinched in her nose, pinched in her mouth, and pinched in her views of things in general; and lastly of the daughter of the house-the divine Angelica herself.

How shall I describe Angelica as I first saw her one fine summers' day, about two o'clock in the afternoon, dressed in the most charming of muslin negligée dresses, reclining in a large easy chair, and embroidering on a frame a pair of worsted slippers for her papa? How shall I ever give an accurate picture of her beautiful, light, golden hair, that literally glittered in the rays of

the sunshine that made their way through the half-drawn green venetian blinds of the window by which she sat, in the drawingroom of that delightful villa at Peckham that looked out on to the smoothly shaven lawn with the large washing basin of a fish pond on it, containing ever so many shillings' worth of gold and silver fish? I can't do it. I have let all my poetry run to seed, and I feel myself as incompetent to do justice to the charms of Angelica as a sign-painter would be to copy a Madonna of Raphael, or a street ballad screamer to sing the "stabat mater" of Rossini. I must give up the attempt: but cannot the reader help me out of the difficulty by imagining something very fair, pink and white, very slight, very animated, and very ethereal-looking altogether? Of course he can;-then there is Angelica Staggers before his eyes directly.

From the moment I saw her I felt that my doom was fixed, and my heart trans-fixed. I admired, I loved, I adored her, and the very atmosphere that surrounded her (I don't mean the smell of roast duck that was steaming up from the kitchen) seemed to breathe of paradise. Accordingly, as a very natural consequence of this feeling of mine, I behaved very sheepishly-blushed and stammered, and tore off the buttons of my gloves, stuck my legs into absurd positions from not knowing what the deuce to do with them, stumbled over an ottoman as I took my leave, and to save my own fall caught at a china card-tray and smashed it-effecting my retreat at length in a state of tremor sufficient to have brought on a nervous fever.

My friend Staggers quizzed me :

"Why, Jones, I never saw you so quiet. I always thought you such a devil of a fellow among the ladies. You've lost your tongue to-day what is it?"

What is it! As if I were going to tell him what it was. Supposing I had told him that his sister was an angel, the fellow would have grinned and thought I was mad. Men never do believe in the divinity of their sisters; they are almost as incredulous as husbands touching their wives. The last man in the world I would select as the confidant of my love affairs would be the brother of my adored one. I should know that he would annoy me by the most anti-romantic anecdotes of his sister's childhood, and tease her to death by frightful stories of myself. And so I invented excuses about being "out of sorts" and that sort of thing to account for my unwonted taciturnity and embarrassment at this my first interview with Angelica Staggers.

I was soon a very frequent visitor at the Peckham Villa, and I had reason to suppose that I was a welcome one. The old gentleman was very civil; mamma was pressing in her invitations; the "maiden aunt" affable in the extreme; and Angelica always received me with a smile, that I valued at a higher price than California and Australia together could pay.

The Staggers family led a quiet life, with the exception of Bill, who haunted theatres and cyder cellars, and harmonic meetings, and passed as disreputable an existence as a city clerk well could.

I seldom met any one at the Peckam Villa but the family, and occasionally a Signor Fidilini, who was Angelica's music and singing master, and was sometimes invited to tea in the evening, that he might delight Papa Staggers by playing and singing duets with Angelica. I can't say I liked his doing so myself, and 1 always considered his double-bass growl spoiled the silvery notes of his pupil's voice; and then I had a great objection to seeing his jewelled fingers hopping about and jumping over Angelica's on the piano, in some of those musical firework pieces they played together. But he was a very quiet, gentlemanly fellow, and remarkably respectful in his manner to Angelica, so that there could be no real cause for jealousy-but!-the word seemed quite absurd to use in such a case.

My father pronounced me the idlest clerk he ever had. I am not sure that he was quite wrong, but he little suspected the cause. While I ought to have been drawing abstracts of title, I was drawing fancy portraits of Angelica; while I should have been engrossing brief-sheets, Angelica's form was engrossing my thoughts; instead of studying declarations at law, I was cogitating a declaration of my attachment. To plead well my own cause with herself and her father was the only sort of pleading I cared for; while the answer I might get to my suit was of ten thousand times more consequence in my eyes than all the answers in all the fusty old Chancery-suits in all the lawyers' offices in the world. As for reading, Moore and Byron supplied food to the mind that ought to have been intent on Coke and Blackstone. Apollo! God of Poetry, and Venus, deification of Love, answer truly-is there a more wretched being, a more completely fish-out-of water individual than a lawyer's clerk in love?

After long and painful watching, I became convinced, in spite of a lover's fears, that Angelica was not insensible to my attachment. The little bouquets I bought for her at Covent Garden Market were received with a look that thrilled through my very soul. (I hope that is a proper expression, but my poetry having grown rusty, as I before mentioned, I am in some doubt about the matter). There was, or I dreamt it, a gentle pressure of the hand as we met, and as we parted that could not be accidental, and could not be that of mere friendship. There was a half timidity in the tone of her voice as she addressed me, different from the self-possession she displayed in conversation with others. In short, there were a thousand of those little signs, visible though indescribable, that Angelica Staggers knew that I loved her and was gratified by the fact.

Now most men would have thrown themselves at her feet and made their vows, in such a case; but I was doubtful whether that was the most safe course to pursue in order to secure the prize. It struck me that her father was just one of those crusty old gentlemen that look on a young fellow as little better than a pickpocket, who dares to gain a daughter's affections without first asking her papa's permission to do so. On the other hand, I was quite aware that young ladies don't like to be asked of their papas

before they are asked themselves; there is too much of the Mahometan and of the Continental style in such a proceeding to please our free-born island lassies. Still, I might get over that difficulty by explaining how hopeless I believed it to be to secure her father's consent at all, unless I got it first. I was right; and so I resolved to have an interview with Mr. Staggers, and explain my sentiments.

Did any one of my readers ever drive in tandem two horses that had never been broken to harness? Did he ever let off a blunderbuss that had been loaded for ten years? Did he ever walk through long grass notoriously full of venomous snakes? Did he ever ride a broken-kneed horse over stony ground? Did he ever take a cold shower-bath at Christmas? Did he ever propose the health of the ladies in the presence of the ladies themselves, and before he had at all "primed" himself? Did he ever walk across a narrow greasy plank placed across a chasm some hundreds of feet in depth? If he has done all or any of these feats, I can bear witness to the fact that he has had some experience of nervous work; but if he has never been back-parloured with a grave, pompous old father, of whom he is about to ask his daughter's hand, then, I say his experience of real, genuine, "nervous work" is but infantile after all. Making a declaration to the lady herself is nothing to it, though a little embarrassing too; but then you know that the fair one is in as much trepidation as yourself, and not watching you with a cold calculating eye, weighing your expressions, and drawing conclusions perhaps prejudicial to your reputation for sense or honesty. I declare that I would not go through that ordeal again for the wealth of the Antipodes (that's the last new phrase): and, between ourselves, that is the very reason why I remain to this day a -;- but stay — I am anticipating.

I cannot give an account of my interview with Old Staggers, because, even half an hour after it was over, I had but a confused recollection of what took place at it. I only know that it haunted my dreams like a nightmare for nights after. I was eternally jumping up in my bed in a cold perspiration, with my hair half thrusting my night-cap off my head, in the midst of "explaining my intentions." However, a great point was gained-Mr. Staggers agreed to offer no opposition to the match, provided my father consented also.

"I shall call on him to-day, my young friend," he said; "so dine with us at Peckham at six, and you shall know the result. I don't forbid your going there earlier, if you feel inclined to do so."

This was handsome. I expressed my gratitude as well as I was able, and at once took a Peckham omnibus, and hastened to Angelica.

"Missus is out, sir; and so's Miss Staggers: but Miss Angelica's in the drawing-room, sir."

"Very well. I'll go there-you needn't show me up."

So saying, I sprang lightly upstairs, and was in the drawing

room in an instant. A sudden shriek-a short, quick, half-stifled one-met my ears as I entered, and I saw Signor Fidilini move his arm very hastily, as if it had been in far closer proximity to the waist of Angelica, who was at the piano, than I should have considered at all necessary in an ordinary music lesson.

"Oh dear, Mr. Jones! how you did startle me," cried Angelica, blushing terribly, as she rose to shake hands with me. "I didn't hear you coming at all, I assure you.”

I didn't need that assurance, and I believe I said something of the sort.

"Mees Angelica so feared, dat I put out my arm to stop her fall off from de stool," said Fidilini; and he looked so perfectly truthful and embarrassed as he spoke, that my dreadful suspicions began to be allayed.

"I feel quite nervous at this present moment," said Angelica. Indeed, Signor, you must not ask me to take any more music lessons to-day."

Signor Fidilini bowed gracefully his assent, and I cast a delighted look at Angelica; for was she not getting rid of that tiresome music-master for my sake? Fidilina packed up his german-sausage roll of music, and, bidding us good-day, bowed himself out of the room.

We were alone! We looked uncomfortable, and we felt so-I am sure of it in her case as well as my own.

"Angelica!" I exclaimed.

She started, and looked surprised.

66

Angelica, I love you-you know it: but you do not know how deeply and how devotedly," &c. &c. I suppose it is quite unnecessary for me to give the remainder of the declaration, because no one can be ignorant of the usual form of the words in these cases. It is as "stereotyped" as an Admiralty Secretary's letters -but I suppose it means a little more, or what a deal of fibbing lovers must be guilty of when they come to the grand scene of the domestic drama of "love!"

Angelica hung her head, and blushed, and panted. I felt she was mine, and I seized her hand and began to cover it with kisses, when she snatched it from me in such haste, that her diamond and pearl ring scratched my finger. I was amazed! "Mr. Jones, I can listen no more. no more."

I assure you I must listen

"Why so? Your father will not oppose my wishes for—” "It is not that, sir: it is, that I cannot reciprocate the attachment you profess for me."

"Oh! do not say so-do not-"

"If you have any generosity in your heart, Mr. Jones, you will cease this strain at once. You have mistaken my feelings altogether."

"It's that cursed Fidilini !" I cried in a rage, forgetting my good-breeding.

"I beg, sir, that you will not use such language in my pre