re due to your kind
friendship."

Before very long the gentle Scuddy was as happy as a prisoner can expect
to be, in his comfortable quarters at Beutin. Through friendly exchanges
he had received a loving letter from his mother, with an amiable
enclosure, and M. Jalais being far from wealthy, a pleasant arrangement
was made between them. Scudamore took all his meals with his host, who
could manage sound victuals like an Englishman, and the house-keeper,
house-cleaner, and house-feeder (misdescribed by Desportes as a servant,
according to our distinctions), being a widow of mark, sat down to
consider her cookery upon choice occasions. Then for a long time would
prevail a conscientious gravity, and reserve of judgment inwardly,
everybody waiting for some other body's sentiments; until the author of
the work, as a female, might no more abide the malignant silence of male
reviewers.

Scudamore, being very easily amused, as any good-natured young man is,
entered with zest into all these doings, and became an authority upon
appeal; and being gifted with depth of simplicity as well as high
courtesy of taste, was never known to pronounce a wrong decision. That
is to say, he decided always in favour of the lady, which has been the
majestic course of Justice for centuries, till the appearance of Mrs.
-----, the lady who should have married the great Home-Ruler.

Thus the wily Scudamore obtained a sitting-room, with the prettiest
outlook in the house, or indeed in any house in that part of the world
for many leagues of seeking. For the mansion of M. Jalais stood in an
elbow of the little river, and one window of this room showed the curve
of tidal water widening towards the sea, while the other pleasantly gave
eye to the upper reaches of the stream, where an angler of rose-coloured
mind might almost hope to hook a trout. The sun glanced down the stream
in the morning, and up it to see what he had done before he set; and
although M. Jalais' trees were leafless now, they had sleeved their bent
arms with green velvetry of moss.

Scudamore brought his comfortable chair to the nook between these
windows, and there, with a book or two belonging to his host, and the
pipe whose silver clouds enthrone the gods of contemplation, many a
pleasant hour was passed, seldom invaded by the sounds of war. For the
course of the roads, and sands of the river, kept this happy spot aloof
from bad communications. Like many other streams in northern