Mattie:—A Stray (Vol 3 of 3)   By: F. W. (Frederick William) Robinson (1830-1901)

BY F. W. ROBINSON

THE AUTHOR OF "HIGH CHURCH," "NO CHURCH," "OWEN: A WAIF," &c., &c.

"By bestowing blessings upon others, we entail them on ourselves." HORACE SMITH.

IN THREE VOLUMES

VOL. III.

LONDON: HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS, SUCCESSORS TO HENRY COLBURN, 18, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. 1864.

The right of Translation is reserved.

LONDON: PRINTED BY MACDONALD AND TUGWELL, BLENHEIM HOUSE, BLENHEIM STREET, OXFORD STREET.

CONTENTS OF THE THIRD VOLUME.

BOOK VI. SIDNEY'S FRIENDS.

I. MATTIE'S CHOICE

II. MATTIE'S ADVISER

III. THE OLD LOVERS

IV. A NEW DECISION

V. ANN PACKET EXPRESSES AN OPINION

VI. MR. GRAY'S SCHEME

BOOK VII. SIDNEY'S GRATITUDE.

I. MAURICE HINCHFORD IN SEARCH OF HIS COUSIN

II. MAURICE RECEIVES PLENTY OF ADVICE

III. A DECLARATION

IV. MORE TALK OF MARRIAGE AND GIVING IN MARRIAGE

V. MATTIE'S ANSWER

BOOK VIII. MORE LIGHT.

I. A NEW HOPE

II. MATTIE IS TAKEN INTO CONFIDENCE

III. HALF THE TRUTH

IV. ALL THE TRUTH

V. STRUGGLING

VI. SIGNS OF CHANGE

VII. RETURNED

VIII. DECLINED WITH THANKS

IX. MATTIE, MEDIATRIX

X. CONCLUSION

BOOK VI.

SIDNEY'S FRIENDS.

CHAPTER I.

MATTIE'S CHOICE.

There are epochs in some lives when the heart cracks or hardens. When humanity, wrung to its utmost, gives way, or ossifies. Both are dangerous crises, and require more than ordinary care; the physician must be skilful and understand human nature, or his efforts at cure will only kill the patient who submits to his remedies.

Man we speak literally of the masculine gender at this point though born unto trouble, finds it hard to support in a philosophical way. A great trouble that in nine cases out of ten shows woman at her best, transforms man to his worst; if he be a man of the world, worldly, he is dumbfounded by the calamity which has fallen upon him. It is incomprehensible why he should suffer he of all men and he wraps himself in his egotism his wounded self love and thinks of the injustice and hardness that have shut him out from his labours.

Such men, heavily oppressed, do not give in to the axiom, that it is well for them to be afflicted; they will not bow to God's will, or resign themselves to it their outward calmness is assumed, and they chafe at the Great Hand which has arrested them midway. Such men will turn misanthropes and atheists, at times.

Sidney Hinchford after all was a man of the world. In the world he had lived and fought upwards. There had been a charm in making his way in it, and the obstacles ahead had but nerved his arm to resist, and his heart to endure. He had talents for success in the commercial world even a genius for making money. With time before him, possibly Sidney Hinchford would have risen to greatness.

To make money and to keep it when made requires as much genius as to make poetry, rather more, perhaps. A genius of a different order, but a very fine one notwithstanding, and one which we can admire at a distance on the kerb stones with our manuscripts under our arms, waiting for the genius's carriage to pass, before we cross to our publishers'. Is not that man a genius who in these latter days rises to wealth by his own exertions, in lieu of having wealth thrust upon him? A genius, with wondrous powers of discrimination, not to be led into a bad thing, but seeing before other people the advantages to accrue from a good one, and making his investments accordingly. A man who peers into the future and beholds his own advancement, not the step before him, but the apex in the clouds, lost to less keen sighted folk fighting away at the base therefore, a wonderful man.