had
done many a time before, and did not perceive his condition till she saw
the blood on her gown. The cowardly assailant was never discovered; but
Mel was both gallant and had, in his military career, the reputation of
being a martinet. Hence, divers causes were suspected. The wound failed
not to mend, the trousers were repaired: Peace about the same time was
made, and the affair passed over.

Looking on the fine head and face, Lady Racial saw nothing of this. She
had not looked long before she found covert employment for her
handkerchief. The widow standing beside her did not weep, or reply to her
whispered excuses at emotion; gazing down on his mortal length with a
sort of benignant friendliness; aloof, as one whose duties to that form
of flesh were well-nigh done. At the feet of his master, Jacko, the
monkey, had jumped up, and was there squatted, with his legs crossed,
very like a tailor! The imitative wretch had got a towel, and as often as
Lady Racial's handkerchief travelled to her eyes, Jacko's peery face was
hidden, and you saw his lithe skinny body doing grief's convulsions till,
tired of this amusement, he obtained possession of the warrior's helmet,
from a small round table on one side of the bed; a calque of the
barbarous military-Georgian form, with a huge knob of horse-hair
projecting over the peak; and under this, trying to adapt it to his
rogue's head, the tricksy image of Death extinguished himself.

All was very silent in the room. Then the widow quietly disengaged Jacko,
and taking him up, went to the door, and deposited him outside. During
her momentary absence, Lady Racial had time to touch the dead man's
forehead with her lips, unseen.

CHAPTER III

THE DAUGHTERS OF THE SHEARS

Three daughters and a son were left to the world by Mr. Melchisedec.
Love, well endowed, had already claimed to provide for the daughters:
first in the shape of a lean Marine subaltern, whose days of obscuration
had now passed, and who had come to be a major of that corps: secondly,
presenting his addresses as a brewer of distinction: thirdly, and for a
climax, as a Portuguese Count: no other than the Senor Silva Diaz, Conde
de Saldar: and this match did seem a far more resplendent one than that
of the two elder sisters with Major Strike and Mr. Andrew Cogglesby. But
the rays of neither fell visibly on Lymport. These escaped Eurydices
never reappeared, after being once fairly caught away from the gloomy
realms