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Before Method and Models
 OX F OR D ST U DI E S I N T H E H I STORY
OF E C ON OM IC S
Series Editor:
Steven G. Medema, PhD, University Distinguished Professor of Economics,
University of Colorado Denver
This series publishes leading-​edge scholarship by historians of economics
and social science, drawing upon approaches from intellectual history,
the history of ideas, and the history of the natural and social sciences.
It embraces the history of economic thinking from ancient times to the
present, the evolution of the discipline itself, the relationship of economics
to other fields of inquiry, and the diffusion of economic ideas within the
discipline and to the policy realm and broader publics. This enlarged
scope affords the possibility of looking anew at the intellectual, social, and
professional forces that have surrounded and conditioned economics’
continued development.
 Before Method
and Models
The Political Economy of Malthus
and Ricardo

RYA N WA LT E R

1
 3
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers
the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education
by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University
Press in the UK and certain other countries.

Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press

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© Oxford University Press 2021

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You must not circulate this work in any other form

and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer.

Library of Congress Cataloging-​in-​Publication Data

Names: Walter, Ryan, author.
Title: Before method and models : the political economy of
Malthus and Ricardo / Ryan Walter.
Description: New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2021] |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021011904 | ISBN 9780197603055 (hardback) |
ISBN 9780197603079 (epub)
Subjects: LCSH: Malthus, T. R. (Thomas Robert), 1766–1834. |
Ricardo, David, 1772–1823. | Classical school of economics. |
Economics—Great Britain—History. | Great Britain—Economic policy. |
Great Britain—Economic conditions—1760–1860.
Classification: LCC HB161 .W255 2021 | DDC 330.15/3—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021011904

DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197603055.001.0001

1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Printed by Integrated Books International, United States of America
Para Carolina: muchas gracias por compartir tu vida conmigo.
 Acknowledgements

This book would not have been possible without the generous support of the
Australian Research Council (DE130101505), which allowed me to commit to
a long-​term project of this type. I am also grateful to Terry Peach, who spon-
sored my stay as a Visiting Scholar at the University of Manchester, where he
cured me of my residual attachment to the ‘corn model’ reading of Ricardo.
Sergio Cremaschi was a perfect host in Bergamo, as were Dennis Grube and
Jason Sharman in Cambridge, and Richard Whatmore in St Andrews. Special
thanks are due to Alexandre Mendes Cunha for the chance to preview the casu-
istry chapter at his Center for European Studies in Belo Horizonte, and to Gilbert
Faccarello, Masashi Izumo, and Hiromi Morishita, who kept their guests safe
after the earthquake in Sapporo in 2018. The most important setting for the de-
velopment of this book’s argument, however, has been my own institution, the
University of Queensland. For my university boasts a rare bird: a research in-
stitute dedicated to intellectual history, formerly the Centre for the History
of European Discourses and now the Institute for Advanced Studies in the
Humanities. The core of the argument that is presented here was rehearsed there
during a Fellowship in 2017, and I thank all those who provided feedback of such
quality during my seminars.
Many colleagues found time to read chapters and offer help along the way,
some despite being sorely pressed by their own deadlines. I am obliged to
Lorenzo Cello, Alex Cook, Knud Haakonssen, Nick Heron, Ian Hesketh, Ben
Huf, Gary Ianziti, Amy Jelacic, Leigh Penman, Mark Philp, Anna Plassart, and
Richard Van den Berg. David Kearns has seen all the chapters in various states in
his invaluable roles of research assistant and friend. Sergio Cremaschi and Niall
O’Flaherty were kind enough to share draft manuscripts with me.
The support of four friends has been indispensable to this project from the
beginning. Ian Hunter has always been willing to discuss my work in detail, and
I am conscious of what a privilege this represents. Keith Tribe has been unfailing
in both offering support and exemplifying the scholarly attitude since my PhD
days. Conal Condren has been instructing me on how to study language for more
than a decade, patiently. Richard Devetak encouraged me to return to Brisbane
to pursue intellectual history in the subtropics and then provided the camarad-
erie that I needed to stay the course when it became difficult.
viii Acknowledgements

I would like to tally a final debt due to Donald Winch who passed away in
2017, to his discipline’s great loss. In 2015, he agreed to meet me at the White
Hart in Sussex so that I could pitch him the idea for this book. After hearing how
many traps I was planning to walk into, it took him two pints to set me straight.
I am glad that he did.
 Contents

Conventions  xi
Introduction  1

PA RT I

1 The Debate over Theory Before Malthus and Ricardo: Burke,

Mackintosh, and Stewart  31

PA RT I I

Introduction to Part II: Political Economy and Parliamentary

Reasoning  69
2 The Vocabulary of Theory and Practice in the Bullion
Controversy, 1797–​1811  73
3 The Corn Laws and the Casuistry of Free Trade, 1813–​1815  111

PA RT I I I

Introduction to Part III: The Greater Stakes of Doctrinal

Contest, 1817–​1820  147
4 Doctrinal Contest I: Value  153
5 Doctrinal Contest II: Rent  175
6 Doctrinal Contest III: Profits  199
Conclusion: A New Past  219
Bibliography  231
Index  245
 Conventions

The texts under study in what follows belong to a pattern of thought that is patri-
archal in the strict sense: the government of the polity by politicians and legis-
lators was discussed using metaphors and presuppositions that drew on the old
idea of a father’s government of a household. This is most visible in the tendency
for ‘economy’ to be written with the ligature, hence ‘œconomy’, disclosing that
the term is cognate with the Greek oikos (household) and oikonomia (the art of
house-​holding). Accordingly, gendered language has been used throughout this
book to convey the original meaning of the texts. This is most commonly done in
relation to the figure of the ‘statesman’, who was projected (and then addressed)
as the agent of governmental action. While it seems likely that British political
economy played a leading role in the ultimate demise of this discursive figure, we
do not know as much as we should about this process and its long-​term effects. It
is clear, however, that the statesman was alive and well in the period being exam-
ined here.
References to Adam Smith’s works and letters follow the conventions estab-
lished in The Glasgow Edition of the Works and Correspondence of Adam Smith,
6 volumes (Oxford, 1976–​1987). Hence, in lieu of titles, the following abbrevi-
ations are used, and, where appropriate, the original divisions of the work are
given (such as book, section, chapter) along with the paragraph in lieu of page
numbers.

Corr = Correspondence
EPS = Essays on Philosophical Subjects
LJ(A) = Lectures on Jurisprudence: Report of 1762–​1763
LJ(B) = Lectures on Jurisprudence: Report dated 1766
TMS = The Theory of Moral Sentiments
WN = An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations

All other multivolume works are referenced in full in the notes, excepting these
titles, which are abbreviated as follows:

Works = The Works of Thomas Robert Malthus (eds. E. A. Wrigley and David
Souden, 8 vols.)
Works and Correspondence = The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo
(ed. Piero Sraffa, 11 vols.)
xii Conventions

Writings and Speeches = The Writings and Speeches of Edmund Burke (eds.
Paul Langford and William B. Todd, 9 vols.)

In the editions just named, the base text for Ricardo’s Principles of Political
Economy is the third edition (1821), with short variants provided in edi-
torial notes at the bottom of the page and long passages at the end of the rele-
vant chapter. In the case of Malthus’s Principles of Political Economy, the second
edition (1836) is the base text, with short variants provided in editorial notes
and long passages at the end of volume 6. Since Part III of this book focuses on
the second edition (1819) of Ricardo’s Principles and the first edition (1820) of
Malthus’s Principles, it has been necessary to use the editorial apparatuses to re-
construct the second and first editions, respectively. For the sake of simplicity,
editorial notes are not referenced, only page numbers and, when necessary, the
notes of Malthus and Ricardo.
The titles of primary sources in English have been shortened and their capit-
alization modernized. When quoting from primary sources, a lowercase initial
letter has occasionally been changed to an uppercase, and vice versa. All pound
signs are modernized.
 Introduction

This book’s key premise is that the notion that there was such a thing as ‘classical
political economy’ is a distorting myth. The fact that this myth plays a central role
in our histories of economic thought suggests that we have a poor understanding
of the thought of the past and of the historical process by which economics came
to assert itself so forcefully in the modern world. What follows, therefore, is an
attempt at revision: to use contextual intellectual history to expose the short-
comings in our existing knowledge and to then establish a more reliable account
of what Malthus, Ricardo, and their peers thought they were doing when they
wrote texts of political economy.
Malthus and Ricardo form the focus because they are central to all accounts
of classical political economy and because they played leading roles in the long-​
term process by which economic reason came to assert itself in British political
life. More specifically, Malthus and Ricardo were the first self-​styled ‘theorists’
who explicitly attacked their ‘practical’ opponents for being untheoretical in
matters of political economy. This strategy was tremendously successful. Above
all, it spurred the emergence of Tory political economists who claimed theoret-
ical equality with their Whig rivals, thus helping political economists in general
to achieve the institutional traction that they needed to reform the British state,
most visible in changes to the Poor Laws (1834), Bank of England (1819, 1844),
and Corn Laws (1846). The presumption of political economists to prospect such
reforms to their societies outside of any institutional office has been an aspect
of our (Anglo-​American) politics ever since. But it is nearly impossible to grasp
this fact when the category ‘classical political economy’ organizes the historical
materials, not least because it usually does so in service to a polemic regarding
the competing merits of neoclassical, Marxist, and post-​Keynesian economics in
the present.
This book must therefore confront the enduring presence of anachronism
in the history of economic thought. The primary cause is that practitioners are
willing to approach the past through the categories and controversies of the pre-
sent. Traditionally, this practice has been defended by specifying the proper aim
of research as recovering the ‘analytical system’ of a past thinker,1 or the ‘history

1 George J. Stigler, ‘Does Economics Have a Useful Past?’, History of Political Economy 1/​2 (1969),

217–​30, at 220.

Before Method and Models. Ryan Walter, Oxford University Press. © Oxford University Press 2021.
DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197603055.003.0001
2 Introduction

of economic analysis’ as distinct from the ‘history of economic thought’,2 or as

providing a ‘rational reconstruction’ in contrast to a ‘historical reconstruction’,3
often in conjunction with Imre Lakatos’s distinction between ‘internal’ and ‘ex-
ternal’ history.4 At times these justifications have been intended to facilitate the
recovery of lost ideas that are serviceable in the present.5 More generally, how-
ever, these justifications for anachronism have been driven by the need to se-
cure a place for history in the economics curriculum, which explains the field’s
anxiety to demonstrate that studying the past might be good for an economist’s
intellectual formation.6
This anxiety has been exacerbated by historiographical competition as the his-
tory of economic thought has migrated outside of economics departments since
the 1970s and been taken up by scholars of different stripes, including English
scholars, historians of science, and, above all, by professional intellectual his-
torians. Whatever private beliefs historians may hold regarding the edifying
potential of history for economists, they do not typically do their teaching in
economics departments.7 Thus unburdened by the obligation to sell their wares,
intellectual historians have been free to push the history of economic thought
into genuinely historical directions, dispensing with the self-​serving distinctions
noted earlier that presume to sort wheat from chaff. Instead, once it is simply
taken for granted that history is a worthwhile pursuit, the guiding distinction is
not between rational and historical reconstruction but between ‘myth-​making
and historiography’.8 As this alternative opposition implies, some of the results

2 Joseph A. Schumpeter, History of Economic Analysis (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994

[1954]), 38–​43.
3 See, for example, Mark Blaug, ‘On the Historiography of Economics’, Journal of the History of

Economic Thought 12/​1 (1990), 27–​37.

4 See, for example, A. M. C. Waterman ‘Mathematical Modelling as an Exegetical Tool: Rational

Reconstruction’, in Warren J. Samuels, Jeff E. Biddle, and John B. Davis, eds., A Companion to the
History of Economic Thought (Malden: Blackwell Publishing, 2003), 553–​70.
5 See, for example, the essays; Marcella Corsi, Jan Kregel, and Carlo D’Ippoliti, eds., Classical

Economics Today: Essays in Honor of Alessandro Roncaglia (London: Anthem Press, 2018); and Steven
Kates, Classical Economic Theory and the Modern Economy (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2020).
6 See, for example, Ivan Moscati’s figuring of historians as commentators who tell the story of

the ‘game’ of economics for the ‘players’—​economists who do not have either the time or interest
to tell its story but who might benefit from a fair recounting nevertheless: Ivan Moscati, ‘More
Economics, Please: We’re Historians of Economics’, Journal of the History of Economic Thought 30/​
1 (2008), 85–​92, at 88. A shopping list of reasons is provided by Steven Kates, who was moved to
write when the European Research Council attempted to remove the history of economic thought
from the list of subfields in economics: Steven Kates, Defending the History of Economic Thought
(Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2013), 21.
7 The late Donald Winch was a rare example of someone who was trained in economics but tran-

sitioned to being a professional intellectual historian. The specialist nature of intellectual history and
the closure of economics to humanist scholarship now makes a trajectory such as Winch’s difficult to
follow. See Keith Tribe, ‘Donald Winch 1935–​2017’, The European Journal of the History of Economic
Thought 25/​1 (2018), 196–​201, at 196.
8 Conal Condren, Argument and Authority in Early Modern England: The Presupposition of Oaths

and Offices (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 229.

 Introduction 3

are destructive for received accounts since one of the routine effects of contextual
intellectual history is to reveal the tendency for academic disciplines to project
imaginary auto-​histories onto the past.9 In this respect, this book is indebted to
the pioneering work of Keith Tribe and Donald Winch, who have led the attempt
to produce genuinely historical accounts of economic thought.10
If intellectual history does not deal with phantoms, then the question becomes
one of determining what can be identified as a valid object of historical ana-
lysis. For intellectual historians, the short answer is texts, understood to include
written records of wide variety, including philosophical treatises, government
reports, the popular press, and much else besides. Unlike the conjectural na-
ture of an analytical system that silently moves an author’s thoughts behind their
back or an economic analysis existing independently of the texts and contexts
from which it is divined, positing historical texts as a thing in the world does
not need to be underwritten by either teleology or metaphysics. That is, one can
point to texts as physical objects, examine their literal contents and organization,
and often identify their publication histories, none of which can be done to an
analytical system or other hypothetical objects. The intellectual historian’s con-
fidence regarding the existence of texts as their object of study comes at a cost,
however, for the historiographical horizon must be lowered to allow the messy,
contextual features of the composition and reception of texts in historical time to
come into view.
While shifting to the study of texts allows historians to ground their work in
textual evidence, it does create a set of issues regarding the tools that should be
used to sift that evidence. Indeed, some of the best historians in the world have
been working through this question for decades without reaching a consensus. It
should therefore be acknowledged that the approach adopted here draws on the
so-​called Cambridge school of intellectual history, associated most closely with
the names of J. G. A. Pocock and Quentin Skinner.11 In terms of their technical
approach, Pocock and Skinner have both emphasized the need to attend to lin-
guistic evidence when attempting to determine what a text might have meant to
the society or milieu in which it was produced.

9 For a classic exposé of the ‘mythologies’ that typically underwrite rational reconstruction,

see Quentin Skinner, ‘Meaning and Understanding in the History of Ideas’, History and Theory 8/​
1 (1969), 3–​53. Reprinted as Quentin Skinner, Visions of Politics, 3 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2002), 1: c­ hapter 4.
10 In particular, Keith Tribe, Land, Labour and Economic Discourse (London: Routledge and

Kegan Paul, 1978) and Keith Tribe, The Economy of the Word: Language, History, and Economics
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015); Donald Winch, Adam Smith’s Politics: An Essay in
Historiographic Revision (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978) and Donald Winch, Riches
and Poverty: An Intellectual History of Political Economy in Britain, 1750–​1834 (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1996).
11 For programmatic statements, see Skinner, Visions of Politics, vol. 1 and J. G. A. Pocock, Political

Thought and History: Essays on Theory and Method (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009).
4 Introduction

For Pocock, the key task has been to ascertain the political language or idiom
that an author mobilized. From here it becomes possible to determine if the
author altered this language and, if so, if the alteration endured. By contrast,
Skinner has typically identified a smaller target than languages: key terms and
the accepted conventions for deploying them in a given milieu. This allows spe-
cific instances of word use, or an author’s ‘speech acts’, to be assessed in terms of
their conventionality or originality. A great deal has been said regarding the rela-
tive appeal of these competing principles and how they should be mobilized in
practice.12 When the issue is reduced to its core claim, however, the injunction is
clear enough: examine which words are used in a text, what they may have been
intended to mean by the person who wrote them, and what they may have meant
to the people who read them, with openness to the possibility that the answers to
these questions may not be the same.
What does all this mean for the history of economic thought in general? It
means that if historians of economic thought redescribe the texts under study
with a present-​day vocabulary then they doctor the (linguistic) evidence.13
Or, to put the same point the other way around, such doctoring is essential to
the project of rational reconstruction, or a history of economic analysis as it
has also been called, since the historian only knows what counts as economic
analysis from the point of view of their proficiency with a contemporary vo-
cabulary. For contextual intellectual history, by contrast, contextualized lin-
guistic evidence must lie at the core of any interpretation of what a text meant
to its author and readers in a given time and place, and this requires that the
language of a text must be handled with great care and clearly distinguished
from the historian’s present-​day vocabulary. To be plain, this does not mean
that today’s historian must write like their dead subjects, but it does mean
that they must acquire the languages of the dead as best they can, explain how
they worked, and signal to the reader when they need to switch between the

12 The most thoughtful (if challenging) commentary comes from Conal Condren, The Status

and Appraisal of Classic Texts (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985); Conal Condren, The
Language of Politics in Seventeenth-​Century England (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 1994). A great
deal has also been written by those who refuse the discipline of identifying historical contexts before
reading texts, and this rejection of context by philosophers and historians of rival persuasions has
ghosted its career from the beginning. On this point, see the indispensable account in Ian Hunter,
‘The Contest over Context in Intellectual History’, History & Theory 58/​2 (2019), 185–​209.
13 What has been termed the ‘Piltdown effect’. See Condren, The Language of Politics in

Seventeenth-​Century England, 13. In short, our conceptual vocabulary is first dug into the evidence to
be studied, such that when we then claim to have made a discovery, it is on the basis of doctored evi-
dence; we have no ancestor with a human cranium and the jaw of an ape, but a fabricated skull of this
type was dug into the Piltdown earth and then ‘discovered’ (Stephen Jay Gould, ‘Piltdown Revisited’,
in The Panda’s Thumb: More Reflections in Natural History (New York: W. W. Norton and Company,
1980), 108–​24).
 Introduction 5

voices of past and present in the course of making texts intelligible in histor-
ical terms.14
What do these precepts mean for the study of Malthus and Ricardo in par-
ticular? They direct attention to the language that is used in their texts and to the
language that is used by economists today, with a standing suspicion that when
the latter is substituted for the former the consequence will be to compromise
historical understanding in favour of transforming past texts into participants
in today’s debates. As anyone familiar with the history of economic thought will
know, such substitution is routine. As regards the ambition at work in this book,
to acquire historical knowledge of Malthus and Ricardo, the consequences of
language substitution are greatest in relation to three linked terms: classical polit-
ical economy, model, and method. This claim can be substantiated with reference
to some influential examples of the history of economic thought in its recon-
structive mode.
Let us begin with the term ‘classical political economy’. It has been known for
some time that this category tends to unify the authors who are grouped within
its boundaries without historical warrant.15 Its origins seem to lie in Karl Marx’s
jaundiced reading of political economy, with the term coined in the context of
Marx making a polemical assessment of his predecessors. The closest that one
comes to finding an explicit definition of classical political economy in Marx’s
corpus is two consecutive footnotes towards the end of c­ hapter 1 of the first
volume of Capital (1867), in Marx’s discussion of commodity fetishism. Marx’s
general point was that although Smith and Ricardo deserved credit for making
scientific advances in relation to the role of labour in creating value, their cat-
egories and modes of thought were bourgeois. This is said to appear most clearly
in Ricardo’s treatment of the commodity-​form as natural when in fact it was re-
liant on the capitalist mode of production and thus specific to a particular histor-
ical stage. This is the context in which Marx wrote that value was ‘the weak point
of the classical school of Political Economy’.16 A similar point is made regarding
‘classical economy’ in the second note, following which Marx clarified his usage:

by classical Political Economy, I understand that economy which, since the

time of W. Petty, has investigated real relations of production in bourgeois

14 On the notion that the historian’s procedure involves distinguishing their own ‘historical stand-

point’ from that occupied by those about whom they write, see W. B. Gallie, Philosophy and the
Historical Understanding (London: Chatto and Windus, 1964), 120.
15 As observed in Winch, Riches and Poverty, 8–​9, 15.
16 Karl Marx, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, ed. Frederick Engels, trans. from the

Third German Edition, vol. 1 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1954), 84 n1. The quotation corres-
ponds to note 27 on page 41 in the first German edition, and here, as in the other cases, Marx is
using ‘klassische politische Oekonomie’: Karl Marx, Das Kapital: Kritik der politischen Oekonomie
(Hamburg, 1867).
6 Introduction

society, in contradistinction to vulgar economy, which deals with appearances

only, ruminates without ceasing on the materials long since provided by sci-
entific economy, and there seeks plausible explanations of the most obtrusive
phenomena, for bourgeois daily use.17

So clarified, Marx’s meaning is plain: classical political economy is whatever eco-

nomic thinking has scientific value, as judged from the vantage point of Marxist
political economy. It is this partisan character of the category that allowed Marx
to group together figures as discrepant as William Petty and Ricardo. In doing so,
Marx merged Petty’s seventeenth-​century counselling discourse premised on a
physiological analogy between the body politic and natural bodies with Ricardo’s
idiosyncratic analysis of rent and value. Here historical difference is flattened by
epistemological polemic.
More recent renditions of the term have been produced within the history of
economic thought. In his famous paper of 1978, ‘The Canonical Classical Model
of Political Economy’, Paul Samuelson roped together Smith, Ricardo, Malthus,
and John Stuart Mill by identifying a common model of equilibrium growth and
distribution. Samuelson constructed this model using contemporary mathemat-
ical economics, secure in the assumption that ‘within every classical economist
there is to be discerned a modern economist trying to be born’.18 In this case, it is
not polemic but teleology that makes a mess of the historical materials, allowing
the actual contexts and concerns of Malthus, Ricardo, and their interlocutors to
be ignored as they are placed in a context prepared in advance by an economic
theorist from another century.
Equally symptomatic is the voluminous work of Samuel Hollander, which
has been a lightning rod for debates over the character of the classical heritage.19
Hollander is revealing for his resistance to the rise of historical approaches to
economic thought, even attempting to defend the category ‘classical political
economy’ against the charge that it is an anachronistic reification. The defence
takes the form of specifying the ‘ “core” of classical doctrine’ as the appropriate
unit of analysis, which might vary historically in the sense that it can be found
stated in ‘different language’, but the historian can cut through this noise by ac-
cessing the ‘pure analytics of classicism’, which the historian can redescribe in

17 Marx, Capital, 85 n1. The quotation corresponds to note 24 on pages 34–​5 in the first German

edition. I am grateful to Keith Tribe for his assistance on this point.

18 Paul A. Samuelson, ‘The Canonical Classical Model of Political Economy’, Journal of Economic

Literature 16/​4 (1978), 1415–​34, at 1415.

19 See especially Samuel Hollander, The Economics of David Ricardo (London: Heinemann, 1979)

and the review by Keith Tribe in Economy and Society: Keith Tribe, ‘Ricardian Histories’, Economy
and Society 10/​4 (1981), 451–​66.
 Introduction 7

algebra without danger.20 Having the ‘pure analytics’ in view, Hollander con-
cludes that the ‘classics inhabited a “Marshallian” not a “Marxian” universe’.21 For
any professional intellectual historian, this is textbook anachronism, since writ-
ings from c. 1770–​1830 are redescribed using language dating from the twen-
tieth century and then judged to belong to a universe dating from the 1870s!
Yet Hollander is adamant that his historiography is not anachronistic: ‘I have
been engaged in “historical” not “rational reconstruction” ’.22 This defence by fiat
gives a sense of the field’s traditional closure to historical approaches and of its
continuing preoccupation with the ‘classics’ as pointing towards either Marx or
Marshall.
This question of political economy’s true nature was complicated by Piero
Sraffa, whose Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities (1960)
has had disproportionate influence on historians of economic thought. Sraffa
aligned his work with the ‘old classical economists’ who were supposedly ‘sub-
merged and forgotten’ by marginal analysis.23 This narrative also produces tele-
ology by linking the past with the present, only here the standard is neither Marx
nor Marshall but a composite Ricardo-​Marx-​Sraffa. Thus a Sraffa disciple could
repeat Marx’s claim regarding William Petty without hesitation: ‘Petty also failed
to develop a systematic analysis of the determination of wages’, as if it were even
possible that Petty could have formed this intention in the seventeenth century.24
In this example, the category ‘classical political economy’ excuses the historian
from investigating what an author was trying to do because it is taken for granted
that inside Petty was a Sraffian trying to be born. As Terry Peach has shown, the
evidence against Sraffa’s reading of Ricardo in terms of a corn-​model of distribu-
tion is overwhelming, and resistance to this fact seems to be driven by the quasi-​
spiritual nature of the Sraffian school’s attachment to Ricardo as their illustrious
founder.25
The reference to the so-​called corn-​model that is central to Sraffian political
economy directs attention to the second term that drives anachronism in the
history of economic thought, ‘model’. The idea that scientists produce models

20 Samuel Hollander, ‘ “Classical economics”: A Reification Wrapped in an Anachronism?’, in

Evelyn L. Forget and Sandra Peart, eds., Reflections on the Classical Canon in Economics: Essays in
Honor of Samuel Hollander (London: Routledge, 2000), 7–​26, at 8, 18.
21 Ibid., 23
22 Ibid., 18.
23 Piero Sraffa, Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities: Prelude to a Critique of

Economic Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1960), v.

24 Christian Gehrke, ‘British Classical Political Economy’, in Gilbert Faccarello and Heinz D. Kurz,

eds., Handbook on the History of Economic Analysis, vol. 2 (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing,
2016), 125–​49, at 128.
25 Terry Peach, ‘On Interpreting Ricardo: A Reply to Sraffians’, Cambridge Journal of Economics

22/​5 (1998), 597–​616; Terry Peach, Interpreting Ricardo (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1993). As noted in the Acknowledgements, I have also struggled to escape the ‘corn model’ view of
Ricardo.
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
The Project Gutenberg eBook of Miss Con
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States
and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no
restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
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you are located before using this eBook.

Title: Miss Con

Author: Agnes Giberne

Illustrator: Edgar Giberne

Release date: April 13, 2024 [eBook #73389]

Language: English

Original publication: London: James Nisbet & Co., Limited, 1887

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MISS CON ***

 Transcriber's note: Unusual and inconsistent spelling is
as printed.

I sat long by the lesser hole. Frontispiece.

 MISS CON

BY

AGNES GIBERNE

AUTHOR OF "SUN, MOON AND STARS," "BERYL AND PEARL,"

"ST. AUSTIN'S LODGE," ETC.

ILLUSTRATED BY EDGAR GIBERNE

"Whene'er a noble deed is wrought,

Whene'er is spoken a noble thought,
Our hearts in glad surprise
To higher levels rise."—LONGFELLOW.

NINTH THOUSAND
 London

JAMES NISBET & CO., LIMITED

22 BERNERS STREET, W.

Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO.

At the Ballantyne Press, Edinburgh

PREFACE.

I DO not think I need apologise for sending out another

tale about girls and for girls—a tale of everyday life, such as
numerous everyday girls in this Nineteenth Century have to
live. There may be already a legion of books belonging,
more or less, to the same class; but the omnivorous
appetite of modern girlhood is not yet satisfied.

Nor, perhaps, need I apologise for its being in some

measure a story about and for young Authoresses, incipient
or developed. So many girls now crowd the lower rungs of
literary ladders, that a few general hints for their guidance
can hardly fail to be useful in one quarter or another.
 It must not, however, be supposed that "All Those Girls"
were would-be Authoresses!

CONTENTS.

CHAP.

I. CRAVEN'S SENTIMENTS

II. AND CONSTANCE CONWAY'S

III. HOW DIAMONDS FLASH

IV. RAILWAY IMAGININGS

V. A "PRICELESS PRIVILEGE" REALISED

VI. A MOTHER'S SWANS

VII. THYRZA'S SANCTUM

VIII. "MILLIE"

IX. THE QUESTION OF ABBREVIATIONS

X. PLENTY OF "ER"

XI. JUVENILE AUTHORSHIP

XII. AND MAGGIE'S EFFORTS

XIII. LETTERS—VARIOUS

XIV. SUBLIMITY AND MAGGIE

XV. THAT PUBLISHER!!

XVI. WHETHER SOMEBODY LIKED SOMEBODY?

XVII. GLADYS HEPBURN'S FIRST SUCCESSES

XVIII. SERIOUS NEWS

XIX. A MOUNTAIN STATION

XX. AND A YORKSHIRE DALE

XXI. THROUGH A STORM

XXII. MYSTERIOUS HOLES

XXIII. "INDEED!"

XXIV. UNPALATABLE ADVICE

XXV. ALONE IN GURGLEPOOL

XXVI. AUTHORSHIP—WHETHER? AND HOW?

XXVII. ELFIE'S CONFESSION

XXVIII. NON-RAPTURES

XXIX. AND YET!

XXX. A REAL FIVE-SHILLING BOOK

XXXI. CROOKED AND STRAIGHT

XXXII. VERY UNEXPECTED

 XXXIII. CONFIDENTIAL IN A CAVE

XXXIV. DIFFERENCES OF VIEW

XXXV. ENTIRELY VANISHED

XXXVI. AND HE!

MISS CON.

CHAPTER I.
CRAVEN'S SENTIMENTS.

CONSTANCE CONWAY'S JOURNAL.

February 20.

"THE very thing for you, Constance. Most satisfactory.

Really, if we had—a—if we had hunted all England over, we
could not—ahem—could not have hoped to find anything
more suitable. Positively, it is, if I may so say—if I may
venture to use a somewhat time-worn illustration—the
fitting of a round man into a round hole,—a round woman, I
should rather say,—ha, ha! Nothing better could be
desired."

So Craven declared, about ten days ago, with that oily

satisfaction which people are sometimes apt to show about
a convenient arrangement for somebody else. If I decided
to go to the Romillys, it would be particularly convenient for
Craven. I had been a full month in his house, and he was
beginning to favour me with plain hints that a month was
enough. Albinia never ventures to oppose him.

"Just the very thing," he repeated, rubbing his big

flabby hands together. He might be a handsome man, this
brother-in-law of mine, if less ponderously rotund, and
boasting a smaller allowance of cheek and chin. I could not
help thinking that afternoon, as he lounged back in his
study-chair, what a huge individual he is for his fifty years.
Anybody might take him for sixty.

I have not written in my journal for many months. Time

enough now to make a fresh start. The only way is to go
straight ahead, letting alone arrears and explanations.

"Precisely the opening for you," he went on. "Really,

your course is, if I may so say, plain as daylight. As I say,
plain as daylight. I am most happy to have been the means
of affording you—ahem—a shelter, until this—a temporary
shelter, I should say,—until this opening should appear."

Craven, like many other speech-makers, indulges in

broken sentences and needless repetitions.

"Not merely an opening, but a duty,—a positive call to

duty. I have always held the opinion—always, I may say,—
that you were by nature fitted—peculiarly fitted—for the
work of teaching. In fact—a—that you were a first-rate
instructress of youth thrown away,—pardon me! And really,
after the monotony of your existence—a—with the worthy
old lady who has been—ahem—has been so lately removed
from our midst,—after the monotony of your existence, as I
say, hitherto,—you will find—ahem—will find positive
excitement, positive dissipation—a—in the surroundings of
your new life with the Romilly circle."

Craven ought to have felt exhausted by this time. If he

did not, I did.

"Supposing I go," I answered perversely. Craven always

rouses the perverse element in me.

"I was not aware that—ahem—that any other opening

had—a—had presented itself, my dear Constance."

"I don't wish to decide in a hurry," I replied, though I

knew as well as did Craven, that the matter was already
practically settled. "Besides," I added, "it is not generally
supposed that a governess' life means too much dissipation.
Too much work is more likely."

For I did and do think that Craven might be a little less

willing to let me enter on a life of possible or probable
drudgery. Not that I want pity, or that I believe in the need
for real drudgery in anybody's life. Plenty to do is my
delight, and the question of drudgery depends on the spirit
in which one does things. Moreover, I have never expected
Craven to offer me a home; and if he made the offer, I
would not accept it.

Still one does like a man to act a consistent part.

Craven has in his own person so ardent a love for ease and
non-exertion, that from his standpoint, he ought justly to
spare me some grains of pity. My protest only set him off
afresh, however.
 "There can be no question, my dear Constance,—ahem
—that your post will be a light one. At the same time, it will
afford you—a—will offer precisely such a sphere for your
talents as you—ahem—will offer, in fact, an appropriate
sphere for your talents. For I see no harm in admitting—a—
no harm in admitting that you are possessed of certain
talents. Here, for the first time in your life,—as I say, for the
first time in your life,—here is a field for their exercise. Not
in mere lesson-giving, but in the exercise of—a—the
exercise of—ahem—the exercise of a mild and beneficent
and improving influence on all around you."

"Am I to begin by improving Mr. Romilly?" I asked.

The laboured and monotonous utterances sounded so

exactly like a third-rate platform speech, that my gravity
was upset. I had to say something which might serve as an
excuse for a laugh.

Craven did not smile. He lifted one broad hand

silencingly.

"In the shaping—ahem—the moulding—ahem—the

general improvement, as I say, of those young people who
will be in your charge. A more delightful occupation could—
a—could scarcely be found. There can be no hesitation
whatever—I say, there can be no hesitation whatever in
pronouncing that you, my dear little sister, are by nature—a
—singularly adapted for the post." Craven always calls me
"little" when he wants to give me a set-down, though really
I am almost as tall as himself. To be sure, I am not so
broad!

"That is the question," I said. "If I could be sure that I

really am fitted—But the responsibilities will be immense. If
I were a woman of forty, instead of a girl not twenty-three
—"

"With the appearance of—a—of thirty at least," asserted

Craven.

There might be some truth in this. Twice in the month

before, I had been taken for Albinia's twin. But also I had
been twice taken for only eighteen years old. So much
depends on the mood one is in.

"If I could be sure that I am fitted," I said again, rather

rashly inviting a further flow of speech.

"Adapted undoubtedly, I should say," Craven answered.

He drummed his right hand solemnly on the chair-arm, by
way of emphasis. "Unquestionably! For you have gifts, my
dear sister,—I may say that you have gifts. You are clever,—
ahem—intellectual,—ahem—and you have cultivated your
intellect. You are well-read. You draw and paint,—really
quite tolerably. Yes, I may say—a—quite tolerably. Your
music is, on the whole—on the whole, above the average."

Craven's knowledge of music is rather less than that of

his favourite puppy, but this only makes it the easier for
him to pass judgment.

"You have—" he went on—"you have your faults also:

who has not? A certain impetuosity; somewhat too good an
opinion of yourself; an over-readiness to oppose your views
to those of others; these defects have—ahem—have to be
subdued. But again there are faults which in your new
position—which, I may say, in your new position will be—a—
transformed into virtues! For instance! A certain faculty for
spying out others' weaknesses—ahem—a somewhat
unenviable readiness to set others to rights—pardon the
suggestion, my dear little sister! But the adaptability of
things is remarkable—is really, I may say, most remarkable.
For henceforth the business of your life will be—the leading
aim of your existence will be—a—the setting of others to
rights a—the correction of others' faults. Thus, as I may
say, as in fact I have already observed—a—thus at least one
faulty tendency glides into a positive virtue."

My impetuosity came, I suppose, into play here. I felt

all at once that I had endured as much as could reasonably
be expected.

"Have you done, Craven?" I asked, standing up.

Craven was astonished. Probably he had not done; but

my sudden movement disturbed the beautiful orderliness of
his ideas, and put the remainder of his speech to flight.

"Because I think our discussion has lasted long

enough," I said. "I will write to Mrs. Romilly by this
evening's post, and promise to be at Glynde House in a
fortnight."

Craven rose slowly and examined the framed almanack.

We were together in the library, whither he had summoned
me on my return from an afternoon stroll in the park.

"Nothing keeps Con indoors," Albinia is wont to declare,

and certainly that day's fog had not sufficed to do so.

"A fortnight from to-day," he said dubiously. "That

brings us to—the twenty-fifth. Yes; if I am not mistaken—
the twenty-fifth."

"Mrs. Romilly names the twenty-fifth," I said. "I cannot

offer to go sooner. It is unfortunate; but she does not leave
England for another week; and she wishes me to arrive a
week later. I am afraid you will have to put up with me so
long."

Without waiting for an answer, I passed out of the

luxurious library into the spacious hall.

CHAPTER II.
AND CONSTANCE CONWAY'S.

THE SAME—continued.

February 21.

ALBINIA has a comfortable home,—so far as carpets

and curtains are concerned. If only that mountain of human
pomposity were not appended! But then she need never
have accepted him unless she wished. Albinia went in for
the man, with the carpets and curtains, of her own free-will.

Of course it is pleasant to be comfortable. I should be

the last to deny that fact. Velvet-piled carpets, into which
the foot sinks as into moss, are superior to bare boards;
and tapestry at twelve or fifteen shillings the yard is very
much nicer than a cheap cretonne at twelve or fifteen
pence. Still a good deal depends on how much may be
involved in the possession of mossy carpets and rich
tapestry.
 Sometimes I find myself wondering whether, if ten
years ago could come over again, Albinia would say "Yes" a
second time. She was only twenty then, and he was by no
means so portly as now. But Craven Smyth was Craven
Smyth always. He never could be anything else. He
managed invariably to excite naughty feelings in me,
though I was a child under twelve. Albinia could not
understand why. She used to say he was "so nice!"—That
delightfully indefinite term which does quite as well for a
man as for a cretonne. And her one hesitation seemed to be
on the score of his surname. "To think of becoming Mrs.
Smyth!" she remarked often.

After leaving the library, I lingered in the hall, thinking.

Should I write my letter first, or speak to Albinia first? Time
enough for both before I needed to dress for dinner. The
latter seemed right, so I passed on into the drawing-room,
with its costly furniture and superabundant gilding.

Not four days had gone by since I first heard of this

"desirable opening" in the Romilly household. I had
answered the earliest appeal by return of post, asking
further particulars, and expressing strong doubts as to my
own capacity. A letter had now arrived from Mrs. Romilly
herself, urging, nay, imploring me to accept the position.

Had the request come from any one else except Mrs.
Romilly, I must have unhesitatingly declined. For whatever
Craven may say, I am not fitted for the post. I, a girl of
twenty-two, unused to teaching, inexperienced in family
life,—I to undertake so anomalous and difficult a task! The
very idea seems to me wild, even foolish. Humanly
speaking, I court only failure by consenting to go!

And yet—what if it is indeed the right thing for me? For

all along it has appeared as if that were the one open path;
as if all other paths were hedged up and shut. Any one else
except Mrs. Romilly! Yes; that would make all the
difference. But then, it is Mrs. Romilly! And she is ill,
depressed, troubled, in difficulties, and she implores my
help. How can I hesitate or think of self?

I have no other friend in the world like Mrs. Romilly. Not

that we have been so very much together; but I think I fell
in love with her at first sight, and the love has gone on
growing ever since, steadily. Three times, at intervals, she
has spent a month with an aged relative in Bath,—an
acquaintance of Aunt Lavinia's and mine,—and each time
we met as often as possible. We walked and drove
together; read and sang together; went often to the Abbey
Church together. I can talk freely to her, as I have never
talked with any other human being; and she is no less free
with me. She has often said that I helped her; and this
seemed strange, because she has so often helped me.

Sweet Gertrude Romilly! I have never met with any one

else quite like her; and I doubt if I ever shall. She is twenty
years my senior; yet I do not think we have found disparity
of age any bar to friendship. It would be unreasonable to
suppose that I am as much to her as she is to me. She is so
lovely, so beloved; and she has so many who are very near
and dear to her, while I have but few. But, indeed, I find the
love that she gives to me very full and satisfying.

I suppose her spirits in girlhood must have been

wonderfully high. She has gone through much trouble, and
has suffered under it most acutely; and notwithstanding all,
she seems often to be just rippling over with happiness and
fun. I never quite know whether to count her more winning
in her gay or in her pensive moods.
 During the three years since our acquaintance first
began, Mrs. Romilly and I have corresponded regularly; and
she has pressed me often to pay her a visit at Glynde
House. But I have never felt that I could rightly leave poor
Aunt Lavinia, since she grew so very infirm.

Now that my dear old aunt has been taken from me,
things are changed. It did seem strange for a while that no
word of sympathy came from Glynde House. The response
has always been so quick, if I were in any trouble. But a few
lines from the eldest daughter, Nellie, with a dictated
message from my friend, soon let me know the cause.

I cannot now understand precisely what is wrong. Mrs.

Romilly has broken down in health, though to what extent I
do not know. A sudden attack on her chest has revealed a
condition of things there, unsuspected before; and she is
ordered off in haste to the south of Europe before March
winds begin. That is not all, however. Nellie alludes to "the
state of her nerves;" and it seems to be expected that she
may have to remain many months away,—perhaps a great
part of the summer. Nellie goes in charge of the invalid, and
Mr. Romilly remains behind.

In the midst of these anxieties, another blow has fallen.

The governess, Miss Jackson, who for fifteen years has lived
with the Romillys, was summoned home to the bedside of a
dying mother just before Mrs. Romilly's illness. After weeks
of absence she wrote, unexpectedly, to plead the claims of a
widowed father, begging to be if possible at once released.
The claim could hardly be disallowed, and no difficulties
have been made. But then it was that Mrs. Romilly turned
to the thought of me. She knew of my plans for self-
support. Would I, she asked, step into the vacant post, and
be—not merely governess, but companion, caretaker, elder
sister, guide, and friend to her darling girls?
 The first letter on this topic was dictated, but the
second was in her own hand,—so changed and feeble a
hand, that it grieved my very heart,—pleading earnestly.
Would I—could I—refuse to set her mind at rest?

No, I could not; and were the moment of decision to

come over again, I feel that my reply would be the same. I
could not refuse; even though the sense of incapacity
weighed then and weighs still most heavily. I am not old
enough or experienced enough for the position. Yet it did
seem to me then, and it seems so still, that I have no
choice.

CHAPTER III.
HOW DIAMONDS FLASH!

THE SAME.

February 24.

I MUST take up the thread where I left off three days

ago. The last evening in Albinia's house has come, and to-
morrow I make my plunge into a new life. It is late, and I
have been busy; but there is much to think about, and
sleep looks impossible at present. As well sit up and write,
as toss to and fro in the dark.
 Albinia was seated near the drawing-room fire when I
went in, reading a little, or working a little, I can't say
which. She is always doing a little of something, which ends
in nothing. Perhaps she was working, for I noticed the flash
of her diamond rings as she moved her hands.

Craven likes his wife to dress richly, and to make a good

display of jewellery,—perhaps as an advertisement of his
wealth. She is apt to be a little overladen with gems, just as
her drawing-room is overladen with gilding. Her natural
taste is good, but she conforms to her husband's taste in all
such minor matters. Wisely, no doubt. Anything is better
than a succession of domestic jars; and when Albinia
became Craven's wife, she knew the manner of man who
was to be her husband.

"What a dull afternoon we have had," I said.

"Yes," Albinia answered slowly. "Have you been out till

now?"

I did not at once respond. Her question fluttered by me,

and was forgotten. A reflection of our two figures in a pier-
glass, lit up by half-lowered gas and dancing flames, had
attracted my attention, and set me cogitating.

Albinia and I are often said to be alike. Though eight

years my senior, she looks young for her age, and I—at
least when grave—look decidedly old for mine. That brings
us nearer together, and makes the mistake as to twinship
occasionally possible. If I were to describe Albinia as I saw
her in the glass—rather tall, rather thin, with a good figure,
long supple limbs, and much natural self-possession; also
with grey eyes, dark hair, and tolerably regular features—
the description would apply equally well to myself, and
probably would give no true impression of either.
 For in reality Albinia and I are not alike. It is impossible
that we should be. We may be formed on much the same
model; eyes and hair may be the same in colouring; but we
are not alike. Differences of temperament and character
must show in the face. Albinia's torpid easiness of
disposition and her willingness to submit, are the precise
converse of my untiring energy and troublesome strength of
will. Strangers may and sometimes do mistake the one for
the other; but those who know us well are apt to deny the
fact of any resemblance at all,—which is curious.

I have seen Albinia look very pretty at times,—not

always, but under certain circumstances. Generally her fault
is a lack of animation; and if this is overcome, she wins a
good deal of admiration. Much more than I do. Some indeed
tell me that I am far better looking than Albinia, but those
are only my particular friends. We always see the best of a
face when it is really dear to us. Many, I know, count me
not at all attractive; and they are the people for whom I do
not care. But I do not know why I should write all this.

The difference of our respective standings in life was

well marked, that afternoon, by the blaze of Albinia's
diamonds and the lustre of her splendid silk, seen side by
side with my plain black serge and jet brooch. I did think
she might have worn deeper mourning for the good old
aunt to whom in childhood we both owed so much. But—
there is Craven!

"Well," Albinia said at length.

"I beg your pardon, Albinia. I went into the park first;
and since then I have been in the library, talking,—or rather
listening."

"Talking about your plans?"

 "I shall go to Glynde House in a fortnight."

A glittering flash of the diamonds showed me that

Albinia had stirred suddenly.

"Then you have quite decided?"

"Quite. The Romillys want me, and Craven does not."

"We are expecting visitors soon," she said, rather

faintly.

Poor Albinia! It was not her fault. I would not suggest

that the house contained eight spare bedrooms.

"Of course I would rather have kept you for a few weeks
longer," she went on. "But still—" and a pause. "If Craven—"
another break. "And perhaps Mrs. Romilly wants you there
before she leaves."

"No; not before. It would be her wish, but the doctors

forbid excitement. She starts in a week from to-day; and
she wishes me to go a week later,—just allowing the
household time to recover a little from the parting. That
seems wise, perhaps, as I am not to see her."

"You would have liked to see her."

"One cannot think of one's own wishes in such a

matter," I said.

"And you only know Mrs. Romilly,—not the husband or

daughters?"

"Except that I have heard so much about them all from

Mrs. Romilly,—I can hardly feel myself a stranger."

"Are Mr. and Mrs. Romilly rich?" was the next question.
 "Yes,—very comfortably off. And I suppose still more so
since the death of a great-uncle of Mrs. Romilly's last
autumn. An estate in Yorkshire came to them then. Mrs.
Romilly spoke in a letter of their intention to go there every
summer: though Glynde House will still be their home for
the greater part of the year."

"And you will have the entire education of several girls!

Housekeeping too?"

"I really don't know, Albinia. My notions as to what I

shall have to do are hazy in the extreme. That is the worst
of not seeing Mrs. Romilly. No, not the entire education.
There are masters for accomplishments, I believe; and
there is a nursery governess for the two youngest. Besides,
Maggie must be pretty well out of the schoolroom."

"Oh, then of course she will be housekeeper."

"Craven predicts more need for the exercise of a

'beneficent influence' on my part than of actual teaching."

Albinia opened her eyes non-comprehendingly.

"He expects me to improve the household as a whole,—

beginning, as I tell him, with Mr. Romilly. My own fear is
that I shall be too much of a girl among girls,—with too
little authority."

"It all depends on yourself. You must take a proper

stand from the first. I dare say things will fit in well
enough."

So easy for her to say and think. Hardly anything is

more easy than to be philosophical for somebody else. I do
not count that my own feeling in the matter is cowardice. I
have never feared work or shrunk from responsibility. But
from early childhood, I have been under the dominion of a
strong sense of duty; and to half perform a duty has been
always a misery to me. And I do feel myself so unfitted, so
terribly inadequate, for the duties to which I seem called.

"Called." Yes; there it is. If indeed "called" to them, I

shall find help sufficient. God does not place His children in
positions of difficulty, to leave them alone afterward. My
prayer has been—"If Thy Presence go not with me, carry
me not up hence." And if His Presence does go with me,
then nothing else can matter very much.

"I never expected you to have to take to governessing,"

Albinia said suddenly.

"Did you not?" I asked.

"No. Two years ago I had not a doubt that you would be
married before this." She looked at me with questioning
eyes. "What were you about, Con?"

"About my own business, I hope," I said. "Nearly time

to dress for dinner. I must be quick."

"You can just as well write a line afterwards."

"No; I would rather catch an earlier post. I must set

Mrs. Romilly's mind at rest, and I want to have the thing
settled."

"You can write here," said Albinia.

I acquiesced, going to a davenport, though solitude

would have been preferable. The letter seemed to need
careful wording. Between my desire to bring repose to Mrs.
Romilly, and my conscientious dread of promising more
than I might be able to perform, I scarcely knew what to
say. And I leant back in my chair, thinking.

"Do you know what o'clock it is, Con?"

Albinia's words roused me from a dream. She was

crossing the room, and before me lay a black-edged sheet,
with the date written—nothing more. While, fading from the
foreground of my mind, was a vivid picture of a scene in a
certain small Bath dining-room—a scene nearly two years
old, called up by Albinia's utterances—a scene unknown to
any living person, except myself and one other. I had
forgotten Mrs. Romilly, forgotten my letter, forgotten the
need for haste.

For recollections of that scene are apt to involve me in a

train of questionings. They come up afresh now as I write.

Had I then known how soon the dear old aunt was to be
taken away, how short a time she would claim my care, I
think I should have come to a different decision. But I did
not know. There seemed no reason why she might not live
another ten or twenty years, always ill and helpless, always
dependent on me.

What I did, I did for the best, and under a compelling

sense of duty. At the moment I had no doubts, no feeling of
hesitation. My path seemed clear as daylight. He thought
me fearfully cold, and he was wounded and angry. Yet it
was for his sake—because I would not bind him to years of
waiting.

Was it quite needful—even as things then stood? Should

I have been wrong to let him see that my "No" was a "No"
of sheer duty, not of choice? Was there not at least the fault
of too impulsive action, too rapid decision,—of not delaying
to ask and wait for guidance?
 "He that believeth shall not make haste." Those words
come to me sometimes with a sharp sense of pain. I did
believe, but did I act practically upon that belief? If I had
not made quite so much haste, I might at least have
worded my answer a little differently. And—I cannot be
sure, but sometimes I do wonder if he had not almost a
right to know that I was not so indifferent as I seemed.

After-regrets are worse than useless. They only unnerve

one for daily life. I feel that, yet I cannot always hold these
questionings in leash. They gain the mastery over me once
in a while, though to no purpose,—worse than none. For he
is gone out of reach. He will never know how things really
were. Communication between us is at an end,—utterly! He
said that he would take very good care never again to
trouble me with his unwelcome presence, and I—I let him
think it was unwelcome. I said nothing; and he went.

It was from thoughts such as these that Albinia's voice

aroused me to the consciousness of my unwritten letter.
She was going across the room, and had paused behind my
chair.

"No, I have not done," I answered quietly. "One

moment, please."

And I dashed off, in a rapid scrawl,—

"DEAR MRS. ROMILLY,—

"Yes, I will come—on the 25th inst. I am

afraid it will be only to disappoint your
expectations; but I cannot refuse. I will at least
do my best.
 "This is in haste, to catch the next country
post. I want you to hear to-morrow morning. I
will write again more fully in a day or two.—
Ever yours affectionately—

"CONSTANCE
CONWAY."

The letter went, and I was committed to the

undertaking.

Now, sitting alone by candle-light in my room,—mine no

longer after to-day,—with packed and half-packed trunks
around, I find myself doing what I have resolved not to do,
—turning back to that closed page of my history, and
conning it anew.

I doubt if there be any occupation more vain than

reading the past in the light of the present, and breaking
one's heart for the things which might have been,—if only
one had known! Except indeed that from the blunders of the
past, one may gain wisdom for the future.

God knew all the time! That is the one great comfort.
He knew—and cared—and guided. Not indeed with the
precise and explicit guidance, which would have come, if I
had expressly waited and looked out for His hand to point
the way. But He makes all things work together in the end
for the good of His loved ones,—yes, I do believe, even
their very blunders. A mother does not neglect to watch the
hasty steps of her most heedless little one; and I know that
my Father does not—did not—forget me.

Nor will He. And does not the little one learn from its
own stumbles to cling more to the mother's hand? I think
so.

Still, I cannot help a feeling of loneliness to-night,—this

last night of shelter in my sister's home, before stepping
out into an untried and new world. One does crave at times
for somebody to come very close, knowing and
understanding all that one could say—or would not say.
People think me so matter-of-fact and sensible and
cheerful, and when they tell me what I am, of course I
assent. If I demurred, they would only count their own
opinion worth the most. But one cannot be always sensible
or always cheerful, and the thirst for human sympathy has
me in its grip this evening.

Yet is it not at such times that the human sympathy of

Christ our Lord comes home—or ought to come home—to
one? If not, the want is in us, not in Him—never in Him!

Now it is close upon midnight, and I must go to bed.

What sort of a home shall I be in, twenty-four hours hence?

CHAPTER IV.
RAILWAY IMAGININGS.

THE SAME.

February 25. Evening.

 "SO you leave us—a—to-day, my dear Constance, and—
ahem—proceed to your new sphere of work. I am sure I
may say—a—that you carry with you our best wishes—my
wife's and mine, I should say."

N.B. * I have a great deal to write of first impressions in

my new home, but Craven's utterances come up irresistibly,
and insist on first attention.

* N. B.—nota bene

"Thanks," I replied. "It is quite a case of speeding the

parting guest."

Now this was unkind to Albinia. She never can

withstand her husband, but the gratification which beamed
from his rotund face was not reflected in hers. I thought her
even a little depressed in her apathetic way.

Craven showed no signs of being affected by my sharp

utterance, but drawled out his next inquiry, "I believe you—
a—start some time this morning—a—my dear Constance."

"The twelve o'clock train. Different lines don't fit in their

time-tables well," I said. "It is unkind to passengers. I shall
have two changes, and scant time for either."

"No doubt—a—if one train is missed, another runs

later," said Craven.

"No doubt," I answered. "But I don't particularly want

three or four hours' delay."

"I believe you—a—change trains at—a—at Hurst," said

Craven.