man
she marries. I don't know another who wouldn't make the name of wife
laugh the poor devil out of house and company. She's firm as a rock; and
sweet as a flower on it! Will that touch you? Bah! Richie, let's talk
like men. I feel for her because she's fond of you, and I know what it is
when a girl like that sets her heart on a fellow. There,' he concluded,
'I 'd ask you to go down on your knees and pray before you decide against
her!'

Heriot succeeded in raising a certain dull indistinct image in my mind of
a well-meaning girl, to whom I was bound to feel thankful, and felt so. I
thanked Heriot, too, for his friendly intentions. He had never seen the
Princess Ottilia. And at night I thanked my grandfather. He bore himself,
on the whole, like the good and kindly old gentleman Janet loved to
consider him. He would not stand in my light, he said, recurring to that
sheet-anchor of a tolerant sentence whenever his forehead began to gather
clouds. He regretted that Janet was no better than her sex in her
preference for rakes, and wished me to the deuce for bringing Heriot into
the house, and not knowing when I was lucky. 'German grandchildren, eh!'
he muttered. No Beltham had ever married a foreigner. What was the time
fixed between us for the marriage? He wanted to see his line safe before
he died. 'How do I know this foreign woman'll bear?' he asked, expecting
an answer. His hand was on the back of a chair, grasping and rocking it;
his eyes bent stormily on the carpet; they were set blinking rapidly
after a glance at me. Altogether his self-command was creditable to
Janet's tuition.

Janet met me next day, saying with some insolence (so it struck me from
her liveliness): 'Well, it's all right, Harry? Now you'll be happy, I
hope. I did not shine in my reply. Her amiable part appeared to be to let
me see how brilliant and gracious the commonplace could be made to look.
She kept Heriot at the Grange, against the squire's remonstrance and her
mother's. 'It 's to keep him out of harm's way: the women he knows are
not of the best kind for him,' she said, with astounding fatuity. He
submitted, and seemed to like it. She must be teaching Temple to skate
figures in the frost, with a great display of good-humoured patience, and
her voice at musical pitches. But her principal affectation was to talk
on matters of business with Mr. Burgin and Mr. Trewint, the squire's
lawyer and bailiff, on mines and interest, on money and econom