r ideas on these matters. It's
this girl of mine, this wee bit of girl in her little nightshirt with
the frill, astonishes me most:--"thinking of the tops of the mountains
at night!" She has positively done the whole of this work-main part. I
smiled when I left the house, to have to own our little Fredi starting
us all on the road. It seems, Marsett had sworn he would; amorous vow,
you know; he never came nearer to doing it. I hope it's his better
mind now; I do hope the man won't have cause to regret it. He speaks of
Nesta--sort of rustic tone of awe. Mrs. Marsett has impressed him. He
expects the title soon, will leave the army--the poor plucked British
army, as you call it!--and lead the life of a country squire: hunting!
Well, it's not only the army, it's over Great Britain, with this
infernal wealth of ours!--and all for pleasure--eh?--or Paradise lost
for a sugar plum! Eh, Dartrey? Upon my word, it appears to me, Esau's
the Englishman, Jacob the German, of these times. I wonder old Colney
hasn't said it. If we're not plucked, as your regiments are of the
officers who have learnt their work, we're emasculated:--the nation's
half made-up of the idle and the servants of the idle.'

'Ay, and your country squires and your manufacturers contrive to give
the army a body of consumptive louts fit for nothing else than to take
the shilling--and not worth it,' said Dartrey.

'Sounds like old Colney,' Victor remarked to himself. 'But, believe me,
I'm ashamed of the number of servants who wait on me. It wouldn't
so much matter, as Skepsey says, if they were trained to arms and
self-respect. That little fellow Skepsey's closer to the right notion,
and the right practice, too, than any of us. With his Matilda Pridden!
He has jumped out of himself to the proper idea of women, too. And
there's a man who has been up three times before the magistrates, and is
considered a disorderly subject--one among the best of English citizens,
I declare! I never think of Skepsey without the most extraordinary,
witless kind of envy--as if he were putting in action an idea I once
had and never quite got hold of again. The match for him is Fredi. She
threatens to be just as devoted, just as simple, as he. I positively
doubt whether any of us could stop her, if she had set herself to do a
thing she thought right.'

'I should not like to think our trying it possible,' said Dartrey.

'All very well, but it's a rock ahead. We shall have to alter our