ice cursed by
Love, twice the victim of tailordom, our excellent Marine gave away
Harriet Harrington in marriage to Mr. Andrew Cogglesby.

Thus Joy clapped hands a second time, and Horror deepened its shadows.

From higher ground it was natural that the remaining sister should take a
bolder flight. Of the loves of the fair Louisa Harrington and the foreign
Count, and how she first encountered him in the brewer's saloons, and how
she, being a humorous person, laughed at his 'loaf' for her, and wore the
colours that pleased him, and kindled and soothed his jealousy, little is
known beyond the fact that she espoused the Count, under the auspices of
the affluent brewer, and engaged that her children should be brought up
in the faith of the Catholic Church: which Lymport gossips called, paying
the Devil for her pride.

The three sisters, gloriously rescued by their own charms, had now to
think of their one young brother. How to make him a gentleman! That was
their problem.

Preserve him from tailordom--from all contact with trade--they must;
otherwise they would be perpetually linked to the horrid thing they hoped
to outlive and bury. A cousin of Mr. Melchisedec's had risen to be an
Admiral and a knight for valiant action in the old war, when men could
rise. Him they besought to take charge of the youth, and make a
distinguished seaman of him. He courteously declined. They then attacked
the married Marine--Navy or Army being quite indifferent to them as long
as they could win for their brother the badge of one Service, 'When he is
a gentleman at once!' they said, like those who see the end of their
labours. Strike basely pretended to second them. It would have been
delightful to him, of course, to have the tailor's son messing at the
same table, and claiming him when he pleased with a familiar 'Ah,
brother!' and prating of their relationship everywhere. Strike had been a
fool: in revenge for it he laid out for himself a masterly career of
consequent wisdom. The brewer--uxorious Andrew Cogglesby--might and would
have bought the commission. Strike laughed at the idea of giving money
for what could be got for nothing. He told them to wait.

In the meantime Evan, a lad of seventeen, spent the hours not devoted to
his positive profession--that of gentleman--in the offices of the
brewery, toying with big books and balances, which he despised with the
combined zeal of the sucking soldier and emancipated tailor.

Two years pas