frighted at all. For though it's nigh twenty year since I knew him, and I
knew him then just sixteen months--no more--I'll say his heart's as soft
as a woman's, which I've cause for to know. And that's it. That's where
everybody's deceived by him, and I was. It's because he keeps his face,
and makes ye think you're dealin' with a man of iron, and all the while
there's a woman underneath. And a man that's like a woman he's the puzzle
o' life! We can see through ourselves, my lady, and we can see through
men, but one o' that sort--he's like somethin' out of nature. Then I
say--hopin' be excused--what's to do is for to treat him like a woman,
and not for to let him have his own way--which he don't know himself, and
is why nobody else do. Let that sweet young couple come together, and be
wholesome in spite of him, I say; and then give him time to come round,
just like a woman; and round he'll come, and give 'em his blessin', and
we shall know we've made him comfortable. He's angry because matrimony
have come between him and his son, and he, woman-like, he's wantin' to
treat what is as if it isn't. But matrimony's a holier than him. It began
long long before him, and it's be hoped will endoor longs the time after,
if the world's not coming to rack--wishin' him no harm."

Now Mrs. Berry only put Lady Blandish's thoughts in bad English. The lady
took upon herself seriously to advise Richard to send for his wife. He
wrote, bidding her come. Lucy, however, had wits, and inexperienced wits
are as a little knowledge. In pursuance of her sage plan to make the
family feel her worth, and to conquer the members of it one by one, she
had got up a correspondence with Adrian, whom it tickled. Adrian
constantly assured her all was going well: time would heal the wound if
both the offenders had the fortitude to be patient: he fancied he saw
signs of the baronet's relenting: they must do nothing to arrest those
favourable symptoms. Indeed the wise youth was languidly seeking to
produce them. He wrote, and felt, as Lucy's benefactor. So Lucy replied
to her husband a cheerful rigmarole he could make nothing of, save that
she was happy in hope, and still had fears. Then Mrs. Berry trained her
fist to indite a letter to her bride. Her bride answered it by saying she
trusted to time. "You poor marter" Mrs. Berry wrote back, "I know what
your sufferin's be. They is the only kind a wife should never hide from
her husband. He thinks all sorts of th