mer, climbing the sky with steps of fog, cast into
abysms (as great writers call it) by imaginary demons, and even at its
best in a queer condition, pitiful, yet exceeding proud. A quarter of
the mental power is employed in wanting to know what the other people
think; an eighth part ought to be dwelling upon the fair distracting
object; and only a small eighth can remain to attend to the business of
the solid day. But in spite of all this, such lads get on about as well
as usual. If Bacchus has a protective power, Venus has no less of it,
and possibly is more active, as behooves a female.

And surely it was a cold-blooded scheme, which even the Revenue should
have excised from an honest scale of duties, to catch a poor fellow in
the meshes of love, because he was too sharp otherwise. This, however,
was the large idea ripening in the breast of Carroway.

"To-night I shall have him," he said to his wife, who was inditing of
softer things, her eighth confinement, and the shilling she had laid
that it would be a boy this time. "The weather is stormy, yet the fellow
makes love between the showers in a barefaced way. That old fool of a
tanner knows it, and has no more right feeling than if he were a boy.
Aha, my Robin, fine robin as you are, I shall catch you piping with
your Jenny Wren tonight!" The lieutenant shared the popular ignorance of
simplest natural history.

"Charles, you never should have told me of it. Where is your feeling for
the days gone by? And as for his coming between the showers, what should
I have thought of you if you had made a point of bringing your umbrella?
My dear, it is wrong. And I beg you, for my sake, not to catch him with
his true love, but only with his tubs."

"Matilda, your mind is weakened by the coming trial of your nerves. I
would rather have him with his tubs, of course; they would set us up
for several years, and his silks would come in for your churching. But
everything can not be as we desire. And he carries large pistols when he
is not courting. Do you wish me to be shot, Matilda?"

"Captain Carroway, how little thought you have, to speak to me in that
way! And I felt before dinner that I never should get over it. Oh, who
would have the smugglers on her mind, at such a time?"

"My dear, I beg your pardon. Pray exert your strength of mind, and cast
such thoughts away from you--or perhaps it will be a smuggler. And yet
if it were, how much better it would pay!"

"Then I hope it