_ CHAPTER XIV
       THE new guest's manner of presenting himself with his stick over his
       shoulder, and his carpet-bag on his back, subjected him to a battery
       of stares from Kenealy, Talboys, Fountain, and abashed him sore.
       This lasted but a moment. He had one friend in the group who was too
       true to her flirtations while they endured, and too strong-willed, to
       let her flirtee be discouraged by mortal.
       "Why, it is Mr. Dodd," cried she, with enthusiasm, and she put forth
       both hands to him, the palms downward, with a smiling grace. "Surely
       you know Mr. Dodd," said she, turning round quickly to the gentlemen,
       with a smile on her lip, but a dangerous devil in her eye.
       The mistress of the house is all-powerful on these occasions. Messrs.
       Talboys and Fountain were forced to do the amiable, raging within;
       Lucy anticipated them; but her welcome was a cold one. Says Mrs.
       Bazalgette, tenderly, "And why do you carry that heavy bag, when you
       have that great stout lad with you? I think it is his business to
       carry it, not yours"; and her eyes scathed the boy, fiddle and all.
       All the time she was saying this David was winking to her, and making
       faces to her not to go on that tack. His conduct now explained his
       pantomime. "Here, youngster," said he, "you take these things
       in-doors, and here is your half-crown."
       Lucy averted her head, and smiled unobserved.
       As soon as the lad was out of hearing, David continued: "It was not
       worth while to mortify him. The fact is, I hired him to carry it; but,
       bless you, the first mile he began to go down by the head, and would
       have foundered; so we shifted our cargoes." This amused Kenealy, who
       laughed good-humoredly. On this, David laughed for company.
       "There," cried his inamorata, with rapture, "that is Mr. Dodd all
       over; thinks of everybody, high or low, before himself." There was a
       grunt somewhere behind her; her quick ear caught it; she turned round
       like a thing on a pivot, and slapped the nearest face. It happened to
       be Fountain's; so she continued with such a treacle smile, "Don't you
       remember, sir, how he used to teach your cub mathematics gratis?" The
       sweet smile and the keen contemporaneous scratch confounded Mr.
       Fountain for a second. As soon as he revived he said stiffly, "We can
       all appreciate Mr. Dodd."
       Having thus established her Adonis on a satisfactory footing, she
       broke out all over graciousness again, and, smiling and chatting, led
       her guests beneath the hospitable roof.
       But one of these guests did not respond to her cheerful strain. The
       Norman knight was full of bitterness. Mr. Talboys drew his friend
       aside and proposed to him to go back again. The senior was aghast.
       "Don't be so precipitate," was all that he could urge this time.
       "Confound the fellow! Yes, if that is the man she prefers to you, I
       will go home with you to-morrow, and the vile hussy shall never enter
       my doors again."
       In this mind the pair went devious to their dressing-rooms.
       One day a witty woman said of a man that "he played the politician
       about turnips and cabbages." That might be retorted (by a snob and
       brute) on her own sex in general, and upon Mrs. Bazalgette in
       particular. This sweet lady maneuvered on a carpet like Marlborough on
       the south of France. She was brimful of resources, and they all tended
       toward one sacred object, getting her own way. She could be imperious
       at a pinch and knock down opposition; but she liked far better to
       undermine it, dissolve it, or evade it. She was too much of a woman to
       run straight to her _je-le-veux,_ so long as she could wind
       thitherward serpentinely and by detour. She could have said to Mr.
       Hardie, "You will take down Lucy to dinner," and to Mr. Dodd, "You
       will sit next me"; but no, she must mold her males--as per sample.
       To Mr. Fountain she said, "Your friend, I hear, is of old family."
       "Came in with the Conqueror, madam."
       "Then he shall take me down: that will be the first step toward
       conquering me--ha! ha!" Fountain bowed, well pleased.
       To Mr. Hardie she said, "Will you take down Lucy to-day? I see she
       enjoys your conversation. Observe how disinterested I am."
       Hardie consented with twinkling composure.
       Before dinner she caught Kenealy, drew him aside, and put on a long
       face. "I am afraid I must lose you to-day at dinner. Mr. Dodd is quite
       a stranger, and they all tell me I must put him at his ease.
       "Yaas."
       "Well, then, you had better get next Lucy, as you can't have me."
       Yaas."
       "And, Captain Kenealy, you are my aid-de-camp. It is a delightful
       post, you know, and rather a troublesome one."
       "Yaas."
       "You must help me be kind to this sailor."
       "Yaas. He is a good fellaa. Carried the baeg for the little caed."
       "Oh, did he?"
       "And didn't maind been laughed at."
       "Now, that shows how intelligent you must be," said the wily one; "the
       others could not comprehend the trait. Well, you and I must patronize
       him. Merit is always so dreadfully modest."
       "Yaas."
       This arrangement was admirable, but human; consequently, not without a
       flaw. Uncle Fountain was left to chance, like the flying atoms of
       Epicurus, and chance put him at Bazalgette's right hand save one. From
       this point his inquisitive eye commanded David Dodd and Mrs.
       Bazalgette, and raked Lucy and her neighbors, who were on the opposite
       side of the table. People who look, bent on seeing everything,
       generally see something; item, it is not always what they would like
       to see.
       As they retired to rest for the night, Mr. Fountain invited his friend
       to his room.
       "We shall not have to go home. I have got the key to our antagonist.
       Young Dodd is _her_ lover." Talboys shook his head with cool
       contempt. "What I mean is that she has invited him for her own
       amusement, not her niece's. I never saw a woman throw herself at any
       man's head as she did at that sailor's all dinner. Her very husband
       saw it. He is a cool hand, that Bazalgette; he only grinned, and took
       wine with the sailor. He has seen a good many go the same
       road--soldiers, sailors, tinkers, tai--"
       Talboys interrupted him. "I really must call you to order. You are
       prejudiced against poor Mrs. Bazalgette, and prejudice blinds
       everybody. Politeness required that she should show some attention to
       her neighbor, but her principal attention was certainly not bestowed
       on Mr. Dodd."
       Fountain was surprised. "On whom, then?"
       "Well, to tell the truth, on your humble servant."
       Fountain stared. "I observed she did not neglect you; but when she
       turned to Dodd her face puckered itself into smiles like a bag."
       "I did not see it, and I was nearer her than you," said Talboys
       coldly.
       "But I was in front of her."
       "Yes, a mile off." There being no jurisconsult present to explain to
       these two magistrates that if fifty people don't see a woman pucker
       her face like a bag, and one does see her p. h. f. l. a. b., the
       affirmative evidence preponderates, they were very near coming to a
       quarrel on this grave point. It was Fountain who made peace. He
       suddenly remembered that his friend had never been known to change an
       opinion. "Well," said he, "let us leave that; we shall have other
       opportunities of watching Dodd and her; meantime I am sorry I cannot
       convince you of my good news, for I have some bad to balance it. You
       have a rival, and he did not sit next Mrs. Bazalgette."
       "Pray may I ask whom he did sit next?" sneered Talboys.
       "He sat--like a man who meant to win--by the girl herself."
       "Oh, then it is that sing-song captain you fear, sir?" drawled
       Talboys.
       "No, sir, no more than I dread the _epergne._ Try the other
       side."
       "What, Mr. Hardie? Why, he is a banker."
       "And a rich one."
       "She would never marry a banker."
       "Perhaps not, if she were uninfluenced; but we are not at Talboys
       Court or Font Abbey now. We have fallen into a den of
       _parvenues._ That Hardie is a great catch, according to their
       views, and all Mrs. Bazalgette's influence with Lucy will be used in
       his favor.
       "I think not. She spoke quite slightingly of him to me."
       "Did she? Then that puts the matter quite beyond doubt. Why should she
       speak slightingly of him? Bazalgette spoke to me of him with grave
       veneration. He is handsome, well behaved, and the girl talked to him
       nineteen to the dozen. Mrs. Bazalgette could not be sincere in
       underrating him. She undervalued him to throw dust in your eyes."
       "It is not so easy to throw dust in my eyes."
       "I don't say it is; but this woman will do it; she is as artful as a
       fox. She hoodwinked even me for a moment. I really did not see through
       her feigned politeness in letting you take her down to dinner."
       "You mistake her character entirely. She is coquettish, and not so
       well-bred as her niece, but artful she is not. In fact, there is
       almost a childish frankness about her."
       At this stroke of observation Fountain burst out laughing bitterly.
       Talboys turned pale with suppressed ire, and went on doggedly: "You
       are mistaken in every particular. Mrs. Bazalgette has no fixed views
       for her niece, and I by no means despair of winning her to my side.
       She is anything but discouraging."
       Fountain groaned.
       "Mr. Hardie is a new acquaintance, and Miss Fountain told me herself
       she preferred old friends to new. She looked quite conscious as she
       said it. In a word, Mr. Dodd is the only rival I have to
       fear--good-night;" and he went out with a stately wave of the hand,
       like royalty declining farther conference. Mr. Fountain sank into an
       armchair, and muttered feebly, "Good-night." There he sat collapsed
       till his friend's retiring steps were heard no more; then, springing
       wildly to his feet, he relieved his swelling mind with a long, loud,
       articulated roar of Anglo-Saxon, "Fool! dolt! coxcomb! noodle! puppy!
       ass"
       Did ye ever read "Tully 'de Amicitia'?"
       David Dodd was saved from misery by want of vanity. His reception at
       the gate by Miss Fountain was cool and constrained, but it did not
       wound him. For the last month life had been a blank to him. She was
       his sun. He saw her once more, and the bare sight filled him with life
       and joy. His was naturally a sanguine, contented mind. Some lovers
       equally ardent would have seen more to repine at than to enjoy in the
       whole situation; not so David. She sat between Kenealy and Hardie, but
       her presence filled the whole room, and he who loved her better than
       any other had the best right to be happy in the place that held her.
       He had only to turn his eyes, and he could see her. What a blessing,
       after a month of vacancy and darkness. This simple idolatry made him
       so happy that his heart overflowed on all within reach. He gave Mrs.
       Bazalgette answers full of kindness and arch gayety combined. He
       charmed an old married lady on his right. His was the gay, the merry
       end of the table, and others wished themselves up at it.
       After the ladies had retired, his narrative powers, _bonhomie_
       and manly frankness soon told upon the men, and peals of genuine
       laughter echoed up to the very drawing-room, bringing a deputation
       from the kitchen to the keyhole, and irritating the ladies overhead,
       who sat trickling faint monosyllables about their three little topics.
       Lucy took it philosophically. "Now those are the good creatures that
       are said to be so unhappy without us. It was a weight off their minds
       when the door closed on our retiring forms--ha! ha!"
       "It was a restraint taken off them, my dear," said Mrs. Mordan, a
       starched dowager, stiffening to the naked eye as she spoke. "When they
       laugh like that, they are always saying something improper."
       "Oh, the wicked things," replied Lucy, mighty calmly.
       "I wish I knew what they are saying," said eagerly another young lady;
       then added, "Oh!" and blushed, observing her error mirrored in all
       eyes.
       Lucy the Clement instructed her out of the depths of her own
       experience in impropriety. "They swear. That is what Mrs. Mordan
       means," and so to the piano with dignity.
       Presently in came Messrs. Fountain and Talboys. Mrs. Bazalgette asked
       the former a little crossly how he could make up his mind to leave the
       gay party downstairs.
       "Oh, it was only that fellow Dodd. The dog is certainly very amusing,
       but 'there's metal more attractive here.' "
       Coffee and tea were fired down at the other gentlemen by way of hints;
       but Dodd prevailed over all, and it was nearly bedtime when they
       joined the ladies.
       Mr. Talboys had an hour with Lucy, and no rival by to ruffle him.
       Next day a riding-party was organized. Mr. Talboys decided in his mind
       that Kenealy was even less dangerous than Hardie, so lent him the
       quieter of his two nags, and rode a hot, rampageous brute, whose very
       name was Lucifer, so that will give you an idea. The grooms had driven
       him with a kicking-strap and two pair of reins, and even so were
       reluctant to drive him at all, but his steady companion had balanced
       him a bit. Lucy was to ride her old pony, and Mrs. Bazalgette the new.
       The horses came to the door; one of the grooms offered to put Lucy up.
       Talboys waved him loftily back, and then, strange as it may appear,
       David, for the first time in his life, saw a gentleman lift a lady
       into the saddle.
       Lucy laid her right hand on the pommel and resigned her left foot; Mr.
       Talboys put his hand under that foot and heaved her smoothly into the
       saddle. "That is clever," thought simple David; "that chap has got
       more pith in his arm than one would think." They cantered away, and
       left him looking sadly after them. It seemed so hard that another man
       should have her sweet foot in his hand, should lift her whole glorious
       person, and smooth her sacred dress, and he stand by helpless; and
       then the indifference with which that man had done it all. To him it
       had been no sacred pleasure, no great privilege. A sense of loneliness
       struck chill on David as the clatter of her pony's hoofs died away. He
       was in the house; but in that house was a sort of inner circle, of
       which she was the center, and he was to be outside it altogether.
       Liable to great wrath upon great occasions, he had little of that
       small irritability that goes with an egotistical mind and feminine
       fiber, so he merely hung his head, blamed nobody, and was sad in a
       manly way. While he leaned against the portico in this dejected mood,
       a little hand pulled his coat-tail. It was Master Reginald, who looked
       up in his face, and said timidly, "Will you play with me?" The fact
       is, Mr. Reginald's natural audacity had received a momentary check. He
       had just put this same question to Mr. Hardie in the library, and had
       been rejected with ignominy, and recommended to go out of doors for
       his own health and the comfort of such as desired peaceable study of
       British and foreign intelligence.
       "That I will, my little gentleman," said David, "if I know the game."
       "Oh, I don't care what it is, so that it is fun. What is your name?"
       "David Dodd."
       "Oh."
       "And what is yours?"
       "What, don't--you--know??? Why, Reginald George Bazalgette. I am
       seven. I am the eldest. I am to have more money than the others when
       papa dies, Jane says. I wonder when he will die."
       "When he does you will lose his love, and that is worth more than his
       money; so you take my advice and love him dearly while you have got
       him."
       "Oh, I like papa very well. He is good-natured all day long. Mamma is
       so ill-tempered till dinner, and then they won't let me dine with her;
       and then, as soon as mamma has begun to be good-tempered upstairs in
       the drawing-room, my bedtime comes directly; it's abominable!!" The
       last word rose into a squeak under his sense of wrong.
       David smiled kindly: "So it seems we all have our troubles," said he.
       "What! have you any troubles?" and Reginald opened his eyes in wonder.
       He thought size was an armor against care.
       "Not so many as most folk, thank God, but I have some," and David
       sighed.
       "Why, if I was as big as you, I'd have no troubles. I'd beat everybody
       that troubled me, and I would marry Lucy directly"; and at that
       beloved name my lord falls into a reverie ten seconds long.
       David gave a start, and an ejaculation rose to his lips. He looked
       down with comical horror upon the little chubby imp who had divined
       his thought.
       Mr. Reginald soon undeceived him. "She is to be my wife, you know.
       Don't you think she will make a capital one?" Before David could
       decide this point for him, the kaleidoscopic mind of the terrible
       infant had taken another turn. "Come into the stable-yard; I'll show
       you Tom," cried young master, enthusiastically. Finally, David had to
       make the boy a kite. When made it took two hours for the paste to dry;
       and as every ten minutes spent in waiting seemed an hour to one of Mr.
       Reginald's kidney, as the English classics phrase it, he was almost in
       a state of frenzy at last, and flew his new kite with yells. But after
       a bit he missed a familiar incident; "It doesn't tumble down; my other
       kites all tumble down."
       "More shame for them," said David, with a dash of contempt, and
       explained to him that tumbling down is a flaw in a kite, just as
       foundering at sea is a vile habit in a ship, and that each of these
       descents, however picturesque to childhood's eye, implies a
       construction originally derective, or some little subsequent
       mismanagement. It appeared by Reginald's retort that when his kite
       tumbled he had the tumultuous joy of flying it again, but, by its
       keeping the air like this, monotony reigned; so he now proposed that
       his new friend should fasten the string to the pump-handle, and play
       at ball with him beneath the kite. The good-natured sailor consented,
       and thus the little voluptuary secured a terrestrial and ever-varying
       excitement, while occasional glances upward soothed him with the mild
       consciousness that there was his property still hovering in the
       empyrean; amid all which, poor love-sick David was seized with a
       desire to hear the name of her he loved, and her praise, even from
       these small lips. "So you are very fond of Miss Lucy?" said he.
       "Yes," replied Reginald, dryly, and said no more; for it is a
       characteristic of the awfu' bairn to be mute where fluency is
       required, voluble where silence.
       "I wonder why you love her so much," said David, cunningly. Reginald's
       face, instead of brightening with the spirit of explanation, became
       instantly lack-luster and dough-like; for, be it known, to the
       everlasting discredit of human nature, that his affection and
       matrimonial intentions, as they were no secret, so they were the butt
       of satire from grown-up persons of both sexes in the house, and of
       various social grades; down to the very gardener, all had had a fling
       at him. But soon his natural cordiality gained the better of that
       momentary reserve. "Well, I'll tell you," said he, "because you have
       behaved well all day."
       David was all expectation.
       "I like her because she has got red cheeks, and does whatever one asks
       her."
       Oh, breadth of statement! Why was not David one of your repeaters? He
       would have gone and told Lucy. I should have liked her to know in what
       grand primitive colors peach-bloom and queenly courtesy strike what
       Mr. Tennyson is pleased to call "the deep mind of dauntless infancy."
       But David Dodd was not a reporter, and so I don't get my way; and how
       few of us do! not even Mr. Reginald, whose joyous companionship with
       David was now blighted by a footman. At sight of the coming plush,
       "There, now!" cried Reginald. He anticipated evil, for messages from
       the ruling powers were nearly always adverse to his joys. The footman
       came to say that his master would feel obliged if Mr. Dodd would step
       into his study a minute.
       David went immediately.
       "There, now!" squeaked Reginald, rising an octave. "I'm never happy
       for two hours together." This was true. He omitted to add, "Nor
       unhappy for one." The dear child sought comfort in retaliation. He
       took stones and pelted the footman's retiring calves. His admirers, if
       any, will be glad to learn that this act of intelligent retribution
       soothed his deep mind a little.
       Mr. Bazalgette had been much interested by David's conversation the
       last night, and, hearing he was not with the riding-party, had a mind
       to chat with him. David found him in a magnificent study, lined with
       books, and hung with beautiful maps that lurked in mahogany cylinders
       attached to the wall; and you pulled them out by inserting a
       brass-hooked stick into their rings, and hauling. Mr. Bazalgette began
       by putting him a question about a distant port to which he had just
       sent out some goods. David gave him full information. Began,
       seaman-like, with the entrance to the harbor, and told him what danger
       his captain should look out for in running in, and how to avoid it;
       and from that went to the character of the natives, their tricks upon
       the sailors, their habits, tastes, and fancies, and, entering with
       intelligence into his companion's business, gave him some very shrewd
       hints as to the sort of cargo that would tempt them to sell the very
       rings out of their ears. Succeeding so well in this, Mr. Bazalgette
       plied him on other points, and found him full of valuable matter, and,
       by a rare union of qualities, very modest and very frank. "Now I like
       this," said Mr. Bazalgette, cheerfully. "This is a return to old
       customs. A century or two ago, you know, the merchant and the captain
       felt themselves parts of the same stick, and they used to sit and
       smoke together before a voyage, and sup together after one, and be
       always putting their heads together; but of late the stick has got so
       much longer, and so many knots between the handle and the point, that
       we have quite lost sight of one another. Here we merchants sit at home
       at ease, and send you fine fellows out among storms and waves, and
       think more of a bale of cotton spoiled than of a captain drowned."
       David. "And we eat your bread, sir, as if it dropped from the
       clouds, and quite forget whose money and spirit of enterprise causes
       the ship to be laid on the stocks, and then built, and then rigged,
       and then launched, and then manned, and then sailed from port to
       port."
       "Well, well, if you eat our bread, we eat your labor, your skill, your
       courage, and sometimes your lives, I am sorry to say. Merchants and
       captains ought really to be better acquainted."
       "Well, sir," said David, "now you mention it, you are the first
       merchant of any consequence I ever had the advantage of talking with."
       "The advantage is mutual, sir; you have given me one or two hints I
       could not have got from fifty merchants. I mean to coin you, Captain
       Dodd."
       David laughed and blushed. "I doubt it will be but copper coin if you
       do. But I am not a captain; I am only first mate."
       "You don't say so! Why, how comes that?"
       "Well, sir, I went to sea very young, but I wasted a year or two in
       private ventures. When I say wasted, I picked up a heap of knowledge
       that I could not have gained on the China voyage, but it has lost me a
       little in length of standing; but, on the other hand, I have been very
       lucky; it is not every one that gets to be first mate at my age; and
       after next voyage, if I can only make a little bit of interest, I
       think I shall be a captain. No, sir, I wish I was a captain; I never
       wished it as now;" and David sighed deeply.
       "Humph!" said Mr. Bazalgette, and took a note.
       He then showed David his maps. David inspected them with almost boyish
       delight, and showed the merchant the courses of ships on Eastern and
       Western voyages, and explained the winds and currents that compelled
       them to go one road and return another, and in both cases to go so
       wonderfully out of what seems the track as they do. _Bref,_ the
       two ends of the mercantile stick came nearer.
       "My study is always open to you, Mr. Dodd, and I hope you will not let
       a day pass without obliging me by looking in upon me."
       David thanked him, and went out innocently unconscious that he had
       performed an unparalleled feat. In the hall he met Captain Kenealy,
       who, having received orders to amuse him, invited him to play at
       billiards. David consented, out of good-nature, to please Kenealy.
       Thus the whole day passed, and _les facheux_ would not let him
       get a word with Lucy.
       At dinner he was separated from her, and so hotly and skillfully
       engaged by Mrs. Bazalgette that he had scarcely time to look at his
       idol. After dinner he had to contest her with Mr. Talboys and Mr.
       Hardie, the latter of whom he found a very able and sturdy antagonist.
       Mr. Hardie had also many advantages over him. First, the young lady
       was not the least shy of Mr. Hardie, but the parting scene beyond
       Royston had put her on her guard against David, and her instinct of
       defense made her reserved with him. Secondly, Mrs. Bazalgette was
       perpetually making diversions, whose double object was to get David to
       herself and leave Lucy to Mr. Hardie.
       With all this David found, to his sorrow, that, though he now lived
       under the same roof with her, he was not so near her as at Font Abbey.
       There was a wall of etiquette and of rivals, and, as he now began to
       fear, of her own dislike between them. To read through that mighty
       transparent jewel, a female heart, Nauta had recourse--to what, do you
       think? To arithmetic. He set to work to count how many times she spoke
       to each of the party in the drawing-room, and he found that Mr. Hardie
       was at the head of the list, and he was at the bottom. That might be
       an accident; perhaps this was his black evening; so he counted her
       speeches the next evening. The result was the same. Droll statistics,
       but sad and convincing to the simple David. His spirits failed him;
       his aching heart turned cold. He withdrew from the gay circle, and sat
       sadly with a book of prints before him, and turned the leaves
       listlessly. In a pause of the conversation a sigh was heard in the
       corner. They all looked round, and saw David all by himself, turning
       over the leaves, but evidently not inspecting them.
       A sort of flash of satirical curiosity went from eye to eye.
       But tact abounded at one end of the room, if there was a dearth of it
       at the other.
       _La rusee sans le savoir_ made a sign to them all to take no
       notice; at the same time she whispered: "Going to sea in a few days
       for two years; the thought will return now and then." Having said this
       with a look at her aunt, that, Heaven knows how, gave the others the
       notion that it was to Mrs. Bazalgette she owed the solution of David's
       fit of sadness, she glided easily into indifferent topics. So then the
       others had a momentary feeling of pity for David. Miss Lucy noticed
       this out of the tail of her eye.
       That night David went to bed thoroughly wretched. He could not sleep,
       so he got up and paced the deck of his room with a heavy heart. At
       last, in his despair, he said, "I'll fire signals of distress." So he
       sat down and took a sheet of paper, and fired: "Nothing has turned as
       I expected. She treats me like a stranger. I seem to drop astern
       instead of making any way. Here are three of us, I do believe, and all
       seem preferred to your poor brother; and, indeed, the only thing that
       gives me any hope is that she seems too kind to be in earnest, for it
       is not in her angelic nature to be really unkind; and what have I
       done? Eve, dear, such a change from what she was at Font Abbey, and
       that happy evening when she came and drank tea with us, and lighted
       our little garden up, and won your heart, that was always a little set
       against her. Now it is so different that I sit and ask myself whether
       all that is not a dream. Can anyone change so in one short month? I
       could not. But who knows? perhaps I do her wrong. You know I never
       could read her at home without your help, and, dear Eve, I miss you
       now from my side most sadly. Without you I seem to be adrift, without
       rudder or compass."
       Then, as he could not sleep, he dressed himself, and went out at four
       o'clock in the morning. He roamed about with a heavy heart; at last he
       bethought him of his fiddle. Since Lucy's departure from Font Abbey
       this had been a great solace to him. It was at once a depository and
       vent to him; he poured out his heart to it and by it; sometimes he
       would fancy, while he played, that he was describing the beauties of
       her mind and person; at others, regretting the sad fate that separated
       him from her; or, hope reviving, would see her near him, and be
       telling her how he loved her; and, so great an inspirer is love, he
       had invented more than one clear melody during the last month, he who
       up to that time had been content to render the thoughts of others,
       like most fiddlers and composers.
       So he said to himself, "I had better not play in the house, or I shall
       wake them out of their first sleep."
       He brought out his violin, got among some trees near the stable-yard,
       and tried to soothe his sorrowful heart. He played sadly, sweetly and
       dreamingly. He bade the wooden shell tell all the world how lonely he
       was, only the magic shell told it so tenderly and tunefully that he
       soon ceased to be alone. The first arrival was on four legs: Pepper, a
       terrier with a taste for sounds. Pepper arrived cautiously, though in
       a state of profound curiosity, and, being too wise to trust at once to
       his ears, avenue of sense by which we are all so much oftener deceived
       than by any other, he first smelled the musician carefully and
       minutely all round. What he learned by this he and his Creator alone
       know, but apparently something reassuring; for, as soon as he had
       thoroughly snuffed his Orpheus, he took up a position exactly opposite
       him, sat up high on his tail, cocked his nose well into the air, and
       accompanied the violin with such vocal powers as Nature had bestowed
       on him. Nor did the sentiment lose anything, in intensity at all
       events, by the vocalist. If David's strains were plaintive, Pepper's
       were lugubrious; and what may seem extraordinary, so long as David
       played softly the Cerberus of the stableyard whined musically, and
       tolerably in tune; but when he played loud or fast poor Pepper got
       excited, and in his wild endeavors to equal the violin vented dismal
       and discordant howls at unpleasantly short intervals. All this
       attracted David's attention, and he soon found he could play upon
       Pepper as well as the fiddle, raising him and subduing him by turns;
       only, like the ocean, Pepper was not to be lulled back to his musical
       ripple quite so quickly as he could be lashed into howling frenzy.
       While David was thus playing, and Pepper showing a fearful broadside
       of ivory teeth, and flinging up his nose and sympathizing loudly and
       with a long face, though not perhaps so deeply as he looked, suddenly
       rang behind David a chorus of human chuckles. David wheeled, and there
       were six young women's faces set in the foliage and laughing merrily.
       Though perfectly aware that David would look round, they seemed taken
       quite by surprise when he did look, and with military precision became
       instantly two files, for the four impudent ones ran behind the two
       modest ones, and there, by an innocent instinct, tied their
       cap-strings, which were previously floating loose, their custom ever
       in the early morning.
       "Play us up something merry, sir," hazarded one of the mock-modest
       ones in the rear.
       "Shan't I be taking you from your work?" objected David dryly.
       "Oh, all work and no play is bad for the body," replied the minx,
       keeping ostentatiously out of sight.
       Good-natured David played a merry tune in spite of his heart; and even
       at that disadvantage it was so spirit-stirring compared with anything
       the servants had heard, it made them all frisky, of which disposition
       Tom, the stable boy, who just then came into the yard, took advantage,
       and, leading out one of the housemaids by the polite process of
       hauling at her with both hands, proceeded to country dancing, in which
       the others soon demurely joined.
       Now all this was wormwood to poor David; for to play merriment when
       the heart is too heavy to be cheered by it makes that heart bitter as
       well as sad. But the good-natured fellow said to himself: "Poor
       things, I dare say they work from morning till night, and seldom see
       pleasure but at a distance; why not put on a good face, and give them
       one merry hour." So he played horn-pipes and reels till all their
       hearts were on fire, and faces red, and eyes glittering, and legs
       aching, and he himself felt ready to burst out crying, and then he
       left off. As for _il penseroso_ Pepper, he took this intrusion of
       merry music upon his sympathies very ill. He left singing, and barked
       furiously and incessantly at these ancient English melodies and at the
       dancers, and kept running from and running at the women's whirling
       gowns alternately, and lost his mental balance, and at last, having by
       a happier snap than usual torn off two feet of the under-housemaid's
       frock, shook and worried the fragment with insane snarls and gleaming
       eyes, and so zealously that his existence seemed to depend on its
       annihilation.
       David gave those he had brightened a sad smile, and went hastily
       in-doors. He put his violin into its case, and sealed and directed his
       letter to Eve. He could not rest in-doors, so he roamed out again, but
       this time he took care to go on the lawn. Nobody would come there, he
       thought, to interrupt his melancholy. He was doomed to be disappointed
       in that respect. As he sat in the little summer-house with his head on
       the table, he suddenly heard an elastic step on the dry gravel. He
       started peevishly up and saw a lady walking briskly toward him: it was
       Miss Fountain.
       She saw him at the same instant. She hesitated a single half-moment;
       then, as escape was impossible, resumed her course. David went
       bashfully to meet her.
       "Good-morning, Mr. Dodd," said she, in the most easy, unembarrassed
       way imaginable.
       He stammered a "good-morning," and flushed with pleasure and
       confusion.
       He walked by her side in silence. She stole a look at him, and saw
       that, after the first blush at meeting her, he was pale and haggard.
       On this she dashed into singularly easy and cheerful conversation with
       him; told him that this morning walk was her custom--"My substitute
       for rouge, you know. I am always the first up in this languid house;
       but I must not boast before you, who, I dare say, turn out--is not
       that the word?--at daybreak. But, now I think of it, no! you would
       have crossed my hawse before, Mr. Dodd," using naval phrases to
       flatter him.
       "It was my ill-luck; I always cruised a mile off. I had no idea this
       bit of gravel was your quarter-deck."
       "It is, though, because it is always dry. You would not like a
       quarter-deck with that character, would you?"
       "Oh yes, I should. I'd have my bowsprit always wet, and my
       quarter-deck always dry. But it is no use wishing for what we cannot
       have."
       "That is very true," said Lucy, quietly.
       David reflected on his own words, and sighed deeply.
       This did not suit Lucy. She plied him with airy nothings, that no man
       can arrest and impress on paper; but the tone and smile made them
       pleasing, and then she asked his opinion of the other guests in such a
       way as implied she took some interest in his opinion of them, but
       mighty little in the people themselves. In short, she chatted with him
       like an old friend, and nothing more; but David was not subtle enough
       in general, nor just now calm enough, to see on what footing all this
       cordiality was offered him. His color came back, his eye brightened,
       happiness beamed on his face, and the lady saw it from under her
       lashes.
       "How fortunate I fell in with you here! You are yourself again--on
       your quarter-deck. I scarce knew you the last few days. I was afraid I
       had offended you. You seemed to avoid me."
       "Nonsense, Mr. Dodd; what is there about you to avoid?"
       "Plenty, Miss Fountain; I am so inferior to your other friends."
       "I was not aware of it, Mr. Dodd."
       "And I have heard your sex has gusts of caprice, and I thought the
       cold wind was blowing upon me; and that did seem very sad, just when I
       am going out, and perhaps shall never see your sweet face or hear your
       lovely voice again."
       "Don't say that, Mr. Dodd, or you will make me sad in earnest. Your
       prudence and courage, and a kind Providence, will carry you safe
       through this voyage, as they have through so many, and on your return
       the acquaintance you do me the honor to value so highly will await
       you--if it depends on me."
       All this was said kindly and beautifully, and almost tenderly, but
       still with a certain majesty that forbade love-making--rendered it
       scarce possible, except to a fool. But David was not captious. He
       could not, like the philosopher, sift sunshine. For some days he had
       been almost separated from her. Now she was by his side. He adored her
       so that he could no longer _realize_ sorrow or disappointment to
       come. They were uncertain--future. The light of her eyes, and voice,
       and face, and noble presence were here; he basked in them.
       He told her not to mind a word he had said. "It was all nonsense. I am
       happier now--happier than ever."
       At this Lucy looked grave and became silent.
       David, to amuse her, told her there was "a singing dog aboard," and
       would she like to hear him?
       This was a happy diversion for Lucy. She assented gayly. David ran for
       his fiddle, and then for Pepper. Pepper wagged his tail, but, strong
       as his musical taste was, would not follow the fiddle. But at this
       juncture Master Reginald dawned on the stable-yard with a huge slice
       of bread and butter. Pepper followed him. So the party came on the
       lawn and joined Lucy. Then David played on the violin, and Pepper
       performed exactly as hereinbefore related. Lucy laughed merrily, and
       Reginald shrieked with delight, for the vocal terrier was mortal
       droll.
       "But, setting Pepper aside, that is a very sweet air you are playing
       now, Mr. Dodd. It is full of soul and feeling."
       "Is it?" said David, looking wonderstruck; "you know best."
       "Who is the composer?"
       David looked confused and said, "No one of any note."
       Lucy shot a glance at him, keen as lightning. What with David's
       simplicity and her own remarkable talent for reading faces, his
       countenance was a book to her, wide open, Bible print. "The composer's
       name is Mr. Dodd," said she, quietly.
       "I little thought you would be satisfied with it," replied David,
       obliquely.
       "Then you doubted my judgment as well as your own talent."
       "My talent! I should never have composed an air that would bear
       playing but for one thing."
       "And what was that?" said Lucy, affecting vast curiosity. She felt
       herself on safe ground now--the fine arts.
       "You remember when you went away from Font Abbey, and left us all so
       heavy-hearted?"
       "I remember leaving Font Abbey," replied Lucy, with saucy emphasis,
       and an air of lofty disbelief in the other incident.
       "Well, I used to get my fiddle, and think of you so far away, and
       sweet sad airs came to my heart, and from my heart they passed into
       the fiddle. Now and then one seemed more worthy of you than the rest
       were, and then I kept that one."
       "You mean you took the notes down," said Lucy coldly.
       "Oh no, there was no need; I wrote it in my head and in my heart. May
       I play you another of your tunes? I call them your tunes."
       Lucy blushed faintly, and fixed her eyes on the ground. She gave a
       slight signal of assent, and David played a melody.
       "It is very beautiful," said she in a low voice. "Play it again. Can
       you play it as we walk?"
       "Oh yes." He played it again. They drew near the hall door. She looked
       up a moment, and then demurely down again.
       "Now will you be so good as to play the first one twice?" She listened
       with her eyelashes drooping. "Tweedle dee! tweedle dum! tweedle dee."
       "And _now_ we will go into breakfast," cried Lucy, with sudden
       airy cheerfulness, and, almost with the word, she darted up the steps,
       and entered the house without even looking to see whether David
       followed or what became of him.
       He stood gazing through the open door at her as she glided across the
       hall, swift and elastic, yet serpentine, and graceful and stately as
       Juno at nineteen.
       

"Et vera iucessu patuit lady."

       These Junones, severe in youthful beauty, fill us Davids with
       irrational awe; but, the next moment, they are treated like small
       children by the very first matron they meet; they resign their
       judgment at once to hers, and bow their wills to her lightest word
       with a slavish meanness.
       Creation's unmarried lords, realize your true position--girls govern
       you, and wives govern girls.
       Mrs. Bazalgette, on Lucy's entrance, ran a critical eye over her, and
       scolded her like a six-year-old for walking in thin shoes.
       "Only on the gravel, aunt," said the divine slave, submissively.
       "No matter; it rained last night. I heard it patter. You want to be
       laid up, I suppose."
       "I will put on thicker ones in future, dear aunt," murmured the
       celestial serf.
       Now Mrs. Bazalgette did not really care a button whether the servile
       angel wore thick soles or thin. She was cross about something a mile
       off that. As soon as she had vented her ill humor on a sham cause, she
       could come to its real cause good-temperedly. "And, Lucy, love, do
       manage better about Mr. Dodd."
       Lucy turned scarlet. Luckily, Mrs. Bazalgette was evading her niece's
       eye, so did not see her telltale cheek.
       "He was quite thrown out last night; and really, as he does not ride
       with us, it is too bad to neglect him in-doors."
       "Oh, excuse me, aunt, Mr. Dodd is your protege. You did not even tell
       me you were going to invite him."
       "I beg your pardon, that I certainly did. Poor fellow, he was out of
       spirits last night."
       "Well, but, aunt, surely you can put an admirer in good spirits when
       you think proper," said Lucy slyly.
       "Humph! I don't want to attract too much attention. I see Bazalgette
       watching me, and I don't wish to be misinterpreted myself, or give my
       husband pain."
       She said this with such dignity that Lucy, who knew her regard for her
       husband, had much ado not to titter. But courtesy prevailed, and she
       said gravely: "I will do whatever you wish me, only give me a hint at
       the time; a look will do, you know."
       The ladies separated; they met again at the breakfast-room door.
       Laughter rang merrily inside, and among the gayest voices was Mr.
       Dodd's. Lucy gave Mrs. Bazalgette an arch look. "Your patient seems
       better; "and they entered the room, where, sure enough, they found Mr.
       Dodd the life and soul of the assembled party.
       "A letter from Mrs. Wilson, aunt."
       "And, pray, who is Mrs. Wilson?"
       "My nurse. She tells me 'it is five years since she has seen me, and
       she is wearying to see me.' What a droll expression, 'wearying.'"
       "Ah!" said David Dodd.
       "You have heard the word before, Mr. Dodd?"
       "No, I can't say I have; but I know what it must mean."
       "Lying becalmed at the equator, eh! Dodd?" said Bazalgette,
       misunderstanding him.
       "Mrs. Wilson tells me she has taken a farm a few miles from this."
       "Interesting intelligence," said Mrs. Bazalgette.
       "And she says she is coming over to see me one of these days, aunt,"
       said Lucy, with a droll expression, half arch, half rueful. She added
       timidly, "There is no objection to that, is there?"
       "None whatever, if she does not make a practice of it; only mind,
       these old servants are the greatest pests on earth."
       "I remember now," said Lucy thoughtfully, "Mrs. Wilson was always very
       fond of me. I cannot think why, though."
       "No more can I," said Mr. Hardie, dryly; "she must be a thoroughly
       unreasonable woman."
       Mr. Hardie said this with a good deal of grace and humor, and a laugh
       went round the table.
       "I mean she only saw me at intervals of several years."
       "Why, Lucy, what an antiquity you are making yourself," said Fountain.
       But Lucy was occupied with her puzzle. "She calls me her nursling,"
       said Lucy, _sotto voce,_ to her aunt, but, of course, quite
       audibly to the rest of the company; "her dear nursling;" and says,
       "she would walk fifty miles to see me. Nursling? hum! there is another
       word I never heard, and I do not exactly know-- Then she says--"
       _"Taisez-vous, petite sotte!"_ said Mrs. Bazalgette, in a sharp
       whisper, so admirably projected that it was intelligible only to the
       ear it was meant for.
       Lucy caught it and stopped short, and sat looking by main force calm
       and dignified, but scarlet, and in secret agony. "I have said
       something amiss," thought Lucy, and was truly wretched.
       "We don't believe in Mrs. Wilson's affection on this side the table,"
       said Mr. Hardie; "but her revelations interest us, for they prove that
       Miss Fountain had a beginning. Now we had thought she rose from the
       foam like Venus, or sprung from Jove's brow like Minerva, or descended
       from some ancient pedestal, flawless as the Parian itself."
       "What, sir," cried Bazalgette, furiously, "did you think our niece was
       built in a day? So fair a structure, so accomplished a--"
       "Will you be quiet, good people?" said Mrs. Bazalgette. "She was born,
       she was bred, she was brought up, in which I had a share, and she is a
       very good girl, if you gentlemen will be so good as not to spoil her
       for me with your flattery."
       "There!" said Lucy, courageously, enforcing her aunt's thunderbolt;
       and she leaned toward Mrs. Bazalgette, and shot back a glance of
       defiance, with arching neck, at Mr. Bazalgette.
       After breakfast she ran to Mrs. Bazalgette. "What was it?"
       "Oh, nothing; only the gentlemen were beginning to grin."
       "Oh, dear! did I say anything--ridiculous?"
       "No, because I stopped you in time. Mind, Lucy, it is never safe to
       read letters out from people in that class of life; they talk about
       everything, and use words that are quite out of date. I stopped you
       because I know you are a simpleton, and so I could not tell what might
       pop out next."
       "Oh, thank you, aunt--thank you," cried Lucy, warmly. "Then I did not
       expose myself, after all."
       "No, no; you said nothing that might not be proclaimed at St. Paul's
       Cross--ha! ha!"
       "Am I a simpleton, aunt?" inquired Lucy, in the tone of an indifferent
       person seeking knowledge.
       "Not you," replied this oblivious lady. "You know a great deal more
       than most girls of your age. To be sure, girls that have been at a
       fashionable school generally manage to learn one or two things you
       have no idea of."
       "Naturally."
       "As you say--he! he! But you make up for it, my dear, in other
       respects. If the gentlemen take you for a pane of glass, why, all the
       better; meantime, shall I tell you your real character? I have only
       just discovered it myself."
       "Oh, yes, aunt, tell me my character. I should so like to hear it from
       you."
       "Should you?" said the other, a little satirically; "well, then, you
       are an INNOCENT FOX."
       "Aunt!"
       "An in-no-cent fox; so run and get your work-box. I want you to run up
       a tear in my flounce."
       Lucy went thoughtfully for her workbox, murmuring ruefully, "I am an
       innocent fox--I am an in-nocent fox."
       She did not like her new character at all; it mortified her, and
       seemed self-contradictory as well as derogatory.
       On her return she could not help remonstrating: "How can that be my
       character? A fox is cunning, and I despise cunning; and _I am
       sure_ I am not _innocent,"_ added she, putting up both hands
       and looking penitent. With all this, a shade of vexation was painted
       on her lovely cheeks as she appealed against her epigram.
       Mrs. Bazalgette (with the calm, inexorable superiority of
       matron despotism). "You are an in-nocent fox!! Is your needle
       threaded? Here is the tear; no, not there. I caught against the
       flowerpot frame, and I'll swear I heard my gown go. Look lower down,
       dear. Don't give it up."
       All which may perhaps remind the learned and sneering reader of
       another fox--the one that "had a wound, and he could not tell where."
       They rode out to-day as usual, and David had the equivocal pleasure of
       seeing them go from the door.
       Lucy was one of the first down, and put her hand on the saddle, and
       looked carelessly round for somebody to put her up. David stepped
       hastily forward, his heart beating, seized her foot, never waited for
       her to spring, but went to work at once, and with a powerful and
       sustained effort raised her slowly and carefully like a dead weight,
       and settled her in the saddle. His gripe hurt her foot. She bore it
       like a Spartan sooner than lose the amusement of his simplicity and
       enormous strength, so drolly and unnecessarily exerted. It cost her a
       little struggle not to laugh right out, but she turned her head away
       from him a moment and was quit for a spasm. Then she came round with a
       face all candor.
       "Thank you, Mr. Dodd," said she, demurely; and her eyes danced in her
       head. Her foot felt encircled with an iron band, but she bore him not
       a grain of malice for that, and away she cantered, followed by his
       longing eyes.
       David bore the separation well. "To-morrow morning I shall have her
       all to myself," said he. He played with Kenealy and Reginald, and
       chatted with Bazalgette. In the evening she was surrounded as usual,
       and he obtained only a small share of her attention. But the thought
       of the morrow consoled him. He alone knew that she walked before
       breakfast.
       The next morning he rose early, and sauntered about till eight
       o'clock, and then he came on the lawn and waited for her. She did not
       come. He waited, and waited, and waited. She never came. His heart
       died within him. "She avoids me," said he; "it is not accident. I have
       driven her out of her very garden; she always walked here before
       breakfast (she said so) till I came and spoiled her walk; Heaven
       forgive me."
       David could not flatter himself that this interruption of her
       acknowledged habit was accidental. On the other hand, how kind and
       cheerful she had been with him on the same spot yesterday morning. To
       judge by her manner, his company on her quarter-deck was not unwelcome
       to her yet she kept her room to-day, from the window of which she
       could probably see him walking to and fro, longing for her. The bitter
       disappointment was bad enough, but here tormenting perplexity as to
       its cause was added, and between the two the pining heart was racked.
       This is the cruelest separation; mere distance is the mildest. Where
       land and sea alone lie between two loving hearts, they pine, but are
       at rest. A piece of paper, and a few lines traced by the hand that
       reads like a face, and the two sad hearts exult and embrace one
       another afresh, in spite of a hemisphere of dirt and salt water, that
       parts bodies but not minds. But to be close, yet kept aloof by red-hot
       iron and chilling ice, by rivals, by etiquette and cold
       indifference--to be near, yet far--this is to be apart--this, this is
       separation.
       A gush of rage and bitterness foreign to his natural temper came over
       Mr. Dodd. "Since I can't have the girl I love, I will have nobody but
       my own thoughts. I cannot bear the others and their chat to-day. I
       will go and think of her, since that is all she will let me do"; and
       directly after breakfast David walked out on the downs and made by
       instinct for the sea. The wounded deer shunned the lively herd.
       The ladies, as they sat in the drawing-room, received visits of a less
       flattering character than usual. Reginald kept popping in, inquiring,
       "Where was Mr. Dodd?" and would not believe they had not hid him
       somewhere. He was followed by Kenealy, who came in and put them but
       one question, "Where is Dawd?"
       "We don't know," said Mrs. Bazalgette sharply; "we have not been
       intrusted with the care of Mr. Dodd."
       Kenealy sauntered forth disconsolate. Finally Mr. Bazalgette put his
       head in, and surveyed the room keenly but in silence; so then his wife
       looked up, and asked him satirically if he did not want Mr. Dodd.
       "Of course I do," was the gracious reply; "what else should I come
       here for?"
       "Well, he is lost; you had better put him in the 'Hue and Cry.'"
       La Bazalgette was getting jealous of her own flirtee: he attracted too
       much of that attention she loved so dear.
       At last Reginald, despairing of Dodd, went in search of another
       playmate--Master Christmas, a young gentleman a year older than
       himself, who lived within half a mile. Before he went he inquired what
       there was for his dinner, and, being informed "roast mutton," was not
       enraptured; he then asked with greater solicitude what was the
       pudding, and, being told "rice," betrayed disgust and anger, as was
       remembered when too late.
       At two o'clock, the day being fine, the ladies went for a long ride,
       accompanied by Talboys only. Kenealy excused himself: "He must see if
       he could not find Dawd."
       Mrs. Bazalgette started in a pet; but, after the first canter, she set
       herself to bewitch Mr. Talboys, just to keep her hand in; she
       flattered him up hill and down dale. Lucy was silent and
       _distraite._
       "From that hill you look right down upon the sea," said Mrs.
       Bazalgette; "what do you say? It is only two miles farther."
       On they cantered, and, leaving the high road, dived into a green lane
       which led them, by a gradual ascent, to Mariner's Folly on the summit
       of the cliff. Mariner's Folly looked at a distance like an enormous
       bush in the shape of a lion; but, when you came nearer, you saw it was
       three remarkably large blackthorn-trees planted together. As they
       approached it at a walk, Mrs. Bazalgette told Mr. Talboys its legend.
       "These trees were planted a hundred and fifty years ago by a retired
       buccaneer."
       "Aunt, now, it was only a lieutenant."
       "Be quiet, Lucy, and don't spoil me; I _call_ him a buccaneer.
       Some say it is named his "Folly," because, you must know, his ghost
       comes and sits here at times, and that is an absurd practice,
       shivering in the cold. Others more learned say it comes from a Latin
       word 'folio,' or some such thing, that means a leaf; the mariner's
       leafy screen." She then added with reckless levity, "I wonder whether
       we shall find Buckey on the other side, looking at the ships through a
       ghostly telescope--ha! ha!--ah! ah! help! mercy! forgive me! Oh, dear,
       it is only Mr. Dodd in his jacket--you frightened me so. Oh! oh!
       There--I am ill. Catch me, somebody;" and she dropped her whip, and,
       seeing David's eye was on her, subsided backward with considerable
       courage and trustfulness, and for the second time contrived to be in
       her flirtee's arms.
       I wish my friend Aristotle had been there; I think he would have been
       pleased at her [Greek] (presence of mind) in turning even her terror
       of the supernatural so quickly to account, and making it subservient
       to flirtation.
       David sat heart-stricken and hopeless, gazing at the sea. The hours
       passed by his heavy heart unheeded. The leafy screen deadened the
       light sound of the horses' feet on the turf, and, moreover, his senses
       were all turned inward. They were upon him, and he did not move, but
       still held his head in his hands and gazed upon the sea. At Mrs.
       Bazalgette's cries he started up, and looked confusedly at them all;
       but, when she did the feinting business, he thought she was going to
       faint, and caught her in his arms; and, holding her in them a moment
       as if she had been a child, he deposited her very gently in a sitting
       posture at the foot of one of the trees, and, taking her hand, slapped
       it to bring her to.
       "Oh, don't! you hurt me," cried the lady in her natural voice.
       Lucy, barbarous girl, never came to her aunt's assistance. At the
       first fright she seemed slightly agitated, but she now sat impassive
       on her pony, and even wore a satirical smile.
       "Now, dear aunt, when you have done, Mr. Dodd will put you on your
       horse again."
       On this hint David lifted her like a child, _malgre_ a little
       squeak she thought it well to utter, and put her in the saddle again.
       She thanked him in a low, murmuring voice. She then plied David with a
       host of questions. "How came he so far from home?" "Why had he
       deserted them all day?" David hung his head, and did not answer. Lucy
       came to his relief: "It would be as well if you would make him promise
       to be at home in time for dinner; and, by the way, I have a favor to
       ask of you, Mr. Dodd."
       "A favor to ask of me?!"
       "Oh, you know we all make demands upon your good-nature in turn."
       "That is true," said La Bazalgette, tenderly. "I don't know what will
       become of us all when he goes."
       Lucy then explained "that the masked ball suggested by Mr. Talboys'
       beautiful dresses was to be very soon, and she wanted Mr. Dodd to
       practice quadrilles and waltzes with her; it will be so much better
       with the violin and piano than with a piano alone, and you are such an
       excellent timist--will you, Mr. Dodd?"
       "That I will," said David, his eyes sparkling with delight; "thank
       you."
       "Then, as I shall practice before the gentlemen join us, and it is
       four o'clock now, had you not better turn your back on the sea, and
       make the best of your way home?"
       "I will be there almost as soon as you."
       "Indeed! what, on foot, and we on horseback?"
       "Ay; but I can steer in the wind's eye."
       "Aunt, Mr. Dodd proposes a race home."
       "With all my heart. How much start are we to give him?"
       "None at all," said David; "are you ready? Then give way," and he
       started down the hill at a killing pace.
       The equestrians were obliged to walk down the hill, and when they
       reached the bottom David was going as the crow flies across some
       meadows half a mile ahead. A good canter soon brought them on a line
       with him, but every now and then the turns of the road and the hills
       gave him an advantage. Lucy, naturally kind-hearted, would have
       relaxed her pace to make the race more equal, but Talboys urged her
       on; and as a horse is, after all, a faster animal than a sailor, they
       rode in at the front gate while David was still two fields off.
       "Come," said Mrs. Bazalgette, regretfully, "we have beat him, poor
       fellow, but we won't go in till we see what has become of him."
       As they loitered on the lawn, Henry the footman came out with a
       salver, and on it reposed a soiled note. Henry presented it with
       demure obsequiousness, then retired grinning furtively.
       "What is this--a begging-letter? What a vile hand! Look, Lucy; did you
       ever? Why, it must be some pauper."
       "Have a little mercy, aunt," said Lucy, piteously; "that hand has been
       formed under my care and daily superintendence: it is Reginald's."
       "Oh, that alters the case. What can the dear child have to say to me!
       Ah! the little wretch! Send the servants after him in every direction.
       Oh, who would be a mother!"
       The letter was written in lines with two pernicious defects. 1st. They
       were like the wooden part of a bow instead of its string. 2d. They
       yielded to gravity--kept tending down, down, to the righthand corner
       more and more. In the use of capitals the writer had taken the
       copyhead as his model. The style, however, was pithy, and in writing
       that is the first Christian grace--no, I forgot, it is the second;
       pellucidity is the first.
       "Dear mama, me and johnny
       Cristmas are gone to the north
       Pole his unkle went twise we
       Shall be back in siks munths
       Please give my love to lucy and
       Papa and ask lucy to be kind to
       My ginnipigs i shall want them
       Wen i come back. too much
       Cabiges is not good for ginnipigs.
       Wen i come back i hope there
       Will be no rise left. it is very
       Unjust to give me those nasty
       Messy pudens i am not a child
       There filthy there abbommanabel.
       Johny says it is funy at the north
       Pole and there are bares
       and they
       Are wite.
       "I remain
       "Your duteful son
       "Reginald George Bazalgette."
        
       This innocent missive set house and premises in an uproar. Henry was
       sent east through the dirt, _multa reluctantem,_ in white
       stockings. Tom galloped north. Mrs. Bazalgette sat in the hall, and
       did well-bred hysterics for Kenealy and Talboys. Lucy pinned up her
       habit, and ran to the boundary hedge on the bare chance of seeing the
       figures of the truants somewhere short of the horizon. Lo, and behold,
       there was David Dodd crossing the very nearest field and coming toward
       her, an urchin in each hand.
       Lucy ran to meet them. "Oh, you dear naughty children, what a fright
       you have given us! Oh, Mr. Dodd, how good of you! Where _did_ you
       find them?"
       "Under that hedge, eating apples. They tell me they sailed for the
       North Pole this morning, but fell in with a pirate close under the
       land, so 'bout ship and came ashore again."
       "A pirate, Mr. Dodd? Oh, I see, a beggar--a tramp."
       "A deal worse than that, Miss Lucy. Now, youngster, why don't you spin
       your own yarn?"
       "Yes, tell me, Reggy."
       "Well, dear, when I had written to mamma, and Johnny had folded
       it--because I can write but I can't fold it, and he can fold it but he
       can't write it--we went to the North Pole, and we got a mile; and then
       we saw that nasty Newfoundland dog sitting in the road waiting to
       torment us. It is Farmer Johnson's, and it plays with us, and knocks
       us down, and licks us, and frightens us, and we hate it; so we came
       home."
       "Ha! ha! good, prudent children. Oh, dear, you have had no dinner."
       "Oh, yes we had, Lucy, such a nice one: we bought such a lot of apples
       of a woman. I never had a dinner all apples before; they always spoil
       them with mutton and things, and that nasty, nasty rice"
       "Hear to that!" shouted David Dodd. "They have been dining upon
       varjese" (verjuice), "and them growing children. I shall take them
       into the kitchen, and put some cold beef into their little holds this
       minute, poor little lambs."
       "Oh yes, do; and I will run and tell the good news." She ran across
       the lawn, and came into the hall red with innocent happiness and
       agitation. "They are found, aunt, they are found; don't cry. Mr. Dodd
       found them close by, They have had no dinner, so that good, kind Mr.
       Dodd is taking them into the kitchen. I will send Master Christmas
       home with a servant. Shall I bring you Reggy to kiss?"
       "No, no; wicked little wretch, to frighten his poor mother! Whip him,
       somebody, and put him to bed."
       In the evening, soon after the ladies had left the dining-room, the
       pianoforte was heard playing quadrilles in the drawing-room. David
       fidgeted on his seat a little, and presently rose and went for his
       violin, and joined Lucy in the drawing-room alone. Mrs. B. was trying
       on a dress. Between the tunes Lucy chatted with him as freely and
       kindly as ever. David was in heaven. When the gentlemen came up from
       the dining-room, his joy was interrupted, but not for long. The two
       musicians played with so much spirit, and the fiddle, in particular,
       was so hearty, that Mrs. Bazalgette proposed a little quiet dance on
       the carpet: and this drew the other men away from the piano, and left
       David and Lucy to themselves.
       She stole a look more than once at his bright eyes and rich ruddy
       color, and asked herself, "Is that really the same face we found
       looking wan and haggard on the sea? I think I have put an end to that,
       at all events." The consciousness of this sort of power is secretly
       agreeable to all men and all women, whether they mean to abuse it or
       no. She smiled demurely at her mastery over this great heart, and said
       to herself, "One would think I was a witch." Later in the evening she
       eyed him again, and thought to herself, "If my company and a few
       friendly words can make him so happy, it does seem very hard I should
       select him to shun for the few days he has to pass in England now; but
       then, if I let him think--I don't know what to do with him. Poor Mr.
       Dodd."
       Miss Fountain did not torment her bolder aspirants with alternate
       distance and familiarity. She rode out every fine day with Mr.
       Talboys, and was all affability. She sat next Mr. Hardie at dinner,
       and was all affability.
       Narrative has its limits and, to relate in some sequence the honest
       sailor's tortures in love with a tactician, I have necessarily omitted
       concurrent incidents of a still tamer character; but the reader may,
       by the help of his own intelligence, gather their general results from
       the following dialogues, which took place on the afternoon and evening
       of the terrible infant's escapade.
       Mrs. Bazalgette. "'Well, my dear friend, and how does this
       naughty girl of mine use you?"
       Mr. Hardie. "As well as I could expect, and better than I
       deserve."
       Mrs. B. "Then she must be cleverer than any girl that ever
       breathed. However, she does appreciate your conversation; she makes no
       secret of it."
       Mr. H. "I have so little reason to complain of my reception
       that I will make my proposal to her this evening if you think proper."
       Mrs. Bazalgette started, and glanced admiration on a man of eight
       thousand a year, who came to the point of points without being either
       cajoled or spurred thither; but she shook her head. "Prudence, my dear
       Mr. Hardie, prudence. Not just yet. You are making advances every day;
       and Lucy is an odd girl; with all her apparent tenderness, she is
       unimpressionable."
       "That is only virgin modesty," said Hardie, dogmatically.
       "Fiddlestick," replied Mrs. B., good-humoredly. "The greatest flirts I
       ever met with were virgins, as you call them. I tell you she is not
       disposed toward marriage as all other girls are until they have tasted
       its bitters."
       Mr. H. "If I know anything of character, she will make a very
       loving wife."
       Mrs. B. (sharply). "That means a nice little negro. Well, I
       think she might, when once caught; but she is not caught, and she is
       slippery, and, if you are in too great a hurry, she may fly off; but,
       above all, we have a dangerous rival in the house just now."
       Mr. H. "What, that Mr. Talboys? I don't fear him. He is next
       door to a fool."
       Mrs. B. "What of that? Fools are dangerous rivals for a lady's
       favor. We don't object to fools. It depends on the employment. There
       is one office we are apt to select them for."
       Mr. H. "A husband, eh?" The lady nodded.
       Mrs. B. "I meant to marry a fool in Bazalgette, but I found my
       mistake. The wretch had only feigned absurdity. He came out in his
       true colors directly."
       Mr. H. "A man of sense, eh? The sinister hypocrite! He only
       wore the caps and bells to allure unguarded beauty, and doffed them
       when he donned the wedding-suit."
       Mrs. B. "Yes. But these are reminiscences so sweet that I shall
       be glad to return from them to your little affair. Seriously, then,
       Mr. Talboys is not to be overlooked, for this reason: he is well
       backed."
       "By whom?"
       "By some one who has influence with Lucy--her nearest relation, Mr.
       Fountain."
       "What! is he nearer to her than you are?"
       "Certainly; and she is fond of him to infatuation. One day I did but
       hint that selfishness entered into his character (he is eaten up with
       it), and that he told fibs; Mr. Hardie, she turned round on me like a
       tigress--Oh, how she made me cry!"
       The keen hand, Hardie, smiled satirically, and after a pause answered
       with consummate coolness: "I believe thus much, that she loves her
       uncle, and that his influence, exerted unscrupulously--"
       "Which it will be. He may be strong enough to spoil us, even though
       he should not be able to carry his own point; now trust me, my dear
       friend, Lucy's preference is clearly for you, but I know the weakness
       of my own sex, and, above all, I know Lucy Fountain. A mouse can help
       a lion in a matter of small threads, too small for his nobler and
       grander wisdom to see. Let me be your mouse for once." The little
       woman caught the great man with the everlasting hook, and the
       discussion ended in "claw me and I will claw thee," and in the mutual
       self-complacency that follows that arrangement. _Vide_
       "Blackwood," _passim._
       Mr. H. "I really think she would accept me if I offered to-day;
       but I have so high an opinion of your sagacity and friendship for me,
       madam, that I will defer my judgment to yours. I must, however, make
       one condition, that you will not displace my plan without suggesting a
       distinct course of action for me to adopt in its place."
       This smooth proposal, made quietly but with twinkling eye, would have
       shut the mouth of nine advisers in ten, but it found the Bazalgette
       prepared.
       "Oh, the pleasure of having a man of ability to deal with!" cried she,
       with enthusiasm. "This is my advice, then: stay Mr. Fountain out. He
       must go in a day or two. His time is up, and I will drop a hint of
       fresh visitors expected. When he is gone, warm by degrees, and offer
       yourself either in person, or through Bazalgette, or me."
       "In person, then, certainly. Of all foibles, employing another pair of
       eyes, another tongue, another person to make love for one is surely
       the silliest."
       "I am quite of your opinion," cried the lady, with a hearty laugh.
       Mr. Fountain. "So you are satisfied with the state of things?"
       Mr. Talboys. "Yes, I think I have beaten the sailor out of the
       field."
       "Well, but--this Hardie?"
       "Hardie! a shopkeeper. I don't fear him."
       "In that case, why not propose? I have been doing the
       preliminaries--sounding your praises."
       Mr. Talboys (tyrannically). "I propose next Saturday."
       Mr. Fountain. "Very well."
       Talboys. "In the boat."
       "In the boat? What boat? There's no boat."
       "I have asked her to sail with me from ---- in a boat; there is a very
       nice little lugger-rigged one. I am having the seats padded and
       stuffed and lined, and an awning put up, and the boat painted white
       and gold."
       "Bravo! Cleopatra's galley."
       "I assure you she looks forward to it with pleasure; she guesses why I
       want to get her into that boat. She hesitated at first, but at last
       consented with a look--a conscious look; I can hardly describe it."
       "There is no need," cried Fountain. "I know it; the jade turned all
       eyelashes."
       "That is rather exaggerated, but still--"
       "But still I have described it--to a hair. Ha! ha!"
       Talboys (gravely). "Well, yes."
       Mr. Talboys, I am bound to own, was accurate. During the last day or
       two Lucy had taken a turn; she had been bewitching; she had flattered
       him with tact, but deliciously; had consulted him as to which of his
       beautiful dresses she should wear at the masked ball, and, when
       pressed to have a sail in the boat he was fitting for her, she ended
       by giving a demure assent.
       Chorus of male readers, _"Oh, les femmes, les femmes!"_
       David Dodd had by nature a healthy as well as a high mind; but the
       fever and ague of an absorbing passion were telling on it. Like many a
       great heart before his day, his heart was tossed like a ship, and went
       up to heaven, and down again to despair, as a girl's humor shifted, or
       seemed to shift, for he forgot that there is such a thing as accident,
       and that her sex are even more under its dominion than ours. No;
       whatever she did must be spontaneous, voluntary, premeditated even,
       and her lightest word worth weighing, her lightest action worth
       anxious scrutiny as to its cause.
       Still he had this about him that the peevish and puny lover has not.
       Her bare presence was joy to him. Even when she was surrounded by
       other figures, he saw and felt but the one; the rest were nothings.
       But when she went out of his sight, some bright illusion seemed to
       fade into cold and dark reality. Then it fell on him like a weighty,
       icy hammer, that in three days he must go to sea for two years, and
       that he was no nearer her heart now than he was at Font Abbey. Was he
       even as near?
       So the next afternoon he thrust in before Talboys, and put Lucy on her
       horse by brute force, and griped her stout little boot, which she had
       slyly substituted for a shoe, and touched her glossy habit, and felt a
       thrill of bliss unspeakable at his momentary contact with her; but she
       was no sooner out of sight than a hollow ache seized the poor fellow,
       and he hung his head and sighed.
       "I say, capting," said a voice in his ear. He looked up, and there
       stood Tom, the stable-boy, with both hands in his pockets. Tom was not
       there by his own proper movement, but was agent of Betsy, the
       under-housemaid.
       Female servants scan the male guests pretty closely too, without
       seeming to do it, and judge them upon lamentably broad
       principles--youth, health, size, beauty, and good temper. Oh, the
       coarse-minded critics! Hence it befell that in their eyes, especially
       after the fiddle business, David was a king compared with his rivals.
       "If I look at him too long, I shall eat him," said the cook-maid.
       "He is a darling," said the upper housemaid.
       Betsy aforesaid often opened a window to have a sly look at him, and
       on one of these occasions she inspected him from an upper story at her
       leisure. His manner drew her attention. She saw him mount Lucy, and
       eye her departing form sadly and wistfully. Betsy glowered and
       glowered, and hit the nail on the head, as people will do who are so
       absurd as to look with their own eyes, and draw their own conclusions
       instead of other people's. After this she took an opportunity, and
       said to Tom, with a satirical air, "How are you off for nags, your
       way?"
       "Oh, we have got enough for our corn," replied Tom, on the defensive.
       "It seems you can't find one for the captain among you."
       "Will you give a kiss if I make you out a liar?"
       "Sooner than break my arm. Come, you might, Tom. Now is it reasonable,
       him never to get a ride with her, and that useless lot prancing about
       with her all day long?"
       "Why don't you ride with 'em, capting?"
       "I have no horse."
       "I have got a horse for you, sir--master's."
       "That would be taking a liberty."
       "Liberty, sir! no; master would be so pleased if you would but ride
       him. He told me so."
       "Then saddle him, pray."
       "I have a-saddled him. You had better come in the stable-yard,
       capting; then you can mount and follow; you will catch them before
       they reach the Downs." In another minute David was mounted.
       "Do you ride short or long, capting?" inquired Tom, handling the
       stirrup-leather.
       David wore a puzzled look. "I ride as long as I can stick on;" and he
       trotted out of the stable-yard. As Tom had predicted, he caught the
       party just as they went off the turn-pike on to the grass. His heart
       beat with joy; he cantered in among them. His horse was fresh,
       squeaked, and bucked at finding himself on grass and in company, and
       David announced his arrival by rolling in among their horses' feet
       with the reins tight grasped in his fist. The ladies screamed with
       terror. David got up laughing; his horse had hoped to canter away
       without him, and now stood facing him and pulling.
       "No, ye don't," said David. "I held on to the tiller-ropes though I
       did go overboard." Then ensued a battle between David and his horse,
       the one wanting to mount, the other anxious to be unencumbered with
       sailors. It was settled by David making a vault and sitting on the
       animal's neck, on which the ladies screamed again, and Lucy, half
       whimpering, proposed to go home.
       "Don't think of it," cried David. "I won't be beat by such a small
       craft as this--hallo!" for, the horse backing into Talboys, that
       gentleman gave him a clandestine cut, and he bolted, and, being a
       little hard-mouthed, would gallop in spite of the tiller-ropes. On
       came the other nags after him, all misbehaving more or less, so fine a
       thing is example. When they had galloped half a mile the ground began
       to rise, and David's horse relaxed his pace, whereon David whipped him
       industriously, and made him gallop again in spite of remonstrance.
       The others drew the rein, and left him to gallop alone. Accordingly,
       he made the round of the hill and came back, his horse covered with
       lather and its tail trembling. "There," said he to Lucy, with an air
       of radiant self-satisfaction, "he clapped on sail without orders from
       quarter-deck, so I made him carry it till his bows were under water."
       "You will kill my uncle's horse," was the reply, in a chilling tone.
       "Heaven forbid!"
       "Look at its poor flank beating."
       David hung his head like a school-girl rebuked. "But why did he clap
       on sail if he could not carry it?" inquired he, ruefully, of his
       monitress.
       The others burst out laughing; but Lucy remained grave and silent.
       David rode along crestfallen.
       Mrs. Bazalgette brought her pony close to him, and whispered, "Never
       mind that little cross-patch. _She_ does not care a pin about the
       _horse;_ you interrupted her flirtation, that is all."
       This piece of consolation soothed David like a bunch of
       stinging-nettles.
       While Mrs. Bazalgette was consoling David with thorns, Kenealy and
       Talboys were quizzing his figure on horseback.
       He sat bent like a bow and visibly sticking on: _item,_ he had no
       straps, and his trousers rucked up half-way to his knee.
       Lucy's attention being slyly drawn to these phenomena by David's
       friend Talboys, she smiled politely, though somewhat constrainedly;
       but the gentlemen found it a source of infinite amusement during the
       whole ride, which, by the way, was not a very long one, for Miss
       Fountain soon expressed a wish to turn homeward. David felt guilty, he
       scarce knew why.
       The promised happiness was wormwood. On dismounting, she went to the
       lawn to tend her flowers. David followed her, and said bitterly, "I am
       sorry I came to spoil your pleasure."
       Miss Fountain made no answer.
       "I thought I might have one ride with you, when others have so many."
       "Why, of course, Mr. Dodd. If you like to expose yourself to ridicule,
       it is no affair of mine." The lady's manner was a happy mixture of
       frigidity and crossness. David stood benumbed, and Lucy, having
       emptied her flower-pot, glided indoors without taking any farther
       notice of him.
       David stood rooted to the spot. Then he gave a heavy sigh, and went
       and leaned against one of the pillars of the portico, and everything
       seemed to swim before his eyes.
       Presently he heard a female voice inquire, "Is Miss Lucy at home?" He
       looked, and there was a tall, strapping woman in conference with
       Henry. She had on a large bonnet with flaunting ribbons, and a bushy
       cap infuriated by red flowers. Henry's eye fell upon these
       embellishments: "Not at home," chanted he, sonorously.
       "Eh, dear," said the woman sadly, "I have come a long way to see her."
       "Not at home, ma'am," repeated Henry, like a vocal machine.
       "My name is Wilson, young man," said she, persuasively, and the
       Amazon's voice was mellow and womanly, spite of her coal-scuttle full
       of field poppies. "I am her nurse, and I have not seen her this five
       years come Martinmas;" and the Amazon gave a gentle sigh of
       disappointment.
       "Not at home, ma'am!" rang the inexorable Plush.
       But David's good heart took the woman's part. "She is at home, now,"
       said he, coming forward. "I saw her go into the house scarce a minute
       ago."
       "Oh, thank you, sir," said Mrs. Wilson. But Mr. Plush's face was
       instantly puckered all over with signals, which David not
       comprehending, he said, "Can I say a word with you, sir?" and, drawing
       him on one side, objected, in an injured and piteous tone. "We are not
       at home to such gallimaufry as that; it is as much as my place is
       worth to denounce that there bonnet to our ladies."
       "Bonnet be d--d," roared David, aloud. "It is her old nurse. Come,
       heave ahead;" and he pointed up the stairs.
       "Anything to oblige you, captain," said Henry, and sauntered into the
       drawing-room; "Mrs. Wilson, ma'am, for Miss Fountain."
       "Very well; my niece will be here directly."
       Lucy had just gone to her own room for some working materials.
       "You had better come to an anchor on this seat, Mrs. Wilson," said
       David.
       "Thank ye kindly, young gentleman," said Mrs. Wilson; and she settled
       her stately figure on the seat. "I have walked a many miles to-day,
       along of our horse being lame, and I am a little tired. You are one of
       the family, I do suppose?"
       "No, I am only a visitor."
       "Ain't ye now? Well, thank ye kindly, all the same. I have seen a
       worse face than yours, I can tell you," added she; for in the midst of
       it all she had found time to read countenances _more mulierurn._
       "And I have seen a good many hundred worse than yours, Mrs. Wilson."
       Mrs. Wilson laughed. "Twenty years ago, if you had said so, I might
       have believed you, or even ten; but, bless you, I am an old woman now,
       and can say what I choose to the men. Forty-two next Candlemas."
       In the country they call themselves old at forty-two, because they
       feel young. In town they call themselves young at forty-two, because
       they feel old.
       David found that he had fallen in with a gossip; and, being in no
       humor for vague chat, he left Mrs. Wilson to herself, with an
       assurance that Miss Fountain would be down to her directly.
       In leaving her he went into worse company--his own thoughts; they were
       inexpressibly sad and bitter. "She hates me, then," said he.
       "Everybody is welcome to her at all hours, except me. That lady said
       it was because I interrupted her flirtation. Aha! well, I shan't
       interrupt her flirtation much longer. I shan't be in her way or
       anybody's long. A few short hours, and this bitter day will be
       forgotten, and nothing left me but the memory of the kindness she had
       for me once, or seemed to have, and the angel face I must carry in my
       heart wherever I go, by land or sea. The sea? would to God I was upon
       it this minute! I'd rather be at sea than ashore in the dirtiest night
       that ever blew."
       He had been walking to and fro a good half-hour, deeply dejected and
       turning bitter, when, looking in accidentally at the hall door, he
       caught sight of Mrs. Wilson sitting all alone where he had left her.
       "Why, what on earth is the meaning of that?" thought he; and he went
       into the hall and asked Mrs. Wilson how she came to be there all
       alone.
       "That is what I have been asking myself a while past," was the dry
       reply.
       "Have you not seen her?"
       "No, sir, I have not seen her, and, to my mind, it is doubtful whether
       I am to see her."
       "But I say you shall see her."
       "No, no, don't put yourself out, sir," said the woman, carelessly; "I
       dare say I shall have better luck next time, if I should ever come to
       this house again, which it is not very likely." She added gently,
       "Young folk are thoughtless; we must not judge them too hardly."
       "Thoughtless they may be, but they have no business to be heartless. I
       have a great mind to go up and fetch her down."
       "Don't ye trouble, sir. It is not worth while putting you about for an
       old woman like me." Then suddenly dropping the mask of nonchalance
       which women of this class often put on to hide their sensibility, she
       said, very, very gravely, and with a sad dignity, that one would not
       have expected from her gossip and her finery, "I begin to fear, sir,
       that the child I have suckled does not care to know me now she is a
       woman grown."
       David dashed up the stairs with a red streak on his brow. He burst
       into the drawing-room, and there sat Mrs. Bazalgette overlooking, and
       Lucy working with a face of beautiful calm. She looked just then so
       very like a pure, tranquil Madonna making an altar-cloth, or
       something, that David's intention to give her a scolding was withered
       in the bud, and he gazed at her surprised and irresolute, and said not
       a word.
       "Anything the matter?" inquired Mrs. Bazalgette, attracted by the
       bruskness of his entry.
       "Yes, there is," said David sternly.
       Lucy looked up.
       "Miss Fountain's old nurse has been sitting in the hall more than half
       an hour, and nobody has had the politeness to go near her."
       "Oh, is that all? Well, don't look daggers at me. There is Lucy; give
       her a lesson in good-breeding, Mr. Dodd." This was said a little
       satirically, and rather nettled David.
       "Perhaps it does not become me to set up for a teacher of that. I know
       my own deficiencies as well as anybody in this house knows them; but
       this I know, that, if an old friend walked eight miles to see me, it
       would not be good-breeding in me to refuse to walk eight yards to see
       her. And, another thing, everybody's time is worth something; if I did
       not mean to see her, I would have that much consideration to send down
       and tell her so, and not keep the woman wasting her time as well as
       her trouble, and vexing her heart into the bargain."
       "Where is she, Mr. Dodd?" asked Lucy quickly.
       Where is she?" cried David, getting louder and louder. "Why, she is
       cooling her heels in the hall this half hour and more. They hadn't the
       manners to show her into a room."
       "I will go to her, Mr. Dodd," said Lucy, turning a little pale. "Don't
       be angry; I will go directly"; and, having said this with an abject
       slavishness that formed a miraculous contrast with her late crossness
       and imperious chilliness, she put down her work hastily and went out;
       only at the door she curved her throat, and cast back, Parthian-like,
       a glance of timid reproach, as much as to say, "Need you have been so
       very harsh with a creature so obedient as this is?"
       That deprecating glance did Mr. Dodd's business. It shot him with
       remorse, and made him feel a brute.
       "Ha! ha! That is the way to speak to her, Mr. Dodd; the other
       gentlemen spoil her."
       "It was very unbecoming of me to speak to her harshly like that."
       "Pooh! nonsense; these girls like to be ordered about; it saves them
       the trouble of thinking for themselves; but what is to become of me?
       You have sent off my workwoman."
       "I will do her work for her."
       "What! can you sew?"
       "Where is the sailor that can't sew?"
       "Delightful! Then please to sew these two thick ends together. Here is
       a large needle."
       David whipped out of his pocket a round piece of leather with strings
       attached, and fastened it to the hollow of his hand.
       "What is that?"
       "It is a sailor's thimble." He took the work, held it neatly, and
       shoved the needle from behind through the thick material. He worked
       slowly and uncouthly, but with the precision that was a part of his
       character, and made exact and strong stitches. His task-mistress
       looked on, and, under the pretense of minute inspection, brought a
       face that was still arch and pretty unnecessarily close to the marine
       milliner, in which attitude they were surprised by Mr. Bazalgette,
       who, having come in through the open folding-doors, stood looking
       mighty sardonic at them both before they were even aware he was in the
       room.
       Omphale colored faintly, but Hercules gave a cool nod to the newcomer,
       and stitched on with characteristic zeal and strict attention to the
       matter in hand.
       At this Bazalgette uttered a sort of chuckle, at which Mrs. Bazalgette
       turned red. David stitched on for the bare life.
       "I came to offer to invite you to my study, but--"
       "I can't come just now," said David, bluntly; "I am doing a lady's
       work for her."
       "So I see," retorted Bazalgette, dryly.
       "We all dine with the Hunts but you and Mr. Dodd," said Mrs.
       Bazalgette, "so you will be _en tete-a-tete_ all the evening."
       "All the better for us both." And with this ingratiating remark Mr.
       Bazalgette retired whistling.
       Mrs. Bazalgette heaved a gentle sigh: "Pity me, my friend," said she,
       softly.
       "What is the matter?" inquired David, rather bluntly.
       "Mr. Bazalgette is so harsh to me--ah!--to me, who longs so for
       kindness and gentleness that I feel I could give my very soul in
       exchange for them."
       The bait did not take.
       "It is only his manner," said David, good-naturedly. "His heart is all
       right; I never met a better. What sort of a knot is that you are
       tying? Why, that is a granny's knot;" and he looked morose, at which
       she looked amazed; so he softened, and explained to her with
       benevolence the rationale of a knot. "A knot is a fastening intended
       to be undone again by fingers, and not to come undone without them.
       Accordingly, a knot is no knot at all if it jams or if it slips. A
       granny's knot does both; when you want to untie it you must pick at it
       like taking a nail out of a board, and, for all that, sooner or later
       it always comes undone of itself; now you look here;" and he took a
       piece of string out of his pocket, and tied her a sailor's knot,
       bidding her observe that she could untie it at once, but it could
       never come untied of itself. He showed her with this piece of string
       half a dozen such knots, none of which could either jam or slip.
       "Tie me a lover's knot," suggested the lady, in a whisper.
       "Ay! ay!" and he tied her a lover's knot as imperturbably as he had
       the reef knot, bowling-knot, fisherman's bend, etc.
       "This is very interesting," said Mrs. Bazalgette, ironically. She
       thought David might employ a tete-a-tete with a flirt better than
       this. "What a time Lucy is gone!"
       "All the better."
       "Why?" and she looked down in mock confusion.
       "Because poor Mrs. Wilson will be glad."
       Mrs. Bazalgette was piqued at this unexpected answer. "You seem quite
       captivated with this Mrs. Wilson; it was for her sake you took Lucy to
       task. Apropos, you need not have scolded her, for she did not know the
       woman was in the house."
       "What do you mean?"
       "I mean Lucy was not in the room when Mrs. Wilson was announced. I
       was, but I did not tell her; the all-important circumstance had
       escaped my memory. Where are you running to now?"
       "Where? why, to ask her pardon, to be sure."
       Mrs. B. [Brute!]
       David ran down the stairs to look for Lucy, but he found somebody else
       instead--his sister Eve, whom the servant had that moment admitted
       into the hall. It was "Oh, Eve!" and "Oh, David!" directly, and an
       affectionate embrace.
       "You got my letter, David?"
       "No."
       "Well, then you will before long. I wrote to tell you to look out for
       me; I had better have brought the letter in my pocket. I didn't know I
       was coming till just an hour before I started. Mother insisted on my
       going to see the last of you. Cousin Mary had invited me to ----, so I
       shall see you off, Davy dear, after all. I thought I'd just pop in and
       let you know I was in the neighborhood. Mary and her husband are
       outside the gate in their four-wheel. I would not let them drive in,
       because I want to hear your story, and they would have bothered us."
       "Eve, dear, I have no good news for you. Your words have come true. I
       have been perplexed, up and down, hot and cold, till I feel sometimes
       like going mad. Eve, I cannot fathom her. She is deeper than the
       ocean, and more changeable. What am I saying? the sea and the wind;
       they are to be read; they have their signs and their warnings; but
       she--"
       "There! there! that is the old song. I tell you it is only a girl--a
       creature as shallow as a puddle, and as easy to fathom, as you call
       it, only men are so stupid, especially boys. Now just you tell me all
       she has said, all she has done, and all she has looked, and I will
       turn her inside out like a glove in a minute."
       Cheered by this audacious pledge, David pumped upon Eve all that has
       trickled on my readers, and some minor details besides, and repeated
       Lucy's every word, sweet or bitter, and recalled her lightest
       action--_Meminerunt omnia amantes_--and every now and then he
       looked sadly into Eve's keen little face for his doom.
       She heard him in silence until the last fatal incident, Lucy's
       severity on the lawn. Then she put in a question. "Were those her
       exact words?"
       "Do I ever forget a syllable she says to me?"
       "Don't be angry. I forgot what a ninny she has made of you. Well,
       David, it is all as plain as my hand. The girl likes you--that is
       all."
       "The girl likes me? What do you mean? How can you say that? What sign
       of liking is there?"
       "There are two. She avoids you, and she has been rude to you."
       "And those are signs of liking, are they?" said David, bitterly.
       "Why, of course they are, stupid. Tell me, now, does she shun this
       Captain Keely?"
       "Kenealy. No."
       "Does she shun Mr. Harvey?"
       "Hardie. No."
       "Does she shun Mr. Talboys?"
       "Oh Eve, you break my heart--no! no! She shuns no one but poor David."
       "Now think a little. Here are three on one sort of footing, and one on
       a different footing; which is likeliest to be _the man,_ the one
       or the three? You have gained a point since we were all together. She
       _distinguishes_ you."
       "But what a way to distinguish me. It looks more like hatred than
       love, or liking either."
       "Not to my eye. Why should she shun you? You are handsome, you are
       good-tempered, and good company. Why should she be shy of you? She is
       afraid of you, that is why; and why is she afraid of you? because she
       is afraid of her own heart. That is how I read her. Then, as for her
       snubbing you, if her character was like mine, that ought to go for
       nothing, for I snub all the world; but this is a little queen for
       politeness. I can't think she would go so far out of her way as to
       affront anybody unless she had an uncommon respect for him."
       "Listen to that, now! I am on my beam-ends."
       "Now think a minute, David," said Eve, calmly, ignoring his late
       observation; "did you ever know her snub anybody?"
       "Never. Did you?"
       "No; and she never would, unless she took an uncommon interest in the
       person. When a girl likes a man, she thinks she has a right to ill-use
       him a little bit; he has got her affection to set against a scratch or
       two; the others have not. So she has not the same right to scratch
       them. La! listen to me teaching him A B C. Why, David, you know
       nothing; it's scandalous."
       Eve's confidence communicated itself at last to David; but when he
       asked her whether she thought Lucy would consent to be his wife, her
       countenance fell in her turn. "That is a very different thing. I am
       pretty sure she likes you; how could she help it? but I doubt she will
       never go to the altar with you. Don't be angry with me, Davy, dear.
       You are in love with her, and to you she is an angel. But I am of her
       own sex, and see her as she is; no matter who she likes, she will
       never be content to make a bad match, as they call it. She told me so
       once with her own lips. But she had no need to tell me; worldliness is
       written on her. David, David, you don't know these great houses, nor
       the fair-spoken creatures that live in them, with tongues tuned to
       sentiment, and mild eyes fixed on the main chance. Their drawing-rooms
       are carpeted market-places; you may see the stones bulge through the
       flowery pattern; there the ladies sell their faces, the gentlemen
       their titles and their money; and much I fear Miss Fountain's hand
       will go like the rest--to the highest bidder."
       "If I thought so, my love, deep as it is, would turn to contempt; I
       would tear her out of my heart, though I tore my heart out of my
       body." He added, "I will know what she is before many hours."
       "Do, David. Take her off her guard, and make hot love to her; that is
       your best chance. It is a pity you are so much in love with her; you
       might win her by a surprise if you only liked her in moderation."
       "How so, dear Eve?"
       "The battle would be more even. Your adoring her gives her the upper
       hand of you. She is sure to say 'no' at first, and then I am afraid
       you will leave off, instead of going on hotter and hotter. The very
       look she will put on to check you will check you, you are so green.
       What a pity I can't take your place for half an hour. I would have her
       against her will. I would take her by storm. If she said 'no' twenty
       times, she should say 'yes' the twenty-first; but you are afraid of
       her; fancy being afraid of a woman. Come, David, you must not
       shilly-shally, but attack her like a man; and, if she is such a fool
       she can't see your merit, forgive her like a man, and forget her like
       a man. Come, promise me you will."
       "I promise you this, that if I lose her it shall not be for want of
       trying to win her; and, if she refuses me because I am not her fancy,
       I shall die a bachelor for her sake." Eve sighed. "But if she is the
       mercenary thing you take her for--if she owns to liking me, but
       prefers money to love, then from that moment she is no more to me than
       a picture or a statue, or any other lovely thing that has no soul."
       With these determined words he gave his sister his arm, and walked
       with her through the grounds to the road where her cousin was waiting
       for her.
       Lucy found Mrs. Wilson in the hall. "Come into the library, Mrs.
       Wilson," said she; "I have only just heard you were here. Won't you
       sit down? Are you not well, Mrs. Wilson? You tremble. You are
       fatigued, I fear. Pray compose yourself. May I ring for a glass of
       wine for you?"
       "No, no, Miss Lucy," said the woman, smiling; "it is only along of you
       coming to me so sudden, and you so grown. Eh! sure, can this fine
       young lady be the little girl I held in my lap but t'other day, as it
       seems?"
       There was an agitation and ardor about Mrs. Wilson that, coupled with
       the flaming bonnet, made Miss Fountain uneasy. She thought Mrs. Wilson
       must be a little cracked, or at least flighty.
       "Pray compose yourself, madam," said she, soothingly, but with that
       dignity nobody could assume more readily than she could. "I dare say I
       am much grown since I last had the pleasure of seeing you; but I have
       not outgrown my memory, and I am happy to receive you, or any of our
       old servants that knew my dear mother."
       "Then I must not look for a welcome," said Mrs. Wilson, with feminine
       logic, "for I was never your servant, nor your mamma's." Lucy opened
       her eyes, and her face sought an explanation.
       "I never took any money for what I gave you, so how could I be a
       servant? To see me a dangling of my heels in your hall so long, one
       would say I was a servant; but I am not a servant, nor like to be,
       please God, unless I should have the ill luck to bury my two boys, as
       I have their father. So perhaps the best thing I can do, miss, is to
       drop you my courtesy and walk back as I came." The Amazon's manner was
       singularly independent and calm, but the tell-tale tears were in the
       large gray honest eyes before she ended.
       Lucy's natural penetration and habit of attending to faces rather than
       words came to her aid. "Wait a minute, Mrs. Wilson," said she; "I
       think there is some misunderstanding here. Perhaps the fault is mine.
       And yet I remember more than one nursery-maid that was kind enough to
       me; but I have heard nothing of them since."
       "Their blood is not in your veins as mine is, unless the doctors have
       lanced it out."
       "I never was bled in my life, if you mean that, madam. But I must ask
       you to explain how I can possibly have the--the advantage of
       possessing _your_ blood in _my_ veins."
       Mrs. Wilson eyed her keenly. "Perhaps I had better tell you the story
       from first to last, young lady," said she quietly.
       "If you please," said the courtier, mastering a sigh; for in Mrs.
       Wilson there was much that promised fluency.
       "Well, miss, when you came into the world, your mamma could not nurse
       you. I do notice the gentry that eat the fat of the land are none the
       better for it; for a poor woman can do a mother's part by her child,
       but high-born and high-fed folk can't always; so you had to be brought
       up by hand, miss, and it did not agree with you, and that is no great
       wonder, seeing it is against nature. Well, my little girl, that was
       born just two days after you, died in my arms of convulsion fits when
       she was just a month old. She had only just been buried, and me in
       bitter grief, when doesn't the doctor call and ask me as a great
       favor, would I nurse Mrs. Fountain's child, that was pining for want
       of its natural food. I bade him get out of my sight. I felt as if no
       woman had a right to have a child living when my little darling was
       gone. But my husband, a just man as ever was, said, 'Take a thought,
       Mary; the child is really pining, by all accounts.' Well, I would not
       listen to him. But next Sunday, after afternoon church, my mother,
       that had not said a word till then, comes to me, and puts her hand on
       my shoulder with a quiet way she had. 'Mary,' says she, 'I am older
       than you, and have known more.' She had buried six of us, poor thing.
       Says she, scarce above a whisper, 'Suckle that failing child. It will
       be the better for her, and the better for you, Mary, my girl.' Well,
       miss, my mother was a woman that didn't interfere every minute, and
       seldom gave her reasons; but, if you scorned her advice, you mostly
       found them out to your cost; and then she was my mother; and in those
       days mothers were more thought of, leastways by us that were women and
       had suffered for our children, and so learned to prize the woman that
       had suffered for us. 'Well, then,' I said, 'if you say so, mother, I
       suppose I didn't ought to gainsay you, on the Lord His day.' For you
       see my mother was one that chose her time for speaking--eh! but she
       was wise. 'Mother,' says I, 'to oblige you, so be it'; and with that I
       fell to crying sore on my mother's neck, and she wasn't long behind
       me, you may be sure. Whiles we sat a crying in one another's arms, in
       comes John, and goes to speak a word of comfort. 'It is not that,'
       says my mother; 'she have given her consent to nurse Mrs. Fountain's
       little girl.' 'It is much to her credit,' says he: says he, 'I will
       take her up to the house myself.' 'What for?' says I; 'them that
       grants the favor has no call to run after them that asks it.' You see,
       Miss Lucy, that was my ignorance; we were small farmers, too
       independent to be fawning, and not high enough to weed ourselves of
       upishness. Your mamma, she was a real lady, so she had no need to
       trouble about her dignity; she thought only of her child; and she
       didn't send the child, but she came with it herself. Well, she came
       into our kitchen, and made her obeisance, and we to her, and mother
       dusted her a seat. She was pale-like, and a mother's care was in her
       face, and that went to my heart. 'This is very, very kind of you, Mrs.
       Wilson,' said she. Those were her words. 'Mayhap it is,' says I; and
       my heart felt like lead. Mother made a sign to your mamma that she
       should not hurry me. I saw the signal, for I was as quick as she was;
       but I never let on I saw it. At last I plucked up a bit of courage,
       and I said, 'Let me see it.' So mother took you from the girl that
       held you all wrapped up, and mother put you on my knees; and I took a
       good look at you. You had the sweetest little face that ever came into
       the world, but all peaked and pining for want of nature. With you
       being on my knees, my bosom began to yearn over you, it did. 'The
       child is starved,' said I; 'that is all its grief. And you did right
       to bring it' here.' Your mother clasps her hands, 'Oh, Mrs. Wilson,'
       says she, 'God grant it is not too late.' So then I smiled back to
       her, and I said, 'Don't you fret; in a fortnight you shan't know her.'
       You see I was beginning to feel proud of what I knew I could do for
       you. I was a healthy young woman, and could have nursed two children
       as easy as some can one. To make a long story short, I gave you the
       breast then and there; and you didn't leave us long in doubt whether
       cow's milk or mother's milk is God's will for sucklings. Well, your
       mamma put her hands before her face, and I saw the tears force their
       way between her fingers. So, when she was gone, I said to my mother,
       'What was that for?' 'I shan't tell you,' says she. 'Do, mother,' says
       I. So she said, 'I wonder at your having to ask; can't you see it was
       jealousy-like. Do you think she has not her burden to bear in this
       world as well as you? How would you like to see another woman do a
       mother's part for a child of yours, and you sit looking on like a
       toy-mother? Eh! Miss Lucy, but I was vexed for her at that, and my
       heart softened; and I used to take you up to the great house, and
       spend nearly the whole day there, not to rob her of her child more
       than need be."
       "Oh, Mrs. Wilson! Oh, you kind, noble-hearted creature, surely Heaven
       will reward you."
       "That is past praying for, my dear. Heaven wasn't going to be long in
       debt to a farmer's wife, you may be sure; not a day, not an hour. I
       had hardly laid you to my breast when you seemed to grow to my heart.
       My milk had been tormenting me for one thing. My good mother had
       thought of that, I'll go bail; and of course you relieved me. But,
       above all, you numbed the wound in my heart, and healed it by degrees:
       a part of my love that lay in the churchyard seemed to come back like,
       and settle on the little helpless darling that milked me. At whiles I
       forgot you were not my own; and even when I remembered it, it was--I
       don't know--somehow--as if it wasn't so. I knew in my head you were
       none of mine, but what of that? I didn't feel it here. Well, miss, I
       nursed you a year and two months, and a finer little girl never was
       seen, and such a weight! And, of course, I was proud of you; and often
       your dear mother tried to persuade me to take a twenty-pound note, or
       ten; but I never would. I could not sell my milk to a queen. I'd
       refuse it, or I'd make a gift of it, and the love that goes with it,
       which is beyond price. I didn't say so to her in so many words, but I
       did use to tell her 'I was as much in her little girl's debt as she
       was in mine,' and so I was. But as for a silk gown, and a shawl, and
       the like, I didn't say 'No' to them; who ever does?"
       "Nurse!"
       "My lamb!"
       "Can you ever forgive me for confounding you with a servant? I am so
       inexperienced. I knew nothing of all this."
       "Oh, Miss Lucy, 'let that flea stick in the wall,' as the saying is."
       "But, dear Mrs. Wilson, now only think that your affection for me
       should have lasted all these years. You speak as if such tenderness
       was common. I fear you are mistaken there: most nurses go away and
       think no more of those to whom they have been as mothers in infancy."
       "How do you know that, Miss Lucy? Who can tell what passes inside
       those poor women that are ground down into slaves, and never dare show
       their real hearts to a living creature? Certainly hirelings will be
       hirelings, and a poor creature that is forced to sell her breast, and
       is bundled off as soon as she has served the grand folks' turn, why,
       she behooves to steel herself against nature, and she knows that from
       the first; but whether she always does get to harden herself, I take
       leave to doubt. Miss Lucy; I knew an unfortunate girl that nursed a
       young gentleman, leastways a young nobleman it was, and years after
       that I have known her to stand outside the hedge for an hour to catch
       a sight of him at play on the lawn among the other children. Ay, and
       if she had a penny piece to spare she would go and buy him
       sugar-plums, and lay wait for him, and give them him, and he heir to
       thousands a year."
       "Poor thing! Poor thing!"
       "Next to the tie of blood, Miss Lucy, the tie of milk is a binding
       affection. When you went to live twenty miles from us, I behooved to
       come in the cart and see you from time to time."
       "I remember, nurse, I remember."
       "When I came to our new farm hard by, you were away; but as soon as I
       heard you were come back, it was like a magnet drawing me. I could not
       keep away from you."
       "Heaven forbid you should; and I will come and see you, dear nurse."
       "Will ye, now? Do now. I have got a nice little parlor for you. It is
       a very good house for a farm-house; and there we can set and talk at
       our ease, and no fine servants, dressed like lords, coming staring
       in."
       Lucy now proffered a timid request that Mrs. Wilson would take off her
       bonnet. "I want to see your good kind face without any ornament."
       "Hear to that, now, the darling;" and off came the bonnet.
       "Now your cap."
       "Well, I don't know; I hadn't time to do my hair as should be before
       coming."
       "What does that matter with me? I must see you without that cap."
       "What! don't you like my new cap? Isn't it a pretty cap? Why, I bought
       it a purpose to come and see you in."
       "Oh, it is a very pretty cap in itself," said the courtier, "but it
       does not suit the shape of your face. Oh, what a difference! Ah! now I
       see your heart in your face. Will you let me make you a cap?"
       "Will you, now, Miss Lucy? I shall be so proud wearing it our house
       will scarce hold me."
       At this juncture a footman came in with a message from Mrs. Bazalgette
       to remind Lucy that they dined out.
       "I must go and dress, nurse." She then kissed her and promised to ride
       over and visit her at her farm next week, and spend a long time with
       her quietly, and so these new old friends parted.
       Lucy pondered every word Mrs. Wilson had said to her, and said to
       herself: "What a child I am still! How little I know! How feebly I
       must have observed!"
       The party at dinner consisted of Mr. Bazalgette, David, and Reginald,
       who, taking advantage of his mother's absence and Lucy's, had
       prevailed on the servants to let him dine with the grown-up ones.
       "Halo? urchin," said Mr. Bazalgette, "to what do we owe this honor?"
       "Papa," said Reginald, quaking at heart, "if I don't ever begin to be
       a man what is to become of me?"
       Mr. Reginald did not exhibit his full powers at dinner-time. He was
       greatest at dessert. Peaches and apricots fell like blackberries. He
       topped up with the ginger and other preserves; then he uttered a sigh,
       and his eye dwelt on some candied pineapple he had respited too long.
       Putting the pineapple's escape and the sigh together, Mr. Bazalgette
       judged that absolute repletion had been attained. "Come, Reginald,"
       said he, "run away now, and let Mr. Dodd and me have our talk." Before
       the words were even out of his mouth a howl broke from the terrible
       infant. He had evidently feared the proposal, and got this dismal howl
       all ready.
       "Oh, papa! Oh! oh!"
       "What is the matter?"
       "Don't make me go away with the ladies this time. Jane says I am not a
       man because I go away when the ladies go. And Cousin Lucy won't marry
       me till I am a man. Oh, papa, do let me be a man this once."
       "Let him stay, sir," said David.
       "Then he must go and play at the end of the room, and not interrupt
       our conversation."
       Mr. Reginald consented with rapture. He had got a new puzzle. He could
       play at it in a corner; all he wanted was to be able to stop Jane's
       mouth, should she ever jeer him again. Reginald thus disposed of, Mr.
       Bazalgette courted David to replenish his glass and sit round to the
       fire. The fire was huge and glowing, the cut glass sparkled, and the
       ruby wine glowed, and even the faces shone, and all invited genial
       talk. Yet David, on the eve of his departure and of his fate,
       oppressed with suspense and care, was out of the reach of those
       genial, superficial influences. He could only just mutter a word of
       assent here and there, then relapsed into his reverie, and eyed the
       fire thoughtfully, as if his destiny lay there revealed. Mr.
       Bazalgette, on the contrary, glowed more and more in manner as well as
       face, and, like many of his countrymen, seemed to imbibe friendship
       with each fresh glass of port.
       At last, under the double influence of his real liking for David and
       of the Englishman-thawing Portuguese decoction, he gave his favorite a
       singular proof of friendship. It came about as follows. Observing that
       he had all the talk to himself, he fixed his eyes with an expression
       of paternal benevolence on his companion, and was silent in turn.
       David looked up, as we all do when a voice ceases, and saw this mild
       gaze dwelling on him.
       "Dodd, my boy, you don't say a word; what is the matter?"
       "I am very bad company, sir, that is the truth."
       "Well, fill your glass, then, and I'll talk for you. I have got
       something to say for you, young gentleman." David filled his glass and
       forced himself to attend; after a while no effort was needed.
       "Dodd," resumed the mature merchant, "I need hardly tell you that I
       have a particular regard for you; the reason is, you are a young man
       of uncommon merit."
       "Mr. Bazalgette! sir! I don't know which way to look when you praise
       me like that. It is your goodness; you overrate me."
       "No, I don't. I am a judge of men. I have seen thousands, and seen
       them too close to be taken in by their outside. You are the only one
       of my wife's friends that ever had the run of my study. What do you
       think of that, now?"
       "I am very proud of it, sir; that is all I can find to say."
       "Well, young man, that same good opinion I have of you induces me to
       do something else, that I have never done for any of your
       predecessors."
       Mr. Bazalgette paused. David's heart beat. Quick as lightning it
       darted through his mind, "He is going to ask a favor for me.
       Promotion? Why not? He is a merchant. He has friends in the Company.'"
       "I am going to interfere in your concerns, Dodd."
       "You are very good, sir."
       "Well, perhaps I am. I have to overcome a natural reluctance. But you
       are worth the struggle. I shall therefore go against the usages of the
       world, which I don't care a button for, and my own habits, which I
       care a great deal for, and give you, humph--a piece of friendly
       advice."
       David looked blank.
       "Dodd, my boy, you are playing the fool in this house."
       David looked blanker.
       "It is not your fault; you are led into it by one of those sweet
       creatures that love to reduce men to the level of their own wisdom.
       You are in love, or soon will be."
       David colored all over like a girl, and his face of distress was
       painful to see.
       "You need not look so frightened; I am your friend, not your enemy.
       And do you really think others besides me have not seen what is going
       on? Now, Dodd, my dear fellow, I am an old man, and you are a young
       one. Moreover, I understand the lady, and you don't."
       "That is true, sir; I feel I cannot fathom her."
       "Poor fellow! Well, but I have known her longer than you."
       "That is true, sir."
       "And on closer terms of intimacy."
       "No doubt, sir."
       "Then listen to me. She is all very charming outside, and full of
       sensibility outside, but she has no more real feeling than a fish. She
       will go a certain length with you, or with any agreeable young man,
       but she can always stop where it suits her. No lady in England values
       position and luxury more than she does, or is less likely to sacrifice
       them to love, a passion she is incapable of. Here, then, is a game at
       which you run all the risk. No! leave her to puppies like Kenealy;
       they are her natural prey. You must not play such a heart as yours
       against a marble taw. It is not an even stake."
       David groaned audibly. His first thought was, "Eve says the same of
       her." His second, "All the world is against her, poor thing."
       "Is she to bear the blame of my folly?"
       "Why not? She is the cause of your folly. It began with her setting
       her cap at you."
       "No, sir, you do her wrong. She is modesty itself."
       "Ta! ta! ta! you are a sailor, green as sea-weed."
       "Mr. Bazalgette, as I am a gentleman, she never has encouraged me to
       love her as I do."
       "Your statement, sir, is one which becomes a gentleman--under the
       circumstances. But I happen to have watched her. It is a thing I have
       taken the trouble to do for some time past. It was my interest in you
       that made me curious, and apprehensive--on your account."
       "Then, if you have watched her, you must have seen her avoid me."
       "Pooh! pooh! that was drawing the bait; these old stagers can all do
       that."
       "Old stagers!" and David looked as if blasphemy had been uttered.
       Bazalgette wore a grin of infinite irony.
       "Don't be shocked," said he; "of course, I mean old in flirtation; no
       lady is old in years."
       "_She_ is not, at all events."
       "It is agreed. There are legal fictions, and why not social ones?"
       "I don't understand you, sir; and, in truth, it is all a puzzle to me.
       You don't seem angry with me?"
       "Why, of course not, my poor fellow; I pity you."
       "Yet you discourage me, Mr. Bazalgette."
       "But not from any selfish motive. I want to spare you the
       mortification that is in store for you. Remember, I have seen the
       _end_ of about a dozen of you."
       "Good Heavens! And what is the end of us?"
       "The cold shoulder without a day's warning, and another fool set in
       your place, and the house door slammed in your face, etc., etc. Oh,
       with her there is but one step from flirtation to detestation. Not one
       of her flames is her friend at this moment."
       David hung his head, and his heart turned sick; there was a silence of
       some seconds, during which Bazalgette eyed him keenly. "Sir," said
       David, at last, "your words go through me like a knife."
       "Never mind. It is a friendly surgeon's knife, not an assassin's."
       "Yet you say it is only out of regard for me you warn me so against
       her."
       "I repeat it."
       "Then, sir, if, by Heaven's mercy, you should be mistaken in her
       character--if, little as I deserve it, I should succeed in winning her
       regard--I might reckon on your permission--on your kind--support?"
       "Hardly," said Mr. Bazalgette, hastily. He then stared at the honest
       earnest face that was turned toward him. "Well," said he, "you modest
       gentlemen have a marvelous fund of assurance at bottom. No, sir; with
       the exception of this piece of friendly advice I shall be strictly
       neutral. In return for it, if you should succeed, be so good as to
       take her out of the house, that is the only stipulation I venture to
       propose."
       "I should be sure to do that," cried David, lifting his eyes to Heaven
       with rapture; "but I shall not have the chance."
       "So I keep telling you. You might as well hope to tempt a statue of
       the Goddess Flirtation. She infinitely prefers wealth and vanity to
       anything, even to vice."
       "Vice, sir! is that a term for us to apply to a lady like her, whom we
       are all unworthy to approach?" and David turned very red.
       "Well, _you_ need not quarrel with _me_ about her, as
       _I_ don't with _you."_
       "Quarrel with you, dear sir? I hope I feel your kindness, and know my
       duty better; but, sir, I am agitated, and my heart is troubled; and
       surely you go beyond reason. She is not old enough to have had so many
       lovers."
       "Humph! she has made good use of her time."
       "Even could I believe that she, who seems to me an angel, is a
       coquette, still she cannot be hard and heartless as you describe her.
       It is impossible; it does not belong to her years."
       "You keep harping on her age, Dodd. Do you know her age? If you do,
       you have the advantage of me. I have not seen her baptismal register.
       Have you?"
       "No, sir, but I know what she says is her age."
       "That is only evidence of what is not her age."
       "But there is her face, sir; that is evidence."
       "You have never seen her face; it is always got up to deceive the
       public."
       "I have seen it at the dawn, before any of you were up."
       "What is that? Halo! the deuce--where?"
       "In the garden."
       "In the garden? Oh, she does not jump off her down-bed on to a
       flowerbed. She had been an hour at work on that face before ever the
       sun or you got leave to look on it."
       "I'll stake my head I tell her age within a year, Mr. Bazalgette."
       "No you will not, nor within ten years."
       "That is soon seen. I call her one-and-twenty."
       "One-and-twenty! You are mad! Why, she has had a child that would be
       fifteen now if it had lived."
       "Miss Lucy? A child? Fifteen years? What on earth do you mean?"
       "What do _you_ mean? What has Miss Lucy to do with it? You know
       very well it is MY WIFE I am warning you against, not that innocent
       girl."
       At this David burst out in his turn. "YOUR WIFE! and have you so vile
       an opinion of me as to think I would eat your bread and tempt your
       wife under your roof. Oh, Mr. Bazalgette, is this the esteem you
       profess for me?"
       "Go to the Devil!" shouted Bazalgette, in double ire at his own
       blunder and at being taken to task by his own Telemachus; he added,
       but in a very different tone, "You are too good for this world."
       The best things we say miss fire in conversation; only second-rate
       shots hit the mind through the ear. This, we will suppose, is why
       David derived no amusement or delectation from Mr. Bazalgette's
       inadvertent but admirable _bon-mot._
       "Go to the Devil! you are too good for this world."
       He merely rose, and said gravely, "Heaven forgive you your unjust
       suspicions, and God bless you for your other kindness. Good-by!"
       "Why, where on earth are you going?"
       "To stow away my things; to pack up, as they call it."
       "Come back! come back! why, what a terrible fellow you are; you make
       no allowances for metaphors. There, forgive me, and shake hands. Now
       sit down. I esteem you more than ever. You have come down from another
       age and a much better one than this. Now let us be calm, quiet,
       sensible, tranquil. Hallo!" (starting up in agitation), "a sudden
       light bursts on me. You are in love, and not with my wife; then it is
       my ward."
       "It is too late to deny it, sir."
       "That is far more serious than the other," said Bazalgette, very
       gravely; "the old one would have been sure to cure you of your fancy
       for her, soon or late, but Lucy! Now, just look at that young buffer's
       eyes glaring at us like a pair of saucers."
       "I am not listening, papa; I haven't heard a word you and Mr. Dodd
       have said about naughty ladies. I have been such a good boy, minding
       my puzzle."
       "I wish he may not have been minding ours instead," muttered his sire,
       and rang the bell, and ordered the servant to take away Master
       Reginald and bring coffee.
       The pair sipped their coffee in dead silence. It was broken at last by
       David saying sadly and a little bitterly, "I fear, sir, your good
       opinion of me does not go the length of letting me come into your
       family."
       The merchant seemed during the last five minutes to have undergone
       some starching process, so changed was his whole manner now; so
       distant, dignified and stiff. "Mr. Dodd," said he, "I am in a
       difficult position. Insincerity is no part of my character. When I say
       I have a regard for a man, I mean it. But I am the young lady's
       guardian, sir. She is a minor, though on the verge of her majority,
       and I cannot advise her to a match which, in the received sense, would
       be a very bad one for her. On the other hand, there are so many
       insuperable obstacles between you and her, that I need not combat my
       personal sentiments so far as to act against you; it would, indeed,
       hardly be just, as I have surprised your secret unfairly, though with
       no unfair intention. My promise not to act hostilely implies that I
       shall not reveal this conversation to Mrs. Bazalgette; if I did I
       should launch the deadliest of all enemies--irritated vanity--upon
       you, for she certainly looks on you as her plaything, not her niece's;
       and you would instantly be the victim of her spite, and of her
       influence over Lucy, if she discovered you have the insolence to
       escape her, and pursue another of her sex. I shall therefore keep
       silence and neutrality. Meantime, in the character, not of her
       guardian, but of your friend, I do strongly advise you not to think
       seriously of her. She will never marry you. She is a good, kind,
       amiable creature, but still she is a girl of the world--has all its
       lessons at her finger ends. Bless your heart, these meek beauties are
       as ambitious as Lucifer, and this one's ambition is fed by constant
       admiration, by daily matrimonial discussions with the old stager, and
       I believe by a good offer every now and then, which she refuses,
       because she is waiting for a better. Come, now, it only wants one good
       wrench--"
       David interrupted him mildly: "Then, sir," said he, thoughtfully; "the
       upshot is that, if she says 'Yes,' you won't say 'No.'"
       The mature merchant stared.
       "If," said he, and with this short sentence and a sardonic grin he
       broke off trying
       

"To fetter flame with flaxen band."

       So nothing more was said or done that evening worth recording.
       The next day, being the day of the masquerade, was devoted by the
       ladies to the making, altering, and trying on of dresses in their
       bedrooms. This turned the downstairs rooms so dark and unlovely that
       the gentlemen deserted the house one after the other. Kenealy and
       Talboys rode to see a cricket match ten miles off. Hardie drove into
       the town of ---- and David paced the gravel walk in hopes that by
       keeping near the house he might find Lucy alone, for he was determined
       to know his fate and end his intolerable suspense.
       He had paced the walk about an hour when fortune seemed to favor his
       desires. Lucy came out into the garden. David's heart beat violently.
       To his great annoyance, Mr. Fountain followed her out of the house and
       called her. She stopped, and he joined her; and very soon uncle and
       niece were engaged in a conversation which seemed so earnest that
       David withdrew to another part of the garden not to interfere with
       them.
       He waited, and waited, and waited till they should separate; but no,
       they walked more and more slowly, and the conversation seemed to
       deepen in interest. David chafed. If he had known the nature of that
       conversation he would have writhed with torture as well as fretted
       with impatience, for there the hand of her he loved was sought in
       marriage before his eyes, and within a few steps of him. On such
       threads hangs human life. Had he been at the hall door instead of in
       the garden, he might have anticipated Mr. Fountain. As it was, Mr.
       Fountain stole the march on him. _

Preface
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31