ng astray politically
ever since. I suppose it's hardly the poor creature's fault. None
the less, you know, we have to fight him. And now he 's nibbling at a
bait--it 's fun: the lady I mentioned, with a turn for adventure and
enterprise: it's rare fun: he 's nibbling, he'll be hooked. You must
make her acquaintance, Mr. Colesworth, and hold your own against her, if
you can. She's a niece of my wife's and I'll introduce you. I shall find
her in London, or at our lodgings at a Surrey farm we've taken to
nurse my cousin Captain Philip O'Donnell invalided from Indian awful
climate!--on my return, when I hope to renew the acquaintance. She has
beauty, she has brains. Resist her, and you 'll make a decent stand
against Lucifer. And supposing she rolls you up and pitches you over,
her noticing you is a pretty compliment to your pen. That 'll be
consoling.'

Mr. Colesworth fancied, he said, that he was proof against feminine
blandishments in the direction of his writings.

He spoke as one indicating a thread to suggest a cable. The captain
applauded the fancy as a pleasing delusion of the young sprigs of
Journalism.

Upon this, Mr. Colesworth, with all respect for French intelligence,
denied the conclusiveness of French generalisations, which ascribed to
women universal occult dominion, and traced all great affairs to small
intrigues.

The captain's eyes twinkled on him, thinking how readily he would back
smart Miss Kathleen to do the trick, if need were.

He said to her before she started: 'Don't forget he may be a clever
fellow with that pen of his, and useful to our party.'

'I'll not forget,' said she.

For the good of his party, then, Captain Con permitted her to take the
walk up Caer Gybi alone with Mr. Colesworth: a memorable walk in the
recollections of the scribe, because of the wonderful likeness of the
young lady to the breezy weather and the sparkles over the deep, the
cloud that frowned, the cloud that glowed, the green of the earth
greening out from under wings of shadow, the mountain ranges holding
hands about an immensity of space. It was one of our giant days to his
emotions, and particularly memorable to him through the circumstance
that it insisted on a record in verse, and he was unused to the fetters
of metre: and although the verse was never seen by man, his attempt
at it confused his ideas of his expressive powers. Oddly too, while
scourging the lines with criticism, he had a fondness for them: