achful glance of his fellows, feeling that he deserved their
condemnation. But he had cherished for a long time his romantic
sentimentalities about women; literary conventions borrowed from the
minor poets and pseudo-medievalists, or so he thought afterwards. But,
fresh from school, wearied a little with the perpetual society of
barbarian though worthy boys, he had in his soul a charming image of
womanhood, before which he worshipped with mingled passion and devotion.
It was a nude figure, perhaps, but the shining arms were to be wound
about the neck of a vanquished knight; there was rest for the head of a
wounded lover; the hands were stretched forth to do works of pity, and
the smiling lips were to murmur not love alone, but consolation in
defeat. Here was the refuge for a broken heart; here the scorn of men
would but make tenderness increase; here was all pity and all charity
with loving-kindness. It was a delightful picture, conceived in the "come
rest on this bosom," and "a ministering angel thou" manner, with touches
of allurement that made devotion all the sweeter. He soon found that he
had idealized a little; in the affair of young Bennett, while the men
were contemptuous the women were virulent. He had been rather fond of
Agatha Gervase, and she, so other ladies said, had "set her cap" at him.
Now, when he rebelled, and lost the goodwill of his aunt, dear Miss
Spurry, Agatha insulted him with all conceivable rapidity. "After all,
Mr. Bennett," she said, "you will be nothing better than a beggar; now,
will you? You mustn't think me cruel, but I can't help speaking the
truth. _Write books!_" Her expression filled up the incomplete sentence;
she waggled with indignant emotion. These passages came to Lucian's ears,
and indeed the Gervases boasted of "how well poor Agatha had behaved."

"Never mind, Gathy," old Gervase had observed. "If the impudent
young puppy comes here again, we'll see what Thomas can do with the
horse-whip."

"Poor dear child," Mrs. Gervase added in telling the tale, "and she was
so fond of him too. But of course it couldn't go on after his shameful
behavior."

But Lucian was troubled; he sought vainly for the ideal womanly, the
tender note of "come rest on this bosom." Ministering angels, he felt
convinced, do not rub red pepper and sulfuric acid into the wounds of
suffering mortals.

Then there was the case of Mr. Vaughan, a squire in the neighborhood, at
whose board all the aristocracy of