nt me his
digestion!"

Lucy threw a sad look at Richard, who stretched on a sofa, and left the
burden of the entertainment entirely to her. The eggs were a melancholy
beginning, but her ardour to please Adrian would not be damped, and she
deeply admired his resignation. If she failed in pleasing this glorious
herald of peace, no matter by what small misadventure, she apprehended
calamity; so there sat this fair dove with brows at work above her
serious smiling blue eyes, covertly studying every aspect of the
plump-faced epicure, that she might learn to propitiate him. "He shall
not think me timid and stupid," thought this brave girl, and indeed
Adrian was astonished to find that she could both chat and be useful, as
well as look ornamental. When he had finished one egg, behold, two fresh
ones came in, boiled according to his prescription. She had quietly
given her orders to the maid, and he had them without fuss. Possibly
his look of dismay at the offending eggs had not been altogether
involuntary, and her woman's instinct, inexperienced as she was, may
have told her that he had come prepared to be not very well satisfied
with anything in Love's cottage. There was mental faculty in those
pliable brows to see through, and combat, an unwitting wise youth.

How much she had achieved already she partly divined when Adrian said:
"I think now I'm in case to answer your questions, my dear boy--thanks
to Mrs. Richard," and he bowed to her his first direct acknowledgment of
her position. Lucy thrilled with pleasure.

"Ah!" cried Richard, and settled easily on his back.

"To begin, the Pilgrim has lost his Note-book, and has been persuaded
to offer a reward which shall maintain the happy finder thereof in an
asylum for life. Benson--superlative Benson--has turned his shoulders
upon Raynham. None know whither he has departed. It is believed that the
sole surviving member of the sect of the Shaddock-Dogmatists is under a
total eclipse of Woman."

"Benson gone?" Richard exclaimed. "What a tremendous time it seems since
I left Raynham!"

"So it is, my dear boy. The honeymoon is Mahomet's minute; or say, the
Persian King's water-pail that you read of in the story: You dip your
head in it, and when you draw it out, you discover that you have lived
a life. To resume your uncle Algernon still roams in pursuit of the
lost one--I should say, hops. Your uncle Hippias has a new and most
perplexing symptom; a determination of bride-cak