"it is there!"

"He has very nearly found out the secret of the saffron bag now," said
my father, pleased and rubbing his hands, when I repeated this talk
with Lord Castleton. "But I fear poor Trevanion," he added, with a
compassionate change of countenance, "is still far away from the sense
of Lord Bacon's receipt. And his wife, you say, out of very love for
him, keeps always drawing discord from the one jarring wire."

"You must talk to her, sir."

"I will," said my father, angrily, "and scold her too, foolish woman! I
shall tell her Luther's advice to the Prince of Anhalt."

"What was that, sir?"

"Only to throw a baby into the River Maldon because it had sucked dry
five wet-nurses besides the mother, and must therefore be a changeling.
Why, that ambition of hers would suck dry all the mother's milk in the
genus mammalian. And such a withered, rickety, malign little changeling
too! She shall fling it into the river, by all that is holy!" cried my
father; and, suiting the action to the word, away into the pond went the
spectacles he had been rubbing indignantly for the last three minutes.
"Papoe!" faltered my father, aghast, while the Cyprinidae, mistaking the
dip of the spectacles for an invitation to dinner, came scudding up to
the bank. "It is all your fault," said Mr. Caxton, recovering himself.
"Get me the new tortoise-shell spectacles and a large slice of
bread. You see that when fish are reduced to a pond they recognize a
benefactor, which they never do when rising at flies or groping for
worms in the waste world of a river. Hem!--a hint for the Ulverstones.
Besides the bread and the spectacles, just look out and bring me the old
black-letter copy of Saint Anthony's 'Sermon to Fishes.'"

CHAPTER VIII.

Some weeks now have passed since my return to the Tower; the Castletons
are gone, and all Trevanion's gay guests. And since these departures,
visits between the two houses have been interchanged often, and the
bonds of intimacy are growing close. Twice has my father held long
conversations apart with Lady Ulverstone (my mother is not foolish
enough to feel a pang now at such confidences), and the result has
become apparent. Lady Ulverstone has ceased all talk against the world
and the public, ceased to fret the galled pride of her husband with
irritating sympathy. She has made herself the true partner of his
present occupations, as she was of those in the past; she takes interest
in farming, and gar