ttraction to the portico, the
truth being that we neither of us could pace easily nor talk with perfect
abandonment under eye-fire any longer.

'Look,' said he to me, pointing at the equipages and equestrians: 'you'll
see a sight like this in dozens--dozens of our cities and towns! The
wealth of this country is frightful.'

My reply, addressed at the same time mentally to Temple at sea, was:

'Well, as long as we have the handsomest women, I don't care.'

Captain DeWitt was not so sure that we had. The Provencal women, the
women of a part of South Germany, and certain favoured spots of Italy,
might challenge us, he thought. This was a point I could argue on, or, I
should rather say, take up the cudgels, for I deemed such opinions
treason to one's country and an outrage to common sense, and I embarked
in controversy with the single-minded intention of knocking down the man
who held them.

He accepted his thrashing complacently.

'Now here comes a young lady on horseback,' he said; 'do you spy her?
dark hair, thick eyebrows, rides well, followed by a groom. Is she a
Beauty?'

In the heat of patriotism I declared she was handsome, and repeated it,
though I experienced a twinge of remorse, like what I should have felt
had I given Minerva the apple instead of Venus.

'Oh!' he commented, and stepped down to the road to meet her, beginning,
in my hearing, 'I am the bearer of a compliment--' Her thick eyebrows
stood in a knot, then she glanced at me and hung pensive. She had not to
wait a minute before my father came to her side.

'I knew you would face them,' she said.

He threw back his head like a swimmer tossing spray from his locks.

'You have read the paper?' he asked.

'You have horsewhipped the writer?' she rejoined.

'Oh! the poor penster!'

'Nay, we can't pretend to pity him!'

'Could we condescend to offer him satisfaction?'

'Would he dare to demand it?'

'We will lay the case before Lady Wilts to-night.'

'You are there to-night?'

'At Lady Denewdney's to-morrow night--if I may indulge a hope?'

'Both? Oh! bravo, bravo! Tell me nothing more just now. How did you
manage it? I must have a gallop. Yes, I shall be at both, be sure of
that.'

My father introduced me.

'Let me present to your notice my son, Harry Lepel Richmond, Miss
Penrhys.'

She touched my fingers, and nodded at me; speaking to him:

'He has a boy's taste: I hear he esteems me moderately well-favoured.'

'An inherited