progress. Janet's first
thought was of the squire. 'I won't have him ride home in the dark,'
she said, and ordered Uberly to walk the horse home. The ladies had a
ladies' altercation before Janet would permit my aunt to yield her place
and proceed on foot, accompanied by me. Naturally the best driver of the
two kept the whip. I told Samuel to go on to Bulsted, with word that we
were coming: and Janet, nodding bluntly, agreed to direct my father
as to where he might expect to find me on the Riversley road. My aunt
Dorothy and I went ahead slowly: at her request I struck a pathway
to avoid the pony-carriage, which was soon audible; and when Janet,
chattering to the squire, had gone by, we turned back to intercept
my father. He was speechless at the sight of Dorothy Beltham. At his
solicitation, she consented to meet him next day; his account of the
result of the interview was unintelligible to her as well as to me. Even
after leaving her at the park-gates, I could get nothing definite
from him, save that all was well, and that the squire was eminently
practical; but he believed he had done an excellent evening's work.
'Yes,' said he, rubbing his hands, 'excellent! making due allowances
for the emphatically commoner's mind we have to deal with.' And then to
change the subject he dilated on that strange story of the man who,
an enormous number of years back in the date of the world's history,
carried his little son on his shoulders one night when the winds were
not so boisterous, though we were deeper in Winter, along the identical
road we traversed, between the gorsemounds, across the heaths, with
yonder remembered fir-tree clump in sight and the waste-water visible to
footfarers rounding under the firs. At night-time he vowed, that as
far as nature permitted it, he had satisfied the squire--'completely
satisfied him, I mean,' he said, to give me sound sleep. 'No doubt of
it; no doubt of it, Richie.'

He won Julia's heart straight off, and Captain Bulsted's profound
admiration. 'Now I know the man I've always been adoring since you were
so high, Harry,' said she. Captain Bulsted sighed: 'Your husband bows to
your high good taste, my dear.' They relished him sincerely, and between
them and him I suffered myself to be dandled once more into a state of
credulity, until I saw my aunt Dorothy in the afternoon subsequent to
the appointed meeting. His deep respect and esteem for her had stayed
him from answering any of her questi