e, but there was no keeping the house quiet
enough."

"Croquet!" said Rachel.

"Everything!" returned Bessie. "Four courtships in more or less
progress, besides a few flirtations, and a house where all the
neighbours were running in and out in a sociable way. Our loss was not
as recent there as it was to him, and they were only nieces, so we could
not have interfered with them; besides, my aunt was afraid he would be
dull, and wanted to make the most of her conquering hero, and everybody
came and complimented him, and catechised him whether he believed in the
Indian mutilations, when, poor fellow, he had seen horrors enough never
to bear to think of them, except when the fever brought them all
over again. I am sure there was excuse enough for his being a little
irritable."

"My dear," exclaimed Fanny, quite hurt, "he was patience itself while he
was with us."

"That's the difference between illness and recovery, dear Lady Temple!
I don't blame him. Any one might be irritable with fresh undetected
splinters of bone always working themselves out, all down one side;
and doubts which were worse, the fingers on, or the fingers off, and no
escape from folly or politeness, for he could not even use a crutch.
Oh, no, I don't blame him; I quite excuse the general dislike he took to
everything at poor dear Littleworthy. He viewed it all like that child
in Mrs. Browning's poem, 'seeing through tears the jugglers leap,' and
we have partaken of the juggler aspect to him ever since!"

"I don't think he could ever be very irritable," said Fanny, taking the
accusation much to heart.

"Sister and recovery!" lightly said Bessie; "they encounter what no one
else does! He only pined for Bishopsworthy, and when we let him move
there, after the first month, he and my uncle were happy. I stayed there
for a little while, but I was only in the way, the dear good folks were
always putting themselves out on my account; and as to Alick, you can't
think how the absence of his poor 'souffre-douleur,' invigorated
him. Every day I found him able to put more point into his cutting
compliments, and reading to my uncle with more energy; till at last by
the time the --th came home, he had not so much as a stiff leg to retire
upon. Luckily, he and my uncle both cared too much for my poor father's
wishes for him to do so without, though if any unlucky chance should
take Mr. Lifford away from my uncle, he threatens coming to supply the
vacancy, unles