rave. Rich and poor 's all
right, if I'm rich and you're poor; and you may be happy though you're
poor; but where there are many poor young women, lots of rich men are a
terrible temptation to them. That's my dear good wife speaking, and had
she been spared to me I never should have come back to Old England, and
heart's delight and heartache I should not have known. She was my
backbone, she was my breast-comforter too. Why did she stick to me?
Because I had faith in her when appearances were against her. But she
never forgave this country the hurt to her woman's pride. You'll have
noticed a squarish jaw in Netty. That's her mother. And I shall have to
encounter it, supposing I find Mart Tinman has been playing me false. I'm
blown on somehow. I'll think of what course I'll take 'twixt now and
morning. Good night, young gentleman."

"Good night; sir," said Herbert, adding, "I will get information from the
Horse Guards; as for the people knowing it about here, you're not living
much in society--"

"It's not other people's feelings, it's my own," Van Diemen silenced him.
"I feel it, if it's in the wind; ever since Mart Tinman spoke the thing
out, I've felt on my skin cold and hot."

He flourished his lighted candle and went to bed, manifestly solaced by
the idea that he was the victim of his own feelings.

Herbert could not sleep. Annette's monstrous choice of Tinman in
preference to himself constantly assailed and shook his understanding.
There was the "squarish jaw" mentioned by her father to think of. It
filled him with a vague apprehension, but he was unable to imagine that a
young girl, and an English girl, and an enthusiastic young English girl,
could be devoid of sentiment; and presuming her to have it, as one must,
there was no fear, that she would persist in her loathsome choice when
she knew her father was against it.

CHAPTER IX

Annette did not shun him next morning. She did not shun the subject,
either. But she had been exact in arranging that she should not be more
than a few minutes downstairs before her father. Herbert found, that
compared with her, girls of sentiment are commonplace indeed. She had
conceived an insane idea of nobility in Tinman that blinded her to his
face, figure, and character--his manners, likewise. He had forgiven a
blow!

Silly as the delusion might be, it clothed her in whimsical
attractiveness.

It was a beauty in her to dwell so firmly upon moral quality. Overthrown