it will be given to see the elementary machinery at work: who,
as it were, from some slight hint of the straws, will feel the winds
of March when they do not blow. To them will nothing be trivial, seeing
that they will have in their eyes the invisible conflict going on around
us, whose features a nod, a smile, a laugh of ours perpetually changes.
And they will perceive, moreover, that in real life all hangs together:
the train is laid in the lifting of an eyebrow, that bursts upon the
field of thousands. They will see the links of things as they pass, and
wonder not, as foolish people now do, that this great matter came out of
that small one.

Such an audience, then, will participate in the baronet's gratification
at his son's demeanour, wherein he noted the calm bearing of experience
not gained in the usual wanton way: and will not be without some excited
apprehension at his twinge of astonishment, when, just as the train went
sliding into swiftness, he beheld the grave, cold, self-possessed young
man throw himself back in the carriage violently laughing. Science
was at a loss to account for that. Sir Austin checked his mind from
inquiring, that he might keep suspicion at a distance, but he thought it
odd, and the jarring sensation that ran along his nerves at the sight,
remained with him as he rode home.

Lady Blandish's tender womanly intuition bade her say: "You see it was
the very thing he wanted. He has got his natural spirits already."

"It was," Adrian put in his word, "the exact thing he wanted. His
spirits have returned miraculously."

"Something amused him," said the baronet, with an eye on the puffing
train.

"Probably something his uncle said or did," Lady Blandish suggested, and
led off at a gallop.

Her conjecture chanced to be quite correct. The cause for Richard's
laughter was simple enough. Hippias, on finding the carriage-door closed
on him, became all at once aware of the bright-haired hope which dwells
in Change; for one who does not woo her too frequently; and to express
his sudden relief from mental despondency at the amorous prospect, the
Dyspepsy bent and gave his hands a sharp rub between his legs: which
unlucky action brought Adrian's pastoral,

"Hippy verteth,
Sing cuckoo!"

in such comic colours before Richard, that a demon of laughter seized
him.

"Hippy verteth!"

Every time he glanced at his uncle the song sprang up, and he laughed so
immoderate