The Dodd Family Abroad, Vol. II. Lynde Francis

you; and oh, blame me not if it be a tangled web that I present to you, for such will human hopes and emotions ever make it My poor heart is, indeed, a battleground for warring hopes and fears, high-soaring ambitions, and depressing terrors. Would that you were here to guide, console, and direct me!

      Lord George has not returned. What can his absence mean? All is silent, too, in the dreary building. My anxieties are fearful, – I dread I know not what. I fancy a thousand ills that even possibility would have rejected. The courier is to pass this at five o'clock, so that I must, perchance, close my letter in the same agony of doubt and uncertainty.

      Oh, dearest, only fancy the mal à propos. Who do you think our neighbors are? Mr. and Mrs. Gore Hampton, on their way to Italy! Can you imagine anything so unfortunate and so distressing? You may remember all our former intimacy, – I may call it friendship, – and by what an unpropitious incident it was broken up. Lord George has just come to tell me the tidings, but, instead of participating in my distress, he seems to think the affair an admirable joke. I need not tell you that he knows nothing of mamma's temper, nor her manner of acting. What may come of this there is no saying. It seems that there is scarcely a chance of our being able to get on to-day; and here we are all beneath one roof, our mutual passions of jealousy, hatred, revenge, and malice, all snowed up on the top of the Splugen Alps!

      I have asked of Lord George, almost with tears, what is to be done? but to all seeming he sees no difficulty in the matter, for his reply is always, "Nothing whatever." When pressed closely, he says, "Oh, the Gore Hamptons are such thoroughly well-bred folk, there is never any awkwardness to be apprehended from them. Be quite easy in your mind; they have tact enough for any emergency." What this may mean, Kitty, I cannot even guess; for the "situation," as the French would call it, is peculiar. And as to tact, it is, after all, like skill in a game which, however available against a clever adversary, is of little value when opposed to those who neither recognize the rules, nor appreciate the nice points of the encounter.

      But I cannot venture to inquire further; it would at once convict me of ignorance, so that I appear to be satisfied with an explanation that explains nothing. And now, Kitty, to conclude; for, though dying to tell you that this knotty question has been fairly solved, I must seal my letter and despatch it by Lord George, who is this moment about to set out for the Toll-house, three miles away. It appears that two of our guides have refused to go farther, and that we must have recourse to the authorities to compel them. This is the object of Lord George's mission; but the dear fellow braves every hardship and every peril for us, and says that he would willingly encounter far more hazardous dangers for one "kind word, or one kind look," from your distracted, but ever devoted

      Mary Anne.

      They begin to fear now that some accident must have befallen the courier with the mails; he should have passed through here at midnight. It is now daybreak, and no sign of him! Our anxieties are terrible, and what fate may yet be ours there is no knowing.

      LETTER VII. MRS. DODD TO MRS. MARY GALLAGHER, PRIEST'S HOUSE, BRUFF

Colico, Italy

      My dear Molly, – After fatigues and distresses that would have worn out the strength of a rhinocerass, here we are, at length, in Italy. If you only saw the places we came through, the mountains upon mountains of snow, the great masses that tumbled down on every side of us, and we lost, as one might call it, in the very midst of eternal dissolution, you 'd naturally exclaim that you had got the last lines ever to be traced by your friend Jemima. Two days of this, no less, my dear, with fifteen degrees below "Nero," wherever he is, that's what I call suffering and misery. We were twice given up for lost, and but for Providence and a guide called – I am afraid to write it, but it answers to Barny with us – we 'd have soon gone to our long account; and, oh, Molly! what a reckoning will that be for K. I.! If ever there was a heart jet black with iniquity and baseness, it is his; and he knows it; and he knows I knows it; and more than that, the whole world shall know it I 'll publish him through what the poet calls the "infamy of space;" and, so long as I 'm spared, I 'll be a sting in his flesh, and a thorn in his side.

      I can't go over our journey – the very thought of it goes far with me – but if you can imagine three females along with the Arctic voyagers, you may form some vague idea of our perils. Bitter winds, piercing snow-drift, pelting showers of powdered ice, starvation, and danger, – dreadful danger, – them was the enjoyments that cost us something over eighteen pounds! Why? – you naturally say, – why? And well may you ask, Mrs. Gallagher. It is nothing remarkable in your saying that this is singular and almost unintelligible. The answer, however, is easy, and the thing itself no mystery. It's as old as Adam, my dear, and will last as long as his family. The natural baseness and depravity of the human heart! Oh, Molly, what a subject that is! I'm never weary thinking of it; and, strange to say, the more you reflect the more difficult does it become. Father Shea had an elegant remark that I often think over: "Our bad qualities," says he, "are like noxious reptiles. There 's no good trying to destroy them, for they 're too numerous; nor to reclaim them, for they 're too savage; the best thing is to get out of their way." There's a deal of fine philosophy in the observation, Molly; and if, instead of irritating and vexing and worrying our infirmities, we just treated them the way we should a shark or a rattlesnake, depend upon it we 'd preserve our unanimity undisturbed, and be happier as well as better. Maybe you 'll ask why I don't try this plan with K. I.? But I did, Molly. I did so for fifteen years. I went on never minding his perfidious behavior; I winked at his frailties, and shut my eyes, as you know yourself, to Shusy Connor; but my leniency only made him bolder in wickedness, till at last we came to that elegant business, last summer, in Germany, that got into all the newspapers, and made us the talk of the whole world.

      I thought the lesson he got at that time taught him something. I fondly dreamed that the shame and disgrace would be of service to him; at all events, that it would take the conceit out of him. Vain hopes, Molly dear, – vain and foolish hopes! He isn't a bit better; the bad dross is in him; and my silent tears does no more good than my gentle remonstrances.

      It was only the other day we went to see a place called Pfeffers, a dirty, dismal hole as ever you looked at I thought we were going to see a beautiful something like Ems or Baden, with a band and a pump-room, and fine company, and the rest of it Nothing of the kind, – but a gloomy old building in a cleft between two mountains, that looked as if they were going to swallow it up. The people, too, were just fit for the place, – a miserable set of sickly creatures in flannel dresses, either sitting up to their necks in water, or drying themselves on the rocks. To any one else the scene would be full of serious reflections about the uncertainty of human life, and the certainty of what was to come after it Them was n't K. I.'s sentiments, my dear, for he begins at once what naval men call "exchanging signals" with one of the patients. "This is the Bad-house, my dear," says he. "I think so, Mr. D.," said I, with a look that made him tremble. He had just ordered dinner, but I did n't care for that; I told them to bring out the horses at once. "Come, girls," said I, "this is no place for you; your father's proceedings are neither very edifying nor exemplary."

      "What's the matter now?" says he. "Where are we going before dinner?"

      "Out of this, Mr. Dodd," said I. "Out of this at any rate."

      "Where to, – what for?" cried he.

      "I think you might guess," said I, with a sneer; "but if not, perhaps that hussy with the spotted gingham could aid you to the explanation."

      He was so overwhelmed at my discovering this, Molly, that he was speechless; not a word, – not a syllable could he utter. He sat down on a stone, and wiped his head with a handkerchief.

      "Don't make me ill, Mrs. D.," said he, at last. "I 've a notion that the gout is threatening me."

      "If that's all, K. I.," said I, "it's well for you, – it's well if it is not worse than the gout. Ay, get red in the face, – be as passionate as you please, but you shall hear the truth from me, at least; I mayn't be long here to tell it. Sufferings such as I 've gone through will do their work at last; but I 'll fulfil my duty to my family till I 'm released – " With that I gave it to him, till we arrived at Coire, eighteen miles, and a good part of it up hill, and you may think what that was. At all events, Molly, he did n't come off with flying colors, for when we reached a place called Splügen he was