n
the presence of the testator and of each other) they were fully apprised
of this rather urgent call upon their best and most delicate emotions.
And the worst of it was (from the gentleman's point of view), that
the contest was unequal. The golden apples were not his to cast, but
Atalanta's. The lady was to have the land, even without accepting love.
Moreover, he was fifty per cent beyond her in age, and Hymen would make
her a mamma without invocation of Lucina. But highest and deepest woe of
all, most mountainous of obstacles, was the lofty skyline of his nose,
inherited from the Roman. If the lady's corresponding feature had not
corresponded--in other words, if her nose had been chubby, snub, or even
Greek--his bold bridge must have served him well, and even shortened
access to rosy lips and tender heart. But, alas! the fair one's nose was
also of the fine imperial type, truly admirable in itself, but (under
one of nature's strictest laws) coy of contact with its own male
expression. Love, whose joy and fierce prank is to buckle to the plated
pole ill-matched forms and incongruous spirits, did not fail of her
impartial freaks. Mr. Mordacks had to cope with his own kin, and found
the conflict so severe that not a breath of time was left him for
anybody's business but his own.

If luck was against him in that quarter (although he would not own it
yet), at York and Flamborough it was not so. No crisis arose to demand
his presence; no business went amiss because of his having to work so
hard at love. There came, as there sometimes does in matters pressing,
tangled, and exasperating, a quiet period, a gentle lull, a halcyon
time when the jaded brain reposes, and the heart may hatch her own
mares'-nests. Underneath that tranquil spell lay fond Joe and Bob (with
their cash to spend), Widow Precious (with her beer laid in), and
Widow Carroway, with a dole at last extorted from the government; while
Anerley Farm was content to hearken the creak of wagon and the ring of
flail, and the rector of Flamborough once more rejoiced in the bloodless
war that breeds good-will.

For Sir Duncan Yordas was a fine chess-player, as many Indian officers
of that time were; and now that he was coming to his proper temperature
(after three months of barbed stab of cold, and the breach of the seal
of the seventy-seventh phial of Dr. Stirbacks), in gratitude for that
miraculous escape, he did his very best to please everybody. To Dr.
Upround he