"As more than that. I have seen her change countenance and colour at the
mere mention of his name. Write to the lad, I say, and tell him to come
home. He is a finer gentleman than this bit of a baronet, after all."

"Does it not strike you, Mr. Yorke, that for a mere penniless adventurer
to aspire to a rich woman's hand is presumptuous--contemptible?"

"Oh, if you are for high notions and double-refined sentiment, I've
naught to say. I'm a plain, practical man myself, and if Robert is
willing to give up that royal prize to a lad-rival--a puling slip of
aristocracy--I am quite agreeable. At _his_ age, in _his_ place, with
_his_ inducements, I would have acted differently. Neither baronet, nor
duke, nor prince should have snatched my sweetheart from me without a
struggle. But you tutors are such solemn chaps; it is almost like
speaking to a parson to consult with you."

* * * * *

Flattered and fawned upon as Shirley was just now, it appeared she was
not absolutely spoiled--that her better nature did not quite leave her.
Universal report had indeed ceased to couple her name with that of
Moore, and this silence seemed sanctioned by her own apparent oblivion
of the absentee; but that she had not _quite_ forgotten him--that she
still regarded him, if not with love, yet with interest--seemed proved
by the increased attention which at this juncture of affairs a sudden
attack of illness induced her to show that tutor-brother of Robert's, to
whom she habitually bore herself with strange alternations of cool
reserve and docile respect--now sweeping past him in all the dignity of
the moneyed heiress and prospective Lady Nunnely, and anon accosting him
as abashed school-girls are wont to accost their stern professors;
bridling her neck of ivory and curling her lip of carmine, if he
encountered her glance, one minute, and the next submitting to the grave
rebuke of his eye with as much contrition as if he had the power to
inflict penalties in case of contumacy.

Louis Moore had perhaps caught the fever, which for a few days laid him
low, in one of the poor cottages of the district, which he, his lame
pupil, and Mr. Hall were in the habit of visiting together. At any rate
he sickened, and after opposing to the malady a taciturn resistance for
a day or two, was obliged to keep his chamber.

He lay tossing on his thorny bed one evening, Henry, who would not quit
him, watching faithfully beside him, wh