wkward
consequence of a cousin's adoration; she is apt to remember and attach
importance to your most trivial utterances.)

"Pardon me, I said he was my find."

"Where did you find him?"

"I found him in the City--in a shop."

She smiled at the rhythmic utterance. The tragedy of the revelation
was such that it could be expressed only in blank verse.

"The shop doesn't matter."

"No, but he does. You couldn't stand him, Lucia. You see, for one
thing, he sometimes drops his aitches."

"Well, if he does,--he'll be out all day, and there's the open country
to drop them in. I really don't mind, if you'd like to ask him. Do you
think he'd like to be asked?"

"There's no possible doubt about that."

"Then ask him. Ask him now. You can't do it when father's not at
home."

Jewdwine repressed a smile. Even now, from the windows of the east
wing, there burst, suddenly, the sound of fiddling, a masterly
fiddling inspired by infernal passion, controlled by divine technique.
It was his uncle, Sir Frederick, and he wished him at the devil. If
all accounts were true, Sir Frederick, when not actually fiddling, was
going there with a celerity that left nothing to be desired; he was,
if you came to think of it, a rather amazing sort of chaperone.

And yet, but for that fleeting and tumultuous presence, Horace himself
would not be staying at Court House. Really, he reflected. Lucia ought
to get some lady to live with her. It was the correct thing, and
therefore it was not a little surprising that Lucia did not do it. An
expression of disapproval passed over his pale, fastidious face.

"Father won't mind," she said.

"No, but I should." He said it in a tone which was meant to settle the
question.

She sat still, turning over the pages of the manuscript which she had
again taken on her lap.

"I suppose he is very dreadful. Still, I think we ought to do
something for him."

"And what would you propose to do?"

There was an irritating smile on her cousin's face. He was thinking,
"So she wants to patronize him, does she?"

He did not say what he thought; with Lucia that was unnecessary, for
she always knew. He only said, "I don't exactly see you playing
Beatrice to his Dante."

Lucia coloured, and Horace felt that he had been right. The Hardens
had always been patronizing; his mother and sister were the most
superbly patronizing women he knew. And Rickman might or might not be
a great man, but Lucia, even at three and