nd Lydiard, who used generally to be
hanging about the cottage. 'But now he's free: his lunatic wife is dead,
and I'm happy to think I was mistaken as to Miss Denham. Men practising
literature should marry women with money. The poor girl changed colour
when I informed her he had been released for upwards of three months. The
old Radical's not the thing in health. He's anxious about leaving her
alone in the world; he said so to me. Beauchamp's for rigging out a yacht
to give him a sail. It seems that salt water did him some good last year.
They're both of them rather the worse for a row at one of their meetings
in the North in support of that public nuisance, the democrat and atheist
Roughleigh. The Radical doctor lost a hat, and Beauchamp almost lost an
eye. He would have been a Nelson of politics, if he had been a monops,
with an excuse for not seeing. It's a trifle to them; part of their
education. They call themselves students. Rome will be capital, Miss
Halkett. You're an Italian scholar, and I beg to be accepted as a pupil.'

'I fear we have postponed the expedition too long,' said Cecilia. She
could have sunk with languor.

'Too long?' cried Colonel Halkett, mystified.

'Until too late, I mean, papa. Do you not think, Mr. Austin, that a
fortnight in Rome is too short a time?'

'Not if we make it a month, my dear Cecilia.'

'Is not our salt air better for you? The yacht shall be fitted out.'

'I'm a poor sailor!'

'Besides, a hasty excursion to Italy brings one's anticipated regrets at
the farewell too close to the pleasure of beholding it, for the enjoyment
of that luxury of delight which I associate with the name of Italy.'

'Why, my dear child,' said her father, 'you were all for going, the other
day.'

'I do not remember it,' said she. 'One plans agreeable schemes. At least
we need not hurry from home so very soon after our return. We have been
travelling incessantly. The cottage in Wales is not home. It is hardly
fair to Mount Laurels to quit it without observing the changes of the
season in our flowers and birds here. And we have visitors coming. Of
course, papa, I would not chain you to England. If I am not well enough
to accompany you, I can go to Louise for a few weeks.'

Was ever transparency so threadbare? Cecilia shrank from herself in
contemplating it when she was alone; and Colonel Halkett put the question
to Mr. Austin, saying to him privately, with no further reserve: 'It's
that fellow Be