X. QUEM TU, MELPOMENE 173

my father and mother. They found, however, my mother not very easily pleased; and presently began themselves to be not a little surprised and displeased by the way things went on, both in the counting-house and at Herne Hill. At the one, there was steady work; at the other, little show: the clerks could by no means venture to leave their desks for a garden-party, and after dark were allowed only tallow candles. That the head of the Firm should live in the half of a party-walled house, beyond the suburb of Camberwell, was a degradation and disgrace to everybody connected with the business! and that Henry should be obliged every morning to take omnibus into the eastern City, and work within scent of Billingsgate, instead of walking elegantly across Piccadilly to an office in St. James’s Street, was alike injurious to him, and disparaging to my father’s taste and knowledge of the world. Also, to the feminine circle, my mother was a singular, and sorrowfully intractable, phenomenon. Taking herself no interest in German studies, and being little curious as to the events, and little respectful to the opinions, of Mayfair, she was apt to look with some severity, perhaps a tinge of jealousy, on what she thought pretentious in the accomplishments, or affected in the manners, of the young people: while they, on the other hand, though quite sensible of my mother’s worth, grateful for her goodwill, and in time really attached to her, were not disposed to pay much attention to the opinions of a woman who knew only her own language;-and were more restive than responsive under kindnesses which frequently took the form of advice.

200. These differences in feeling, irreconcilable though they were, did not hinder the growth of consistently pleasant and sincerely affectionate relations between my mother and the young housewives. With what best of girl nature was in them, Fanny, Helen, and foolishest, cleverest little Juliet, enjoyed, in spring time, exchanging for a day or two the dusty dignity of their street of tone in Mayfair for the

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