fun; laughter mingles with agility;
grotesque yet graceful gestures are flung in, and little inspiring cries
flung out.

His lordship soon entered into the spirit of it. Deep in the mystery
of the hornpipe, he danced one or two steps Jean and Christie had never
seen, but their eyes were instantly on his feet, and they caught in a
minute and executed these same steps.

To see Christie Johnstone do the double-shuffle with her arms so saucily
akimbo, and her quick elastic foot at an angle of forty-five, was a
treat.

The dance became inspiriting, inspiring, intoxicating; and, when the
fiddles at last left off, the feet went on another seven bars by the
enthusiastic impulse.

And so, alternately spinning yarns, singing songs, dancing, and making
fun, and mingling something of heart and brain in all, these benighted
creatures made themselves happy instead of peevish, and with a day of
stout, vigorous, healthy pleasure, refreshed, indemnified, and warmed
themselves for many a day of toil.

Such were the two picnics of Inch Coombe, and these rival cliques,
agreeing in nothing else, would have agreed in this: each, if allowed
(but we won't allow either) to judge the other, would have pronounced
the same verdict:

_"Ils ne savent pas vivre ces gens-l'a."_

CHAPTER XI.

Two of our personages left Inch Coombe less happy than when they came to
it.

Lord Ipsden encountered Lady Barbara with Mr.----, who had joined her
upon the island.

He found them discoursing, as usual, about the shams of the present
day, and the sincerity of Cromwell and Mahomet, and he found himself _de
trop._

They made him, for the first time, regret the loss of those earnest
times when, "to avoid the inconvenience of both addressing the same
lady," you could cut a rival's throat at once, and be smiled on by the
fair and society.

That a book-maker should blaspheme high civilization, by which alone
he exists, and one of whose diseases and flying pains he is, neither
surprised nor moved him; but that any human being's actions should be
affected by such tempestuous twaddle was ridiculous.

And that the witty Lady Barbara should be caught by this chaff was
intolerable; he began to feel bitter.

He had the blessings of the poor, the good opinion of the world; every
living creature was prepossessed in his favor but one, and that one
despised him; it was a diabolical prejudice; it was the spiteful caprice
of his fate.

His heart, for a m