-hearted, unnatural man. Blyth Scudamore never could have
made this lovely bower."

In this conclusion she was altogether wrong. Scudamore could have made
it, and would have made it gladly, with bright love to help him. But
Carne never could, and would have scorned the pleasant task. It was
Charron, the lively Frenchman, who, with the aid of old Jerry, had
achieved this pretty feat, working to relieve his dull detention, with
a Frenchman's playful industry and tasteful joy in nature. But Carne was
not likely to forego this credit.

"I think I have done it pretty well," he said, in reply to her smile of
admiration; "with such scanty materials, I mean, of course. And I shall
think I have done it very well indeed, if you say that you like it, and
crown it with new glory by sitting for a moment in its unpretentious
shade. If your brother comes down, as I hope he will, next week, I shall
beg him to come and write a poem here. The place is fitter for a poet
than a prosy vagabond like me."

"It is very hard that you should be a--a wanderer, I mean," Dolly
answered, looking at him with a sweet thrill of pity; "you have done
nothing to deserve it. How unfairly fortune has always treated you!"

"Fortune could make me a thousand times more than the just compensation
even now, if she would. Such a glorious return for all my bitter losses
and outcast condition, that I should--but it is useless to think of such
things, in my low state. The fates have been hard with me, but never
shall they boast that they drove me from my pure sense of honour. Oh
yes, it is damp. But let me cure it thus."

For Dolly, growing anxious about his meaning, yet ready to think about
another proposal, was desirous to sit down on the sweet ledge of grass,
yet uneasy about her pale blue sarsenet, and uncertain that she had not
seen something of a little sea-snail (living in a yellow house, dadoed
with red), whom to crush would be a cruel act to her dainty fabric. But
if he was there, he was sat upon unavenged; for Carne, pulling off his
light buff cloak, flung it on the seat; after which the young lady could
scarcely be rude enough not to sit.

"Oh, I am so sorry now! Perhaps it will be spoiled," she said; "for
you say that the fates are against you always. And I am sure that they
always combine against me, when I wear anything of that colour."

"I am going the wrong way to work," thought Carne. "What a little vixen
it is; but what a beauty!" For his lo