Lord
Almeric danced in upon them.

'Give me joy!' he cried breathless. 'D'you hear, Pom? She'll take me,
and I have bussed her! March could not have done it quicker! She's mine,
and the pool! She is mine! Give me joy!'

Mr. Thomasson lost not a minute in rising and shaking him by the hand.
'My dear lord,' he said, in a voice rendered unusually rich and mellow
by the prospect of five thousand pounds, 'you make me infinitely happy.
You do indeed! I give your lordship joy! I assure you that it will ever
be a matter of the deepest satisfaction to me that I was the cause under
Providence of her presence here! A fine woman, my lord, and a--a
commensurate fortune!'

'A fine woman? Gad! you'd say so if you had held her in your arms!'
cried my lord, strutting and lying.

'I am sure,' Mr. Thomasson hastened to say, 'your lordship is every way
to be congratulated.'

'Gad! you'd say so, Tommy!' the other repeated with a wink. He was in
the seventh heaven of delight.

So far all went swimmingly, neither of them remarking that Mr. Pomeroy
kept silence. But at this point the tutor, whose temper it was to be
uneasy unless all were on his side, happened to turn, saw that he kept
his seat, and was struck with the blackness of his look. Anxious to
smooth over any unpleasantness, and to recall him to the requirements of
the occasion, 'Come, Mr. Pomeroy,' he cried jestingly, 'shall we drink
her ladyship, or is it too early in the day?'

Bully Pomeroy thrust his hands deep into his breeches pockets and did
not budge. ''Twill be time to drink her when the ring is on!' he said,
with an ugly sneer.

'Oh, I vow and protest that's ungenteel,' my lord complained. 'I vow and
protest it is!' he repeated querulously. 'See here, Pom, if you had won
her I'd not treat you like this!'

'Your lordship has not won her yet,' was the churlish answer.

'But she has said it, I tell you. She said she'd have me.'

'She won't be the first woman has altered her mind, nor the last,' Mr.
Pomeroy retorted with an oath. 'You may be amazing sure of that, my
lord.' And muttering something about a woman and a fool being near akin,
he spurned a dog out of his way, overset a chair, and strode cursing
from the room.

Lord Almeric stared after him, his face a queer mixture of vanity and
dismay. At last, 'Strikes me, Tommy, he's uncommon hard hit,' he said,
with a simper. 'He must have made surprising sure of her. Ah!' he
continued with a chuckle, as he passed