oquence, Willoughby, I'd bring you to pardon
the poor dog?"

"Not a word of him!"

"Just one!"

Sir Willoughby battled with himself to repress a state of temper that
put him to marked disadvantage beside his friend Horace in high
spirits. Ordinarily he enjoyed these fits of Irish of him, which were
Horace's fun and play, at times involuntary, and then they indicated a
recklessness that might embrace mischief. De Craye, as Willoughby had
often reminded him, was properly Norman. The blood of two or three
Irish mothers in his line, however, was enough to dance him, and if his
fine profile spoke of the stiffer race, his eyes and the quick run of
the lip in the cheek, and a number of his qualities, were evidence of
the maternal legacy.

"My word has been said about the man," Willoughby replied.

"But I've wagered on your heart against your word, and cant afford to
lose; and there's a double reason for revoking for you!"

"I don't see either of them. Here are the ladies."

"You'll think of the poor beast, Willoughby."

"I hope for better occupation."

"If he drives a wheelbarrow at the Hall he'll be happier than on board
a chariot at large. He's broken-hearted."

"He's too much in the way of breakages, my dear Horace."

"Oh, the vase! the bit of porcelain!" sung De Craye. "Well, we'll talk
him over by and by."

"If it pleases you; but my rules are never amended."

"Inalterable, are they?--like those of an ancient people, who might as
well have worn a jacket of lead for the comfort they had of their
boast. The beauty of laws for human creatures is their adaptability to
new stitchings."

Colonel De Craye walked at the heels of his leader to make his bow to
the ladies Eleanor and Isabel.

Sir Willoughby had guessed the person who inspired his friend Horace to
plead so pertinaciously and inopportunely for the man Flitch: and it
had not improved his temper or the pose of his rejoinders; he had
winced under the contrast of his friend Horace's easy, laughing,
sparkling, musical air and manner with his own stiffness; and he had
seen Clara's face, too, scanning the contrast--he was fatally driven to
exaggerate his discontentment, which did not restore him to serenity.
He would have learned more from what his abrupt swing round of the
shoulder precluded his beholding. There was an interchange between
Colonel De Craye and Miss Middleton; spontaneous on both sides. His was
a look that said: "You were right"; hers: "I