ces, and vices; to pass
thence, by a natural transition, to the female sex, the inherent flaws
in its composition, and the reasons for regarding it (speaking broadly)
as dirt. He was especially to be very diplomatic, and then to return and
report progress. He departed on his mission gaily; but his absence was
short, and his return, discomfited and in tears, seemed to betoken some
want of parts for diplomacy. He had found Edward, it appeared, pacing
the orchard, with the sort of set smile that mountebanks wear in their
precarious antics, fixed painfully on his face, as with pins. Harold had
opened well, on the rabbit subject, but, with a fatal confusion between
the abstract and the concrete, had then gone on to remark that Edward's
lop-eared doe, with her long hindlegs and contemptuous twitch of the
nose, always reminded him of Sabina Larkin (a nine-year-old damsel,
child of a neighbouring farmer): at which point Edward, it would seem,
had turned upon and savagely maltreated him, twisting his arm and
punching him in the short ribs. So that Harold returned to the
rabbit-hutches preceded by long-drawn wails: anon wishing, with sobs,
that he were a man, to kick his love-lorn brother: anon lamenting that
ever he had been born.

I was not big enough to stand up to Edward personally, so I had to
console the sufferer by allowing him to grease the wheels of the
donkey-cart--a luscious treat that had been specially reserved for me,
a week past, by the gardener's boy, for putting in a good word on his
behalf with the new kitchen-maid. Harold was soon all smiles and grease;
and I was not, on the whole, dissatisfied with the significant hint that
had been gained as to the fons at origo mali.

Fortunately, means were at hand for resolving any doubts on the subject,
since the morning was Sunday, and already the bells were ringing for
church. Lest the connexion may not be evident at first sight, I should
explain that the gloomy period of church-time, with its enforced
inaction and its lack of real interest--passed, too, within sight of all
that the village held of fairest--was just the one when a young man's
fancies lightly turned to thoughts of love. For such trifling the rest
of the week afforded no leisure; but in church--well, there was really
nothing else to do! True, naughts-and-crosses might be indulged in on
fly-leaves of prayer-books while the Litany dragged its slow length
along; but what balm or what solace could be found f