en are a terrible temptation to
them. That's my dear good wife speaking, and had she been spared to me
I never should have come back to Old England, and heart's delight and
heartache I should not have known. She was my backbone, she was my
breast-comforter too. Why did she stick to me? Because I had faith
in her when appearances were against her. But she never forgave this
country the hurt to her woman's pride. You'll have noticed a squarish
jaw in Netty. That's her mother. And I shall have to encounter it,
supposing I find Mart Tinman has been playing me false. I'm blown on
somehow. I'll think of what course I'll take 'twixt now and morning.
Good night, young gentleman."

"Good night; sir," said Herbert, adding, "I will get information from
the Horse Guards; as for the people knowing it about here, you're not
living much in society--"

"It's not other people's feelings, it's my own," Van Diemen silenced
him. "I feel it, if it's in the wind; ever since Mart Tinman spoke the
thing out, I've felt on my skin cold and hot."

He flourished his lighted candle and went to bed, manifestly solaced by
the idea that he was the victim of his own feelings.

Herbert could not sleep. Annette's monstrous choice of Tinman in
preference to himself constantly assailed and shook his understanding.
There was the "squarish jaw" mentioned by her father to think of. It
filled him with a vague apprehension, but he was unable to imagine that
a young girl, and an English girl, and an enthusiastic young English
girl, could be devoid of sentiment; and presuming her to have it, as one
must, there was no fear, that she would persist in her loathsome choice
when she knew her father was against it.

CHAPTER IX

Annette did not shun him next morning. She did not shun the subject,
either. But she had been exact in arranging that she should not be more
than a few minutes downstairs before her father. Herbert found, that
compared with her, girls of sentiment are commonplace indeed. She had
conceived an insane idea of nobility in Tinman that blinded her to his
face, figure, and character--his manners, likewise. He had forgiven a
blow!

Silly as the delusion might be, it clothed her in whimsical
attractiveness.

It was a beauty in her to dwell so firmly upon moral quality. Overthrown
and stunned as he was, and reduced to helplessness by her brief and
positive replies, Herbert was obliged to admire the singular young
lady, who spoke, without