ry's. Mrs.
Marsett liked love, blood, and adventure. She had, moreover, a favourite
noble poet, and she begged Nesta's pardon for naming him, and she would
not name him, and told her she must not read him until she was a married
woman, because he did mischief to girls. Thereupon she fell into one
of her silences, emerging with a cry of hate of herself for having ever
read him. She did not blame the bard. And, ah, poor bard! he fought his
battle: he shall not be named for the brand on the name. He has lit a
sulphur match for the lover of nature through many a generation; and to
be forgiven by sad frail souls who could accuse him of pipeing devil's
agent to them at the perilous instant--poor girls too!--is chastisement
enough. This it is to be the author of unholy sweets: a Posterity
sitting in judgement will grant, that they were part of his honest
battle with the hypocrite English Philistine, without being dupe of the
plea or at all the thirsty swallower of his sugary brandy. Mrs. Marsett
expressed aloud her gladness of escape in never having met a man like
him; followed by her regret that 'Ned' was so utterly unlike; except
'perhaps'--and she hummed; she was off on the fraternity in wickedness.

Nesta's ears were fatigued. 'My mother writes of you,' she said, to vary
the subject.

Mrs. Marsett looked. She sighed downright: 'I have had my dream of
a friend!--It was that gentleman with you on the pier! Your mother
objects?'

'She has inquired, nothing more.'

'I am not twenty-three: not as old as I should be, for a guide to you.
I know I would never do you harm. That I know. I would walk into that
water first, and take Mrs. Worrell's plunge:--the last bath; a thorough
cleanser for a woman! Only, she was a good woman and didn't want it, as
we--as lots of us do:--to wash off all recollection of having met a man!
Your mother would not like me to call you Nesta! I have never begged you
to call me Judith. Damnable name!' Mrs. Marsett revelled in the heat of
the curse on it, as a relief to torture of the breast, until a sense of
the girl's alarmed hearing sent the word reverberating along her nerves
and shocked her with such an exposure of our Shaggy wild one on a lady's
lips. She murmured: 'Forgive me,' and had the passion to repeat the
epithet in shrieks, and scratch up male speech for a hatefuller; but the
twitch of Nesta's brows made her say: 'Do pardon me. I did something
in Scripture. Judith could again. Since that b