st beautiful
weather for a welcome to dear England?' and passed with majesty.

'Boy!' she resumed, 'are you mad?'

'I hate being such a hypocrite, madam.'

'Then you do not love her, Evan?'

This may have been dubious logic, but it resulted from a clear sequence
of ideas in the lady's head. Evan did not contest it.

'And assuredly you will lose her, Evan. Think of my troubles! I have to
intrigue for Silva; I look to your future; I smile, Oh heaven! how do I
not smile when things are spoken that pierce my heart! This morning at
the breakfast!'

Evan took her hand, and patted it.

'What is your pity?' she sighed.

'If it had not been for you, my dear sister, I should never have held my
tongue.'

'You are not a Harrington! You are a Dawley!' she exclaimed, indignantly.

Evan received the accusation of possessing more of his mother's spirit
than his father's in silence.

'You would not have held your tongue,' she said, with fervid severity:
'and you would have betrayed yourself! and you would have said you were
that! and you in that costume! Why, goodness gracious! could you bear to
appear so ridiculous?'

The poor young man involuntarily surveyed his person. The pains of an
impostor seized him. The deplorable image of the Don making confession
became present to his mind. It was a clever stroke of this female
intriguer. She saw him redden grievously, and blink his eyes; and not
wishing to probe him so that he would feel intolerable disgust at his
imprisonment in the Don, she continued:

'But you have the sense to see your duties, Evan. You have an excellent
sense, in the main. No one would dream--to see you. You did not, I must
say, you did not make enough of your gallantry. A Portuguese who had
saved a man's life, Evan, would he have been so boorish? You behaved as
if it was a matter of course that you should go overboard after anybody,
in your clothes, on a dark night. So, then, the Jocelyns took it. I
barely heard one compliment to you. And Rose--what an effect it should
have had on her! But, owing to your manner, I do believe the girl thinks
it nothing but your ordinary business to go overboard after anybody, in
your clothes, on a dark night. 'Pon my honour, I believe she expects to
see you always dripping!' The Countess uttered a burst of hysterical
humour. 'So you miss your credit. That inebriated sailor should really
have been gold to you. Be not so young and thoughtless.'

The Countess then proceed