a bad boon-fellow, and for that matter, the
smoking-room is a better test than the drawing-room; all he wants is
emphatically school--school--school. I have recommended the simple
iteration of that one word in answer to him at his meetings, and the
printing of it as a foot-note to his letters.'

Cecilia's combative spirit precipitated her to say, 'I hear the mob in
it shouting Captain Beauchamp down.'

'Ay,' said Mr. Tuckham, 'it would be setting the mob to shout wisely at
last.'

'The mob is a wild beast.'

'Then we should hear wisdom coming out of the mouth of the wild beast.'

'Men have the phrase, "fair play."'

'Fair play, I say, is not applicable to a man who deliberately goes
about to stir the wild beast. He is laughed at, plucked, hustled, and
robbed, by those who deafen him with their "plaudits"--their roars.
Did you see his advertisement of a great-coat, lost at some rapscallion
gathering down in the North, near my part of the country? A great-coat
and a packet of letters. He offers a reward of L10. But that's honest
robbery compared with the bleeding he'll get.'

'Do you know Mr. Seymour Austin?' Miss Halkett asked him.

'I met him once at your father's table. Why?'

'I think you would like to listen to him.'

'Yes, my fault is not listening enough,' said Mr. Tuckham.

He was capable of receiving correction.

Her father told her he was indebted to Mr. Tuckham past payment in coin,
for services rendered by him on a trying occasion among the miners
in Wales during the first spring month. 'I dare say he can speak
effectively to miners,' Cecilia said, outvying the contemptuous young
man in superciliousness, but with effort and not with satisfaction.

She left London in July, two days before her father could be induced
to return to Mount Laurels. Feverish, and strangely subject to caprices
now, she chose the longer way round by Sussex, and alighted at the
station near Steynham to call on Mrs. Culling, whom she knew to be at
the Hall, preparing it for Mr. Romfrey's occupation. In imitation of
her father she was Rosamund's fast friend, though she had never quite
realized her position, and did not thoroughly understand her. Would it
not please her father to hear that she had chosen the tedious route for
the purpose of visiting this lady, whose champion he was?

So she went to Steynham, and for hours she heard talk of no one,
of nothing, but her friend Nevil. Cecilia was on her guard against
Rosamund