The Last.

Humbly confessing to Emma Gray that he had no talent whatever for plotting, Captain Wopper went off with a deprecatory expression of countenance to reveal himself to Mrs Roby. Great was his anxiety. He entered her presence like a guilty thing. If, however, his anxiety was great, his surprise and consternation were greater when she received his revelation with tears, and for some time refused to be comforted!

The workings of the human mind are wonderful. Sometimes they are, as the Captain said, bamboozling. If analysed it might have been discovered that, apart altogether from the shock of unexpectedness and the strain on her credulity, poor Mrs Roby suffered—without clearly understanding it—from a double loss. She had learned to love Captain Wopper for his own sake, and now Captain Wopper was lost to her in William Stout! On the other hand William, her darling, her smooth-faced chubby boy, was lost to her for ever in the hairy savage Captain Wopper! It was perplexing as well as heart-rending. Captain Wopper was gone, because, properly, there was no such being in existence. William Stout was gone because he would never write to her any more, and could never more return to her from California!

It was of no use that the Captain expressed the deepest contrition for the deception he had practised, urging that he had done it “for the best;” the old woman only wept the more; but when, in desperation, the Captain hauled taut the sheets of his intellect, got well to wind’ard of the old ’ooman an’ gave her a broadside of philosophy, he was more successful.

“Mother,” he said, earnestly, “you don’t feel easy under this breeze, ’cause why? you’re entirely on the wrong tack. Ready about now, an’ see what a change it’ll make. Look ’ee here. You’ve gained us both instead of lost us both. Here am I, Willum Stout yours to command, a trifle stouter, it may be, and hairier than I once was, not to say older, but by a long chalk better able to love the old girl who took me in, an’ befriended me when I was a reg’lar castaway, with dirty weather brewin’, an’ the rocks o’ destitootion close under my lee; and who’ll never forget your kindness, no never, so long as two timbers of the old hulk hold together. Well then, that’s the view over the starboard bulwarks. Cast your eyes over to port now. Here am I, Captain Wopper, also yours to command, strong as a horse, as fond o’ you as if you was my own mother, an’ resolved to stick by you through thick and thin to the last. So you see, you’ve got us both—Willum an’ me—me an’ Willum, both of us lovin’ you like blazes an’ lookin’ arter you like dootiful sons. A double tide of affection, so to speak, flowin’ like strong double-stout from the beer barrel out of which you originally drew me, if I may say so. Ain’t you convinced?”

Mrs Roby was convinced. She gave in, and lived for many years afterwards in the full enjoyment of the double blessing which had thus fallen to her lot in the evening of her days.

And here, good reader, we might close our tale; but we cannot do so without a few parting words in reference to the various friends in whose company we have travelled so long.

Of course it is unnecessary to say, (especially to our lady readers, who were no doubt quite aware of it from the beginning), that Lawrence and Emma, Lewis and Nita, were, in the course of time, duly married. The love of their respective wives for each other induced the husbands not only to dwell in adjoining villas, but to enter into a medical co-partnery, in the prosecution of which they became professionally the deities, and, privately, the adored of a large population of invalids—with their more or less healthy friends—in the salubrious neighbourhood of Kensington. To go about “doing good” was the business, and became the second nature, of the young doctors. It was long a matter of great surprise to not a few of their friends that though Lawrence and Lewis neither smoked nor drank, they were uncommonly healthy and apparently happy! Some caustic spirits asserted that they were sure budding wings were to be found on the shoulders of the two doctors, but we are warranted in asserting, on the best authority, that on a strict examination, nothing of the kind was discovered. Need we say that Emma and Nita were pattern wives? Of course not, therefore we won’t say it. Our reticence on this point will no doubt be acceptable to those who, being themselves naughty, don’t believe in or admire “patterns,” even though these be of “heavenly things.” It is astonishing, though, what an effect their so-called “perfection” had in tightening the bonds of matrimony. Furthermore, they had immense families of sons and daughters, insomuch that it became necessary to lengthen their cords and strengthen their stakes, and “Calyforny Villa” became a mere band-box compared to the mansions which they ultimately called “home.”

Mrs Stoutley having managed to get entirely out of herself—chiefly by means of the Bible and the London gold-fields and moraines—became so amiable and so unlike her former self, and, withal, so healthy and cheery, that the two great families of Stoutley and Lawrence went to war for possession of her.

The feud at last threatened to become chronic, and was usually carried to an excess of virulence about Christmas and New Year time. In order, therefore, to the establishment of peace, Mrs Stoutley agreed to live one-half of the year with Lewis, and the other half with Lawrence—Lewis to have the larger half as a matter of course; but she retained her cottage in Notting Hill and her maid Netta White, with the right to retire at any moment, when the exigencies of the gold-fields or the moraines demanded special attention; or when the excess of juvenile life in the mansions before mentioned became too much for her. On these occasions of retirement which, to say truth, were not very frequent, she was accompanied by Netta White—for Netta loved her mistress and clave to her as Ruth to Naomi. Being a native of the “fields,” she was an able and sympathetic guide and adviser at all times, and nothing pleased Netta better than a visit to Grubb’s Court, for there she saw the blessed fruit of diamond and gold digging illustrated in the person of her own reformed father and happy mother, who had removed from their former damp rooms on the ground floor to the more salubrious apartments among the chimney pots, which had been erected on the sit............