rself to regard
with affection so humble a suitor;--for the Dales have ever held
their heads up in the world. But now there is no misgiving on that
score with Mrs. Eames and her daughter. Their wonder is that Lily
Dale should be such a fool as to decline the love of such a man. So
Johnny was received with respect due to a hero, as well as with the
affection belonging to a son;--by which I mean it to be inferred that
Mrs. Eames had got a little bit of fish for dinner as well as a leg of
mutton.

"A man came down in the train with me who says he is going over to
Allington," said Johnny. "I wonder who he can be. He is staying at
'The Magpie'."

"A friend of Captain Dale's, probably," said Mary. Captain Dale was
the squire's nephew and his heir.

"But this man was not going to the squire's. He was going to the
Small House."

"Is he going to stay there?"

"I suppose not, as he asked about the inn." Then, Johnny reflected
that the man might possibly be a friend of Crosbie's, and became
melancholy in consequence. Crosbie might have thought it expedient
to send an ambassador down to prepare the ground for him before he
should venture again upon the scene himself. If it were so, would it
not be well that he, John Eames, should get over to Lily as soon as
possible, and not wait till he should be staying with Lady Julia?

It was at any rate incumbent upon him to call upon Lady Julia the
next morning, because of his commission. The Berlin wool might remain
in his portmanteau till his portmanteau should go with him to the
cottage; but he would take the spectacles at once, and he must
explain to Lady Julia what the lawyers had told him about the income.
So he hired a saddle-horse from "The Magpie" and started after
breakfast on the morning after his arrival. In his unheroic days he
would have walked,--as he had done, scores of times, over the whole
distance from Guestwick to Allington. But now, in these grander days,
he thought about his boots and the mud, and the formal appearance of
the thing. "Ah dear," he said to himself, as the nag walked slowly
out of the town, "it used to be better with me in the old days. I
hardly hoped that she would ever accept me, but at least she had
never refused me. And then that brute had not as yet made his way
down to Allington!"

He did not go very fast. After leaving the town he trotted on for a
mile or so. But when he got to the palings of Guestwick Manor he let
the animal walk again, a