man,
water is good enough for me."

"I wish you good-night, Miss," said the man; "and thank you kindly for
Bess and the children."

"Good-night," she replied, stepping aside to avoid any salutation from
Smilash. But he went up to her and said in a low voice, and with the
Trefusis manner and accent:

"Good-night, Miss Wilson. If you should ever be in want of the services
of a dog, a man, or a domestic engineer, remind Smilash of Bess and the
children, and he will act for you in any of those capacities."

They opened the door cautiously, and found that the wind, conquered by
the rain, had abated. Miss Wilson's candle, though it flickered in the
draught, was not extinguished this time; and she was presently left with
the housekeeper, bolting and chaining the door, and listening to the
crunching of feet on the gravel outside dying away through the steady
pattering of the rain.

CHAPTER VII

Agatha was at this time in her seventeenth year. She had a lively
perception of the foibles of others, and no reverence for her
seniors, whom she thought dull, cautious, and ridiculously amenable by
commonplaces. But she was subject to the illusion which disables youth
in spite of its superiority to age. She thought herself an exception.
Crediting Mr. Jansenius and the general mob of mankind with nothing
but a grovelling consciousness of some few material facts, she felt
in herself an exquisite sense and all-embracing conception of nature,
shared only by her favorite poets and heroes of romance and history.
Hence she was in the common youthful case of being a much better judge
of other people's affairs than of her own. At the fellow-student who
adored some Henry or Augustus, not from the drivelling sentimentality
which the world calls love, but because this particular Henry or
Augustus was a phoenix to whom the laws that govern the relations of
ordinary lads and lasses did not apply, Agatha laughed in her sleeve.
The more she saw of this weakness in her fellows, the more satisfied she
was that, being forewarned, she was also forearmed against an attack of
it on herself, much as if a doctor were to conclude that he could not
catch smallpox because he had seen many cases of it; or as if a master
mariner, knowing that many ships are wrecked in the British channel,
should venture there without a pilot, thinking that he knew its perils
too well to run any risk of them. Yet, as the doctor might hold such
an opinion if he believed h