we need ever be ashamed of
him, after all."

"If he follows the life he proposes, he will never wear a sword like a
gentleman," observed Kate.

"He is tolerably well able, I should say, to defend himself without
one," observed Alethea, "from the specimen he gave us of his prowess
this afternoon," and she described the scene which had occurred on their
entering the town, when Jack had so bravely taken the part of the poor
widow's cow.

While she was speaking, Jack himself came up to them. The sisters
immediately attacked him on the subject, and Alethea inquired whether he
had driven back the animal to Widow Pitt's paddock.

"Oh, yes!" he answered; "but I should have had a far better appetite for
dinner, had I been able to find the fellows who had been so cruelly
baiting her. However, they will not manage to escape me altogether,
I'll warrant; but, as you know, I do not expect to remain here much
longer, now that I have finished my course at the Grammar School. They
will be for sending me to college if I do, and that I could never brook.
But before I go, I must come and pay you a visit at Harwood Grange,
Mistress Alethea."

"We shall always be glad to see you," said the young lady, looking up
with a bright glance at Jack's honest countenance. "Here comes my
father to say the same."

"Yes, indeed we shall, Jack," said Mr Harwood, who came up at that
moment. "I may be able to give you some useful introductions, when I
hear where you are going. I have many friends scattered about the
country, north and south."

"And you will not mind introducing me," asked Jack with kindling eye,
"though I follow the calling of what Kate calls a poor, miserable
drover?"

"Oh, no, no!" answered the Squire, "not if you always show the spirit
you did this afternoon, and that I am sure you will wherever you go, or
whatever calling you follow."

Here he took Jack's hand, and pressed it kindly in presence of the
various people of fashion who were walking up and down the terrace.
Mrs Deane observed the action, and seemed well pleased with the
attention paid her younger son. Taking somewhat after herself, he was,
it must be confessed, her favourite.

The sun was now sinking over the distant hills, and as the mist began to
rise from the river below, the parties on the terrace gradually
dispersed, the Deane family and their friends returning to their
mansion, where they assembled once more round their well-spread board,
at eight