s
he uttered the words, toppling on his chair, he broke the stem of his
tobacco-pipe in three! Never did the sheep turn upon her shearer with a
more commanding front. Her voice was calm, her enunciation a little
slow, but perfectly distinct, and she stood before him, as she spoke, in
the simplest and most maidenly attitude.

"No," she said, "Mr. Naseby will have the goodness to go home at once,
and you will go to bed."

The broken fragments of pipe fell from the Admiral's fingers; he seemed
by his countenance to have lived too long in a world unworthy of him;
but it is an odd circumstance, he attempted no reply, and sat
thunder-struck, with open mouth.

Dick she motioned sharply towards the door, and he could only obey her.
In the porch, finding she was close behind him, he ventured to pause and
whisper, "You have done right."

"I have done as I pleased," she said. "Can he paint?"

"Many people like his paintings," returned Dick, in stifled tones; "I
never did; I never said I did," he added, fiercely defending himself
before he was attacked.

"I ask you if he can paint. I will not be put off. _Can_ he paint?" she
repeated.

"No," said Dick.

"Does he even like it?"

"Not now, I believe."

"And he is drunk?"--she leaned upon the word with hatred.

"He has been drinking."

"Go," she said, and was turning to re-enter the house when another
thought arrested her. "Meet me to-morrow morning at the stile," she
said.

"I will," replied Dick.

And then the door closed behind her, and Dick was alone in the darkness.
There was still a chink of light above the sill, a warm, mild glow
behind the window; the roof of the cottage and some of the banks and
hazels were defined in denser darkness against the sky; but all else was
formless, breathless, and noiseless like the pit. Dick remained as she
had left him, standing squarely on one foot and resting only on the toe
of the other, and as he stood he listened with his soul. The sound of a
chair pushed sharply over the floor startled his heart into his mouth;
but the silence which had thus been disturbed settled back again at once
upon the cottage and its vicinity. What took place during this interval
is a secret from the world of men; but when it was over the voice of
Esther spoke evenly and without interruption for perhaps half a minute,
and as soon as that ceased heavy and uncertain footfalls crossed the
parlour and mounted lurching up the stairs. The girl had tame