refuge at his
Welsh castle, supposing, as he well might, that his latest mad freak of
the proposal of his hand and title to the strange girl in a quadrille at
a foreign castle had been forgotten by her, and the risks of annoyance on
the subject had quite blown over, returned to town, happy in having done
the penance for his impulsiveness, and got clean again--that is to say,
struck off his fetters and escaped from importunities--the very morning
of the day when Lord Levellier sprang upon him! It shows the old
campaigner's shrewdness in guessing where his prey would come, and not
putting him on his guard by a call at his house. Out of the window he
looked for all the hours of light during an entire fortnight. 'In the
service of my sister's child,' he said. 'To save him from the cost of
maintaining her,' say his enemies. At any rate he did it.

He was likely to have done the worse which I suspect.

Now, the imparting of the wonderful news to Admiral Baldwin Fakenham was,
we read, the whiff of a tropical squall to lay him on his beam ends. He
could not but doubt; and his talk was like the sails of a big ship
rattling to the first puff of wind. He had to believe; and then, we read,
he was for hours like a vessel rolling in the trough of the sea. Of
course he was a disappointed father. Naturally his glance at the loss to
Henrietta of the greatest prize of the matrimonial market of all Europe
and America was vexing and saddening. Then he woke up to think of the
fortunes of his 'other girl,' as he named her, and cried: 'Crinny catches
him!'

He cried it in glee and rubbed his hands.

So thereupon, standing before him, Chillon John, from whom he had the
news, bent to him slightly, as his elegant manner was, and lengthened the
admiral's chaps with another proposal; easy, deliberate, precise, quite
the respectful bandit, if you please, determined on having his daughter
by all means, only much preferring the legal, formal, and friendly. Upon
that, in the moment of indecision, Henrietta enters, followed by Admiral
Baldwin's heroine, his Crinny, whom he embraced and kissed, congratulated
and kissed again. One sees the contrivance to soften him.

So it was done, down in that Hampshire household on the heights near the
downs, whence you might behold, off a terra firma resembling a roll of
billows, England's big battle-ships in line fronting the island; when
they were a spectacle of beauty as well as power: which now they are no