Behind Mr. Osborne's dining-room was the usual apartment which went in

his house by the name of the study; and was sacred to the master of the

house. Hither Mr. Osborne would retire of a Sunday forenoon when not

minded to go to church; and here pass the morning in his crimson

leather chair, reading the paper. A couple of glazed book-cases were

here, containing standard works in stout gilt bindings. The "Annual

Register," the "Gentleman's Magazine," "Blair's Sermons," and "Hume and

Smollett." From year's end to year's end he never took one of these

volumes from the shelf; but there was no member of the family that

would dare for his life to touch one of the books, except upon those

rare Sunday evenings when there was no dinner-party, and when the great

scarlet Bible and Prayer-book were taken out from the corner where they

stood beside his copy of the Peerage, and the servants being rung up to

the dining parlour, Osborne read the evening service to his family in a

loud grating pompous voice. No member of the household, child, or

domestic, ever entered that room without a certain terror. Here he

checked the housekeeper's accounts, and overhauled the butler's

cellar-book. Hence he could command, across the clean gravel

court-yard, the back entrance of the stables with which one of his

bells communicated, and into this yard the coachman issued from his

premises as into a dock, and Osborne swore at him from the study

window. Four times a year Miss Wirt entered this apartment to get her

salary; and his daughters to receive their quarterly allowance. George

as a boy had been horsewhipped in this room many times; his mother

sitting sick on the stair listening to the cuts of the whip. The boy

was scarcely ever known to cry under the punishment; the poor woman

used to fondle and kiss him secretly, and give him money to soothe him

when he came out.

There was a picture of the family over the mantelpiece, removed thither

from the front room after Mrs. Osborne's death--George was on a pony,

the elder sister holding him up a bunch of flowers; the younger led by

her mother's hand; all with red cheeks and large red mouths, simpering

on each other in the approved family-portrait manner. The mother lay

underground now, long since forgotten--the sisters and brother had a

hundred different interests of their own, and, familiar still, were

utterly estranged from each other. Some few score of years afterwards,

when all the parties represented are grown old, what bitter satire

there is in those flaunting childish family-portraits, with their farce

of sentiment and smiling lies, and innocence so self-conscious and

self-satisfied. Osborne's own state portrait, with that of his great

silver inkstand and arm-chair, had taken the place of honour in the

dining-room, vacated by the family-piece.




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