the finish complimented him. The earl could see that he had to be
sufficiently alert.

Age mouthed an ugly word to the veteran insensible of it in his body,
when a desire to be one with these pairs of nimble wrists and legs was
like an old gamecock shown the pit and put back into the basket. He left
the place, carrying away an image of the coxcombical attitudinizing of
the man Morsfield at the salut, upon which he brought down his powers of
burlesque.

My lord sketched the scene he had just quitted to a lady who had stopped
her carriage. She was the still beautiful Mrs. Amy May, wife of the
famous fighting captain. Her hair was radiant in a shady street; her
eyelids tenderly toned round the almond enclosure of blue pebbles,
bright as if shining from the seawash. The lips of the fair woman could
be seen to say that they were sweet when, laughing or discoursing, they
gave sight of teeth proudly her own, rivalling the regularity of the
grin of dentistry. A Venus of nature was melting into a Venus of art,
and there was a decorous concealment of the contest and the anguish
in the process, for which Lord Ormont liked her well enough to wink
benevolently at her efforts to cheat the world at various issues, and
maintain her duel with Time. The world deserved that she should beat it,
even if she had been all deception.

She let the subject of Mr. Morsfield pass without remark from her, until
the exhaustion of open-air topics hinted an end of their conversation,
and she said--

'We shall learn next week what to think if the civilians. I have heard
Mr. Morsfield tell that he is 'de premiere force.' Be on your guard.
You are to know that I never forget a service, and you did me one once.'
'You have reason...?' said the earl.

'If anybody is the dragon to the treasure he covets he is a spadassin
who won't hesitate at provocations. Adieu.'

Lord Ormont's eye had been on Mr. Morsfield. He had seen what Mrs.
Pagnell counselled her niece to let him see. He thanked Mr. Morsfield
for a tonic that made him young with anticipations of bracing; and he
set his head to work upon an advance half-way to meet the gentleman, and
safely exclude his wife's name.

Monday brought an account of Cuper's boys. Aminta received it while the
earl was at his papers for the morning's news of the weightier deeds of
men.

They were the right boys, Weyburn said; his interview with Gowen, Bench,
Parsons, and the others assured him that the school was br