that his wife
would respect and must be subordinate to him. So it had been with her. As
for love, let him come to his Rosamund for love, and appreciation,
adoration!

Rosamund drew nigh to her hour of peril with this torch of her love of
Beauchamp to illuminate her.

There had been a difficulty in getting him to go. One day Cecilia walked
down to Dr. Shrapnel's with Mr. Tuckham, to communicate that the
Esperanza awaited Captain Beauchamp, manned and provisioned, off the
pier. Now, he would not go without Dr. Shrapnel, nor the doctor without
Jenny; and Jenny could not hold back, seeing that the wish of her heart
was for Nevil to be at sea, untroubled by political questions and
prowling Radical deputies. So her consent was the seal of the voyage.
What she would not consent to, was the proposal to have her finger ringed
previous to the voyage, altogether in the manner of a sailor's bride. She
seemed to stipulate for a term of courtship. Nevil frankly told the
doctor that he was not equal to it; anything that was kind he was quite
ready to say; and anything that was pretty: but nothing particularly kind
and pretty occurred to him: he was exactly like a juvenile correspondent
facing a blank sheet of letter paper:--he really did not know what to
say, further than the uncomplicated exposition of his case, that he
wanted a wife and had found the very woman. How, then, fathom Jenny's
mood for delaying? Dr. Shrapnel's exhortations were so worded as to
induce her to comport herself like a Scriptural woman, humbly wakeful to
the surpassing splendour of the high fortune which had befallen her in
being so selected, and obedient at a sign. But she was, it appeared that
she was, a maid of scaly vision, not perceptive of the blessedness of her
lot. She could have been very little perceptive, for she did not
understand his casual allusion to Beauchamp's readiness to overcome 'a
natural repugnance,' for the purpose of making her his wife.

Up to the last moment, before Cecilia Halkett left the deck of the
Esperanza to step on the pier, Jenny remained in vague but excited
expectation of something intervening to bring Cecilia and Beauchamp
together. It was not a hope; it was with pure suspense that she awaited
the issue. Cecilia was pale. Beauchamp shook Mr. Tuckham by the hand, and
said: 'I shall not hear the bells, but send me word of it, will you?' and
he wished them both all happiness.

The sails of the schooner filled. On a fair f