ny--thanks, thanks; you spoil me. But, as I was saying,
Richard, or was about to say, my daughter has been allowed to rust; her
aunt was a mere duenna; hence, in parenthesis, Richard, her distrust of
me; my nature and that of the duenna are poles asunder--poles! But, now
that I am here, now that I have given up the fight, and live henceforth
for one only of my works--I have the modesty to say it is my best--my
daughter--well, we shall put all that to rights. The neighbours,
Richard?"

Dick was understood to say that there were many good families in the
Vale of Thyme.

"You shall introduce us," said the Admiral.

Dick's shirt was wet; he made a lumbering excuse to go; which Esther
explained to herself by a fear of intrusion, and so set down to the
merit side of Dick's account, while she proceeded to detain him.

"Before our walk?" she cried. "Never! I must have my walk."

"Let us all go," said the Admiral, rising.

"You do not know that you are wanted," she cried, leaning on his
shoulder with a caress. "I might wish to speak to my old friend about
my new father. But you shall come to-day, you shall do all you want; I
have set my heart on spoiling you."

"I will take just _one_ drop more," said the Admiral, stooping to help
himself to brandy. "It is surprising how this journey has fatigued me.
But I am growing old, I am growing old, I am growing old, and--I regret
to add--bald."

He cocked a white wide-awake coquettishly upon his head--the habit of
the lady-killer clung to him; and Esther had already thrown on her hat,
and was ready, while he was still studying the result in a mirror: the
carbuncle had somewhat painfully arrested his attention.

"We are papa now; we must be respectable," he said to Dick, in
explanation of his dandyism: and then he went to a bundle and chose
himself a staff. Where were the elegant canes of his Parisian epoch?
This was a support for age, and designed for rustic scenes. Dick began
to see and appreciate the man's enjoyment in a new part, when he saw how
carefully he had "made it up." He had invented a gait for this first
country stroll with his daughter, which was admirably in key. He walked
with fatigue; he leaned upon the staff; he looked round him with a sad,
smiling sympathy on all that he beheld; he even asked the name of a
plant, and rallied himself gently for an old town-bird, ignorant of
nature. "This country life will make me young again," he sighed. They
reached the top o