garden. Cecilia considered that his remarks upon Nevil
were insolent.

'Seriously, Miss Halkett, to take him at his best, he is a very good
fellow, I don't doubt; I am told so; and a capital fellow among men, a
good friend and not 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 ha