he
is a worthy young woman--don't speak against her character, or you will
make my flesh creep; you don't know what her character is to a woman,
high or low."

By this moderation, perhaps she held him still faster.

Friday morning arrived. Gatty had, by hard work, finished his picture,
collected his sketches from nature, which were numerous, left by
memorandum everything to his mother, and was, or rather felt, as ready
to die as live.

He had hardly spoken a word or eaten a meal these four days; his mother
was in anxiety about him. He rose early, and went down to Leith; an hour
later, his mother, finding him gone out, rose and went to seek him at
Newhaven.

Meantime Flucker had entirely recovered, but his sister's color had left
her cheeks. The boy swore vengeance against the cause of her distress.

On Friday morning, then, there paced on Leith Sands two figures.

One was Lord Ipsden.

The other seemed a military gentleman, who having swallowed the
mess-room poker, and found it insufficient, had added the ramrods of his
company.

The more his lordship reflected on Gatty, the less inclined he had
felt to invite a satirical young dog from barracks to criticise such
a _rencontre;_ he had therefore ordered Saunders to get up as a
field-marshal, or some such trifle, and what Saunders would have called
incomparable verticality was the result.

The painter was also in sight.

While he was coming up, Lord Ipsden was lecturing Marshal Saunders on a
point on which that worthy had always thought himself very superior to
his master--"Gentlemanly deportment."

"Now, Saunders, mind and behave like a gentleman, or we shall be found
out."

"I trust, my lord, my conduct--"

"What I mean is, you must not be so overpoweringly gentleman-like as you
are apt to be; no gentleman is so gentleman as all that; it could not be
borne, _c'est suffoquant;_ and a white handkerchief is unsoldier-like,
and nobody ties a white handkerchief so well as that; of all the vices,
perfection is the most intolerable." His lordship then touched with his
cane the generalissimo's tie, whose countenance straightway fell, as
though he had lost three successive battles.

Gatty came up.

They saluted.

"Where is your second, sir?" said the mare'chal.

"My second?" said Gatty. "Ah! I forgot to wake him--does it matter?"

"It is merely a custom," said Lord Ipsden, with a very slightly
satirical manner. "Savanadero," said he, "do us the honor to