ou
should see what a "female euphuist" Dorry is getting. She says in the
Countess's hearing: "Rose! I should in verity wish to play, if it were
pleasing to my sweet cousin?" I'm ready to die with laughing. I don't do
it, Mama.'

The Countess, thus being discussed, was closeted with old Mrs. Bonner:
not idle. Like Hannibal in Italy, she had crossed her Alps in attaining
Beckley Court, and here in the enemy's country the wary general found
herself under the necessity of throwing up entrenchments to fly to in
case of defeat. Sir Abraham Harrington of Torquay, who had helped her to
cross the Alps, became a formidable barrier against her return.

Meantime Evan was riding over to Fallow field, and as he rode under black
visions between the hedgeways crowned with their hop-garlands, a
fragrance of roses saluted his nostril, and he called to mind the red and
the white the peerless representative of the two had given him, and which
he had thrust sullenly in his breast-pocket and he drew them out to look
at them reproachfully and sigh farewell to all the roses of life, when in
company with them he found in his hand the forgotten letter delivered to
him on the cricket-field the day of the memorable match. He smelt at the
roses, and turned the letter this way and that. His name was correctly
worded on the outside. With an odd reluctance to open it, he kept
trifling over the flowers, and then broke the broad seal, and these are
the words that met his eyes:

'Mr. EVAN HARRINGTON.

'You have made up your mind to be a tailor, instead of a Tomnoddy. You're
right. Not too many men in the world--plenty of nincompoops.

'Don't be made a weathercock of by a parcel of women. I want to find a
man worth something. If you go on with it, you shall end by riding in
your carriage, and cutting it as fine as any of them. I 'll take care
your belly is not punished while you're about it.

'From the time your name is over your shop, I give you L300 per annum.

'Or stop. There's nine of you. They shall have L40. per annum apiece, 9
times 40, eh? That's better than L300., if you know how to reckon. Don't
you wish it was ninety-nine tailors to a man! I could do that too, and it
would not break me; so don't be a proud young ass, or I 'll throw my
money to the geese. Lots of them in the world. How many geese to a
tailor?

'Go on for five years, and I double it.

'Give it up, and I give you up.

'No question about me. The first tailor can be paid