ar performances, so very innocent, had wondrous opposite
consequences. The first kindled Richard to adore Woman; the second
destroyed Benson's faith in Man. But Lady Blandish knew the difference
between the two. She understood why the baronet did not speak; excused,
and respected him for it. She was content, since she must love, to love
humbly, and she had, besides, her pity for his sorrows to comfort her. A
hundred fresh reasons for loving him arose and multiplied every day. He
read to her the secret book in his own handwriting, composed for
Richard's Marriage Guide: containing Advice and Directions to a Young
Husband, full of the most tender wisdom and delicacy; so she thought;
nay, not wanting in poetry, though neither rhymed nor measured. He
expounded to her the distinctive character of the divers ages of love,
giving the palm to the flower she put forth, over that of Spring, or the
Summer rose. And while they sat and talked; "My wound has healed," he
said. "How?" she asked. "At the fountain of your eyes," he replied, and
drew the joy of new life from her blushes, without incurring further
debtor ship for a thing done.

CHAPTER XXV

Let it be some apology for the damage caused by the careering hero, and a
consolation to the quiet wretches, dragged along with him at his
chariot-wheels, that he is generally the last to know when he has made an
actual start; such a mere creature is he, like the rest of us, albeit the
head of our fates. By this you perceive the true hero, whether he be a
prince or a pot-boy, that he does not plot; Fortune does all for him. He
may be compared to one to whom, in an electric circle, it is given to
carry the battery.

We caper and grimace at his will; yet not his the will, not his the
power. 'Tis all Fortune's, whose puppet he is. She deals her
dispensations through him. Yea, though our capers be never so comical, he
laughs not. Intent upon his own business, the true hero asks little
services of us here and there; thinks it quite natural that they should
be acceded to, and sees nothing ridiculous in the lamentable contortions
we must go through to fulfil them. Probably he is the elect of Fortune,
because of that notable faculty of being intent upon his own business:
"Which is," says The Pilgrim's Scrip, "with men to be valued equal to
that force which in water makes a stream." This prelude was necessary to
the present chapter of Richard's history.

It happened that in the turn of