She will marry
no one who will not devote himself, and all he has, to some great,
chivalrous, heroic enterprise; whose one object is to be of use, even
if he has to sacrifice his life to it. She says that there must be
such men still left in the world; and that if she finds one, him she
will marry, and no one else."

"Why, there are none such to be found now-a-days, I thought?"

"You heard what she herself said on that very point."

There was a silence for a minute or two. Scout-bush had heard, and was
pondering it in his heart. At last,--

"I am not cut out for a hero; so I suppose I must give her up. But I
wish sometimes I could be of use, Mrs. Mellot: but what can a fellow
do?"

"I thought there was an Irish tenantry to be looked after, my lord,
and a Cornish tenantry too."

"That's what Campbell is always saying: but what more can I do than I
do? As for those poor Paddies, I never ask them for rent; if I did, I
should not get it; so there is no generosity in that. And as for the
Aberalva people, they have got on very well without me for twenty
years; and I don't know them, nor what they want; nor even if they do
want anything, except fish enough, and I can't put more fish into the
sea, Mrs. Mellot?"

"Try and be a good soldier, then," said she, laughing. "Why should not
Lord Scoutbush emulate his illustrious countryman, conquer at a second
Waterloo, and die a duke?"

"I'm not cut out for a general, I am afraid; but if--I don't say if I
could marry that woman--I suppose it would be a foolish thing--though
I shall break my heart, I believe, if I do not. Oh, Mrs. Mellot, you
cannot tell what a fool I have made myself about her; and I cannot
help it! It's not her beauty merely; but there is something so noble
in her face, like one of those Greek goddesses Claude talks of;
and when she is acting, if she has to say anything grand, or
generous--or--you know the sort of thing,--she brings it out with such
a voice, and such a look, from the very bottom of her heart,--it makes
me shudder; just as she did when she told that Yankee, that every one
could be a hero, or a martyr, if he chose. Mrs. Mellot, I am sure she
is one, or she could not look and speak as she does."

"She is one!" said Sabina; "a heroine, and a martyr too."

"If I could,--that was what I was going to say,--if I could but win
that woman's respect--as I live, I ask no more; only to be sure she
didn't despise me. I'd do--I don't know what I wouldn