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A SHABBY GENTEEL STORY 53
seated by him on the back seat. 3. If he had not been sulky,
she never would have asked her papa to let her take his place on
the box. 4. If she had not taken her papa's place on the box, not
one of the circumstances would have happened which did happen ;
and which were as follows :—
1. Miss Bella remained inside.
2. Mr. Swigby, who was wavering between the two, like a
certain animal between two bundles of hay, was determined by this
circumstance, and made proposals to Miss Linda, whispering to
Miss Linda: "Miss, I ain't equal to the like of you; but I'm
hearty, healthy, and have five hundred a year. Will you marry
me ?" In fact, this very speech had been taught him by cunning
Gann, who saw well enough that Swigby would speak to one or
other of his daughters. And to it the young lady replied, also
in a whispering agitated tone, " Law, Mr. S.! What an odd
man ! How can you ?" And, after a little pause, added, " Speak
to mamma."
3. (And this is the main point of my story.) If little Caroline
had been allowed to go out, she never would have been left alone
with Brandon at Margate. When Fate wills that something should
come to pass, she sends forth a million of little circumstances to
clear and prepare the way.
In the month of April (as indeed in half-a-score of other months
of the year) the reader may have remarked that the cold north-east
wind is prevalent ; and that when, tempted by a glimpse of sunshine,
he issues forth to take the air, he receives not only it, but
such a quantity of it as is enough to keep him shivering through
the rest of the miserable month. On one of these happy days of
English weather (it was the very day before the pleasure party
described in a former chapter), Mr. Brandon, cursing heartily his
country, and thinking how infinitely more congenial to him were
the winds and habits prevalent in other nations, was marching over
the cliffs near Margate, in the midst of a storm of shrill east wind
which no ordinary mortal could bear, when he found perched on
the cliff, his fingers blue with cold, the celebrated Andrea Fitch,
employed in sketching a land or a sea scape on a sheet of grey
paper.
" You have chosen a fine day for sketching," said Mr. Brandon
bitterly, his thin aquiline nose peering out livid from the fur
collar of his coat.
Mr. Fitch smiled, understanding the allusion.
"An hartist, sir," said he, "doesn't mind the coldness of the
weather. There was a chap in the Academy who took sketches
twenty degrees below zero in Hiceland—Mount 'Ecla, sir ! E was