, and if they hear you've been with me, there'll be
cries of foul play! Besides, there's Lady Judith to talk to you about
Austin, and Lord Mountfalcon's compliments for you to listen to, and Mr.
Morton to take care of you."

Lucy's eyes fixed sideways an instant.

"I hope I don't frown and blush as I did?" she said, screwing her
pliable brows up to him winningly, and he bent his cheek against hers,
and murmured something delicious.

"And we shall be separated for--how many hours? one, two, three hours!"
she pouted to his flatteries.

"And then I shall come on board to receive my bride's congratulations."

"And then my husband will talk all the time to Lady Judith."

"And then I shall see my wife frowning and blushing at Lord
Mountfalcon."

"Am I so foolish, Richard?" she forgot her trifling to ask in an earnest
way, and had another Aurorean kiss, just brushing the dew on her lips,
for answer.

After hiding a month in shyest shade, the pair of happy sinners had
wandered forth one day to look on men and marvel at them, and had
chanced to meet Mr. Morton of Poer Hall, Austin Wentworth's friend, and
Ralph's uncle. Mr. Morton had once been intimate with the baronet, but
had given him up for many years as impracticable and hopeless, for
which reason he was the more inclined to regard Richard's misdemeanour
charitably, and to lay the faults of the son on the father; and
thinking society to be the one thing requisite to the young man, he had
introduced him to the people he knew in the island; among others to
the Lady Judith Felle, a fair young dame, who introduced him to Lord
Mountfalcon, a puissant nobleman; who introduced him to the yachtsmen
beginning to congregate; so that in a few weeks he found himself in the
centre of a brilliant company, and for the first time in his life tasted
what it was to have free intercourse with his fellow-creatures of both
sews. The son of a System was, therefore, launched; not only through the
surf, but in deep waters.

Now the baronet had so far compromised between the recurrence of his
softer feelings and the suggestions of his new familiar, that he had
determined to act toward Richard with justness. The world called it
magnanimity, and even Lady Blandish had some thoughts of the same kind
when she heard that he had decreed to Richard a handsome allowance, and
had scouted Mrs. Doria's proposal for him to contest the legality of the
marriage; but Sir Austin knew well he was simply