oung fellow who had run off the road.

Pity was in Lady Blandish's eyes, though for a different cause.
She doubted if she did well in seconding his father's unwise
scheme--supposing him to have a scheme. She saw the young husband
encompassed by dangers at a critical time. Not a word of Mrs. Mount
had been breathed to her, but the lady had some knowledge of life.
She touched on delicate verges to the baronet in her letters, and he
understood her well enough. "If he loves this person to whom he
has bound himself, what fear for him? Or are you coming to think it
something that bears the name of love because we have to veil the
rightful appellation?" So he responded, remote among the mountains. She
tried very hard to speak plainly. Finally he came to say that he denied
himself the pleasure of seeing his son specially, that he for a time
might be put to the test the lady seemed to dread. This was almost too
much for Lady Blandish. Love's charity boy so loftily serene now that
she saw him half denuded--a thing of shanks and wrists--was a trial for
her true heart.

Going home at night Richard would laugh at the faces made about his
marriage. "We'll carry the day, Rip, my Lucy and I! or I'll do it
alone--what there is to do." He slightly adverted to a natural want
of courage in women, which Ripton took to indicate that his Beauty was
deficient in that quality. Up leapt the Old Dog; "I'm sure there never
was a braver creature upon earth, Richard! She's as brave as she's
lovely, I'll swear she is! Look how she behaved that day! How her voice
sounded! She was trembling... Brave? She'd follow you into battle,
Richard!"

And Richard rejoined: "Talk on, dear old Rip! She's my darling love,
whatever she is! And she is gloriously lovely. No eyes are like hers.
I'll go down to-morrow morning the first thing."

Ripton only wondered the husband of such a treasure could remain apart
from it. So thought Richard for a space.

"But if I go, Rip," he said despondently, "if I go for a day even I
shall have undone all my work with my father. She says it herself--you
saw it in her last letter."

"Yes," Ripton assented, and the words "Please remember me to dear Mr.
Thompson," fluttered about the Old Dog's heart.

It came to pass that Mrs. Berry, having certain business that led her
through Kensington Gardens, spied a figure that she had once dandled
in long clothes, and helped make a man of, if ever woman did. He
was walking under the tre