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474 THE ADVENTURES OF PHILIP
useful addition to the young couple's income. "Fifty pounds a
year not much ! Let me tell you, sir, that fifty pounds a year is
a very pretty little sum : if Philip can but make three hundred a
year himself, Mrs. Brandon says they ought to be able to live quite
nicely." You ask, my genteel friend, is it possible that people can
live for four hundred a year ? How do they manage, ces pauvres
gem ? They eat, they drink, they are clothed, they are warmed,
they have roofs over their heads, and glass in their windows ; and
some of them are as good, happy, and well-bred as their neighbours
who are ten times as rich. Then, besides this calculation of money,
there is the fond woman's firm belief that the day will bring its
daily bread for those who work for it and ask for it in the proper
quarter ; against which reasoning many a man knows it is in vain
to argue. As to my own little objections and doubts, my wife
met them by reference to Philip's former love-affair with his cousin,
Miss Twysden. "You had no objection in that case, sir," this
logician would say. "You would have had him take a creature
without a heart. You would cheerfully have seen him made
miserable for life, because you thought there was money enough
and a genteel connection. Money indeed! Very happy Mrs.
Woolcomb is with her money. Very creditably to all sides
has that marriage turned out!" I need scarcely remind my
readers of the unfortunate result of that marriage. Woolcomb's
behaviour to his wife was the agreeable talk of London society
and of the London clubs very soon after the pair were joined
together in holy matrimony. Do we not all remember how
Woolcomb was accused of striking his wife, of starving his wife,
and how she took refuge at home and came to her father's house
with a black eye ? The two Twysdcns were so ashamed of this
transaction, that father and son left off coming to " Bays's," where
I never heard their absence regretted but by one man, who said
that Talbot owed him money for losses at whist for which he could
get no settlement.
Should Mr. Firmin go and see his aunt in her misfortune ?
Bygones might be bygones, some of Philip's advisers thought.
Now Mrs. Twysden was unhappy, her heart might relent to
Philip, whom she certainly had loved as a boy. Philip had the
magnanimity to call upon her ; and found her carriage waiting at
the door. But a servant, after keeping the gentleman waiting in
the dreary well-remembered hall, brought him word that his
mistress was out, smiled in his face with an engaging insolence,
and proceeded to put cloaks, court-guides, and other female gear
into the carriage in the presence of this poor deserted nephew.
This visit it must be owned was one of Mrs. Laura's romantic