ts were for the day his own,--found
himself separated from the widow. He got into that which contained
Kate Vavasor, and was shoved off from the beach while he saw Captain
Bellfield arranging Mrs Greenow's drapery. He had declared to himself
that it should be otherwise; and that as he had to pay the piper,
the piper should play as he liked it. But Mrs Greenow with a word
or two had settled it all, and Mr Cheesacre had found himself to be
powerless. "How absurd Bellfield looks in that jacket, doesn't he?"
he said to Kate, as he took his seat in the boat.

"Do you think so? I thought it was so very pretty and becoming for
the occasion."

Mr Cheesacre hated Captain Bellfield, and regretted more than ever
that he had not done something for his own personal adornment. He
could not endure to think that his friend, who paid for nothing,
should carry away the honours of the morning and defraud him of the
delights which should justly belong to him, "It may be becoming,"
said Cheesacre; "but don't you think it's awfully extravagant?"

"As to that I can't tell. You see I don't at all know what is the
price of a jacket covered all over with little brass buttons."

"And the waistcoat, Miss Vavasor!" said Cheesacre, almost solemnly.

"The waistcoat I should think must have been expensive."

"Oh, dreadful! and he's got nothing, Miss Vavasor; literally nothing.
Do you know,"--and he reduced his voice to a whisper as he made this
communication,--"I lent him twenty pounds the day before yesterday;
I did indeed. You won't mention it again, of course. I tell you,
because, as you are seeing a good deal of him just now, I think it
right that you should know on what sort of a footing he stands."
It's all fair, they say, in love and war, and this small breach of
confidence was, we must presume, a love stratagem on the part of Mr
Cheesacre. He was at this time smitten with the charms both of the
widow and of the niece, and he constantly found that the captain was
interfering with him on whichever side he turned himself. On the
present occasion he had desired to take the widow for his share, and
was, upon the whole, inclined to think that the widow was the more
worthy of his attentions. He had made certain little inquiries within
the last day or two, the answers to which had been satisfactory.
These he had by no means communicated to his friend, to whom, indeed,
he had expressed an opinion that Mrs Greenow was after all only a
flash in th