d one spot, I
defy him to remain unmoved and uninquisitive. I defy him still more to
take that precise occasion (however much he may have before designed it)
to drop gracefully on his right knee before the handsomest Mrs.
M'Catchley in the universe, and--pop the question! Richard Avenel
blurted out something very like an oath; and, half guessing that
something must have happened that it would not be pleasing to bring
immediately under the notice of Mrs. M'Catchley, he said hastily,
"Excuse me; I'll just go and see what is the matter--pray, stay till I
come back." With that he sprang forth; in a minute he was in the midst
of the group, that parted aside with the most obliging complacency to
make way for him.

"But what's the matter?" he asked impatiently, yet fearfully. Not a
voice answered. He strode on, and beheld his nephew in the arms of a
woman!

"God bless my soul!" said Richard Avenel.

CHAPTER XVIII.

And such a woman!

She had on a cotton gown--very neat, I dare say--for an under housemaid;
and _such_ thick shoes! She had on a little black straw bonnet, and a
kerchief that might have cost tenpence, pinned across her waist instead
of a shawl; and she looked altogether--respectable, no doubt, but
exceedingly dusty! And she was hanging upon Leonard's neck, and
scolding, and caressing, and crying very loud. "God bless my soul!" said
Mr. Richard Avenel.

And as he uttered that innocent self-benediction, the woman hastily
turned round, and darting from Leonard, threw herself right upon Richard
Avenel--burying under her embrace blue coat, moss-rose, white waistcoat
and all--with a vehement sob and a loud exclamation!

"Oh! brother Dick!--dear, dear brother Dick! and I lives to see thee
agin!" And then came two such kisses--you might have heard them a mile
off! The situation of brother Dick was appalling! and the crowd, that
had before only tittered politely, could not now resist the effect of
this sudden embrace. There was a general explosion! It was a roar! That
roar would have killed a weak man; but it sounded to the strong heart of
Richard Avenel like the defiance of a foe, and it plucked forth in an
instant from all conventional let and barrier the native spirit of the
Anglo-Saxon.

He lifted abruptly his handsome masculine head, looked round the ring of
his ill-bred visitors with a haughty stare of rebuke and surprise.

"Ladies and gentlemen," then said he, very coolly, "I don't see what
there