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ON HIS WAY THROUGH THE WORLD 591
is not the kind of entertainment to which I would have invited you
at my own house in England," he would say. " I thought to have
ended my days there, and to have left my son in comfort—nay,
splendour. I am an exile in poverty : and he—but I will use no
hard words." And to his female patients he would say : " No! my
dear madam!—not a syllable of reproach shall escape these lips
regarding that misguided boy ! But you can feel for me; I know
you can feel for me." In the old days, a high-spirited highwayman,
who took a coach-passenger's purse, thought himself injured, and
the traveller a shabby fellow, if he secreted a guinea or two under
the cushions. In the Doctor's now rare letters, he breathed a
manly sigh here and there, to think that he had lost the confidence
of his boy. I do believe that certain ladies of our acquaintance
were inclined to think that the elder Firmin had been not altogether
well used, however much they loved and admired the Little Sister
for her lawless act in her boy's defence. But this main point we
had won. The Doctor at New York took the warning, and wrote
his son's signature upon no more bills of exchange. The good
Goodenough's loan was carried back to him in the very coin which
he had supplied. He said that his little nurse Brandon was splendide
mendax, and that her robbery was a sublime and courageous
act of war.
In so far, since his marriage, Mr. Philip had been pretty fortunate.
At need, friends had come to him. In moments of peril he
had had succour and relief. Though he had married without money,
fate had sent him a sufficiency. His flask had never been empty,
and there was always meal in his bin. But now hard trials were
in store for him : hard trials which we have said were endurable,
and which he has long since lived through. Any man who has
played the game of life or whist, knows how for one while he will
have a series of good cards dealt him, and again will get no trumps
at all. After he got into his house in Milman Street, and quitted
the Little Sister's kind roof, our friend's good fortune seemed to
desert him. " Perhaps it was a punishment for my pride, because
I was haughty with her, and—and jealous of that dear good little
creature," poor Charlotte afterwards owned in conversation with
other friends :—" but our fortune seemed to change when we were
away from her, and that I must own."
Perhaps, when she was yet under Mrs. Brandon's roof, the
Little Sister's provident care had done a great deal more for Charlotte
than Charlotte knew. Mrs. Philip had the most simple tastes
in the world, and upon herself never spent an unnecessary shilling.
Indeed, it was a wonder, considering her small expenses, how neat
and nice Mrs. Philip ever looked. But she never could deny herself