nd a
man rushing forth caught Sophy in his arms, and kissed her forehead,
her cheek, with a heartiness that it is well Lionel did not witness!
Speechless and breathless with resentment, Sophy struggled, and in vain,
when Waife, seizing the man by the collar, swung him away with a "How
dare you, sir," that was echoed back from the hillocks--summoned
Sir Isaac at full gallop from the lake--scared Fairthorn back to his
buttresses--roused Mrs. Morley from her sketch, and, smiting the ears of
Lionel and Darrell, hurried them, mechanically as it were, to the very
spot from which that thunder-roll had pealed.

"How dare I?" said the man, resettling the flow of his disordered
coat--"How dare I kiss my own niece?--my own sister's orphan child?
Venerable Bandit, I have a much better right than you have. Oh, my dear
injured Sophy, to think that I was ashamed of your poor cotton print--to
think that to your pretty face I have been owing fame and fortune--and
you, you wandering over the world--child of the sister of whose beauty
I was so proud--of her for whom, alas, in vain! I painted Watteaus and
Greuzes upon screens and fans!" Again he clasped her to his breast; and
Waife this time stood mute, and Sophy passive--for the man's tears were
raining upon her face, and washed away every blush of shame as to the
kiss they hallowed.

"But where is my old friend William Losely?--where is Willy?" said
another voice, as a tall, thin personage stepped out from the hall, and
looked poor Waife unconsciously in the face.

"Alban Morley!" faltered Waife, "you are but little changed!"

The Colonel looked again, and in the elderly, lame, one-eyed,
sober-looking man, recognised the wild jovial Willy, who had tamed the
most unruly fillies, taken the most frantic leaps, carolled forth the
blithest song--madcap, good-fellow, frolicsome, childlike darling of gay
and grave, young and old!

"'Eheu, fugaces, Postume, Postume,
Labuntur anni,'"

said the Colonel, insensibly imbibing one of those Horatian particles
that were ever floating in that classic atmosphere--to Darrell
medicinal, to Fairthorn morbific. "Years slide away, Willy, mutely as
birds skim through air; but when friend meets with friend after absence,
each sees the print of their crows' feet on the face of the other. But
we are not too old yet, Willy, for many a meet at the fireside! Nothing
else in our studs, we can still mount our hobbies; and thoroughbred
hobbies