’You cannot recommend me a valet, Findlater,’
renewed his lordship; ’a good, honest, sensible
fellow, who can neither read nor write?’ ’N—o—o—that
is to say, yes! I can; my old servant, Collard,
is out of place, and is as ignorant as—as—’
‘I—or you are,’ said Lord St.
George, with a laugh. ‘Precisely,’
replied the baronet. ’Well, then, I take
your recommendation: send him to me to-morrow
at twelve.’ ‘I will,’ said Sir
Christopher. ’My dear Findlater,’
cried Clarence, when Lord St. George was gone, ’did
you not tell me some time ago, that Collard was a great
rascal, and closely lie with Jefferies? and
now you recommend him to Lord St. George!’ ‘Hush,
hush, hush!’ said the baronet; ’he was
a great rogue, to be sure; but poor fellow, he came
to me yesterday with tears in his eyes, and said he
should starve if I would not give him a character;
so what could I do?’ ‘At least, tell Lord
St. George the truth,’ observed Clarence.
‘But then Lord St. George would not take him!’
rejoined the good-hearted Sir Christopher, with forcible
naivete. ’No, no, Linden, we must
not be so hard-hearted; we must forgive and forget;’
and so saying, the baronet threw out his chest, with
the conscious exultation of a man who has uttered
a noble sentiment. The moral of this little history
is, that Lord St. George, having been pillaged ‘through
thick and thin,’ as the proverb has it, for two
years, at last missed a gold watch, and Monsieur Collard
finished his career, as his exemplary tutor, Mr. John
Jefferies, had done before him. Ah! what a fine
thing it is to have a good heart. But, to return,
just as our wanderers had arrived at the further end
of the park, Lady Westborough and her daughter passed
them. Clarence excusing himself to his friend,
hastened towards them, and was soon occupied in saying
the prettiest things in the world to the prettiest
person, at least in his eyes; while Sir Christopher,
having done as much mischief as a good heart well
can do in a walk of an hour, returned home to write
a long letter to his mother, against ’learning
and all such nonsense, which only served to blunt
the affections and harden the heart.’ ’Admirable
young man!’ cried the mother, with tears in her
eyes; ’a good heart is better than all the heads
in the world.’ Amen!”
* * * * *
SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.
QUADRANGLE OF KING’S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE.
In the last New Monthly Magazine is an excellent account of this splendid structure, in A Day at Cambridge,—in which occurs the following exquisite little descriptive gem:—