y for the next month
in better spirits and temper than he had been in for a long while.

Moreover, Tom set Lucia to coax him into walking with Headley. She
succeeded at last; and, on the whole, each of them soon found that
he had something to learn from the other. Elsley improved daily in
health, and Lucia wrote to Valencia flaming accounts of the wonderful
doctor who had been cast on shore in their world's end; and received
from her after a while this, amid much more--for fancy is not
exuberant enough to reproduce the whole of a young lady's letter.

"--I am so ashamed. I ought to have told you of that doctor a
fortnight ago; but, rattle-pate as I am, I forgot all about it. Do
you know, he is Sabina Mellot's dearest friend; and she begged me to
recommend him to you; but I put it off, and then it slipped my memory,
like everything else good. She has told me the most wonderful stories
of his courage and goodness; and conceive--she and her husband were
taken prisoners with him by the savages in the South Seas, and going
to be eaten, she says: but he helped them to escape in a canoe--such
a story--and lived with them for three months on the most beautiful
desert island--it is all like a fairy tale. I'll tell it you when I
come, darling--which I shall do in a fortnight, and we shall be all so
happy. I have such a box ready for you and the chicks, which I shall
bring with me; and some pretty things from Scoutbush beside, who is
very low, poor fellow, I cannot conceive what about: but wonderfully
tender about you. I fancy he must be in love; for he stood up the
other day about you to my aunt, quite solemnly, with, 'Let her alone,
my lady. She's not the first whom love has made a fool of, and she
won't be the last: and I believe that some of the moves which look
most foolish, turn out best after all. Live and let live; everybody
knows his own business best; anything is better than marriage without
real affection.' Conceive my astonishment at hearing the dear little
fellow turn sage in that way!

"By the way, I have had to quote his own advice against him; for I
have refused Lord Chalkclere after all. I told him (C. not S.) that he
was much too good for me: far too perfect and complete a person; that
I preferred a husband whom I could break in for myself, even though he
gave me a little trouble. Scoutbush was cross at first; but he said
afterwards that it was just like Baby Blake (the wretch always calls
me Baby Blake now, a