erred. "I went to look at her this very
moment, and there's not a bit of trouble in her breath. It come and it go
like the sweetest regular instrument ever made. The Black Ox haven't trod
on her foot yet! Most like it was the air of London. But only fancy, if
you had called in a doctor! Why, I shouldn't have let her take any of his
quackery. Now, there!"

Ripton attentively observed his chief, and saw him doff his hat with a
curious caution, and peer into its recess, from which, during Mrs.
Berry's speech, he drew forth a little glove--dropped there by some freak
of chance.

"Keep me, keep me, now you have me!" sang the little glove, and amused
the lover with a thousand conceits.

"When will she wake, do you think, Mrs. Berry?" he asked.

"Oh! we mustn't go for disturbing her," said the guileful good creature.
"Bless ye! let her sleep it out. And if you young gentlemen was to take
my advice, and go and take a walk for to get a appetite--everybody should
eat! it's their sacred duty, no matter what their feelings be! and I say
it who'm no chicken!--I'll frickashee this--which is a chicken--against
your return. I'm a cook, I can assure ye!"

The lover seized her two hands. "You're the best old soul in the world!"
he cried. Mrs. Berry appeared willing to kiss him. "We won't disturb her.
Let her sleep. Keep her in bed, Mrs. Berry. Will you? And we'll call to
inquire after her this evening, and come and see her to-morrow. I'm sure
you'll be kind to her. There! there!" Mrs. Berry was preparing to
whimper. "I trust her to you, you see. Good-bye, you dear old soul."

He smuggled a handful of gold into her keeping, and went to dine with his
uncles, happy and hungry.

Before they reached the hotel, they had agreed to draw Mrs. Berry into
their confidence, telling her (with embellishments) all save their names,
so that they might enjoy the counsel and assistance of that trump of a
woman, and yet have nothing to fear from her. Lucy was to receive the
name of Letitia, Ripton's youngest and best-looking sister. The heartless
fellow proposed it in cruel mockery of an old weakness of hers.

"Letitia!" mused Richard. "I like the name. Both begin with L. There's
something soft--womanlike--in the L.'s."

Material Ripton remarked that they looked like pounds on paper. The lover
roamed through his golden groves. "Lucy Feverel! that sounds better! I
wonder where Ralph is. I should like to help him. He's in love with my
cousin Clare.