nt and she will soon bend bows on each other. So here comes old Dame
Ellesmere with your breakfast. I will but give some directions about
the deer to Rough Ralph, my helper, and saddle my forest pony, and your
honour's horse, which is no prime one, and we will be ready to trot."

Julian was not sorry for this addition to his establishment; for Lance
had shown himself, on the preceding evening, a shrewd and bold fellow,
and attached to his master. He therefore set himself to reconcile his
aunt to parting with her nephew for some time. Her unlimited devotion
for "the family," readily induced the old lady to acquiesce in his
proposal, though not without a gentle sigh over the ruins of a castle in
the air, which was founded on the well-saved purse of Mistress Deborah
Debbitch. "At any rate," she thought, "it was as well that Lance should
be out of the way of that bold, long-legged, beggarly trollop, Cis
Sellok." But to poor Deb herself, the expatriation of Lance, whom she
had looked to as a sailor to a port under his lee, for which he can run,
if weather becomes foul, was a second severe blow, following close on
her dismissal from the profitable service of Major Bridgenorth.

Julian visited the disconsolate damsel, in hopes of gaining some light
upon Bridgenorth's projects regarding his daughter--the character of
this Ganlesse--and other matters, with which her residence in the
family might have made her acquainted; but he found her by far too
much troubled in mind to afford him the least information. The name
of Ganlesse she did not seem to recollect--that of Alice rendered her
hysterical--that of Bridgenorth, furious. She numbered up the various
services she had rendered in the family--and denounced the plague
of swartness to the linen--of leanness to the poultry--of dearth and
dishonour to the housekeeping--and of lingering sickness and early death
to Alice;--all which evils, she averred, had only been kept off by her
continued, watchful, and incessant cares.--Then again turning to the
subject of the fugitive Lance, she expressed such a total contempt of
that mean-spirited fellow, in a tone between laughing and crying, as
satisfied Julian it was not a topic likely to act as a sedative; and
that, therefore, unless he made a longer stay than the urgent state of
his affairs permitted, he was not likely to find Mistress Deborah in
such a state of composure as might enable him to obtain from her any
rational or useful informa