of it
and me, and that is a matter between him and me. Dr. Shrapnel makes use
of strong words now and then, but I undertake to produce a totally
different impression on you by reading the letter myself--sparing you'
(he turned to Cecilia) 'a word or two, common enough to men who write in
black earnest and have humour.' He cited his old favourite, the black and
bright lecturer on Heroes. 'You have read him, I know, Cecilia. Well, Dr.
Shrapnel is another, who writes in his own style, not the leading-article
style or modern pulpit stuff. He writes to rouse.'

'He does that to my temper,' said the colonel.

'Perhaps here and there he might offend Cecilia's taste,' Beauchamp
pursued for her behoof. 'Everything depends on the mouthpiece. I should
not like the letter to be read without my being by;--except by men: any
just-minded man may read it: Seymour Austin, for example. Every line is a
text to the mind of the writer. Let me call on you to-morrow.'

'To-morrow?' Colonel Halkett put on a thoughtful air. 'To-morrow we're
off to the island for a couple of days; and there's Lord Croyston's
garden party, and the Yacht Ball. Come this evening-dine with us. No
reading of letters, please. I can't stand it, Nevil.'

The invitation was necessarily declined by a gentleman who could not
expect to be followed by supplies of clothes and linen for evening wear
that day.

'Ah, we shall see you some day or other,' said the colonel.

Cecilia was less alive to Beauchamp's endeavour to prepare her for the
harsh words in the letter than to her father's insincerity. She would
have asked her friend to come in the morning next day, but for the dread
of deepening her blush.

'Do you intend to start so early in the morning, papa?' she ventured to
say; and he replied, 'As early as possible.'

'I don't know what news I shall have in Bevisham, or I would engage to
run over to the island,' said Beauchamp, with a flattering persistency or
singular obtuseness.

'You will dance,' he subsequently observed to Cecilia, out of the heart
of some reverie. He had been her admiring partner on the night before the
drive from Itchincope into Bevisham, and perhaps thought of her graceful
dancing at the Yacht Ball, and the contrast it would present to his watch
beside a sick man-struck down by one of his own family.

She could have answered, 'Not if you wish me not to'; while smiling at
the quaint sorrowfulness of his tone.

'Dance!' quoth Colonel Halket