you
were here.

Yours till death, even though you should still be hard to me,

Sophie.

To this appeal Lady Ongar sent no direct answer, but she commissioned
Mr. Turnbull, her lawyer, to call upon Madam Gordeloup and pay to that
lady one hundred pounds, taking her receipt for the same. Lady Ongar, in
her letter to the lawyer, explained that the woman in question had been
useful in Florence, and explained also that she might pretend that she
had further claims. "If so," said Lady Ongar, "I wish you to tell her
that she can prosecute them at law, if she pleases. The money I now give
her is a gratuity made for certain services rendered in Florence during
the illness of Lord Ongar." This commission Mr. Turnbull executed, and
Sophie Gordeloup, when taking the money, made no demand for any further
payment.

Four days after this a little woman, carrying a very big bandbox in her
hands, might have been seen to scramble with difficulty out of a boat in
the Thames up the side of a steamer bound from thence for Boulogne; and
after her there climbed up an active little man, who, with peremptory
voice, repulsed the boatman's demand for further payment. He also had a
bandbox on his arm, belonging, no doubt, to the little woman. And it
might have been seen that the active little man, making his way to the
table at which the clerk of the boat was sitting, out of his own purse
paid the passage-money for two passengers through to Paris. And the
head, and legs, and neck of that little man were like to the head, and
legs, and neck of--our friend Doodles, alias Captain Boodle, of
Warwickshire.

Chapter LI

Showing How Things Settled Themselves At The Rectory

When Harry's letter, with the tidings of the fate of his cousins,
reached Florence at Stratton, the whole family was, not unnaturally,
thrown into great excitement. Being slow people, the elder Burtons had
hardly as yet realized the fact that Harry was again to be accepted
among the Burton Penates as a pure divinity. Mrs. Burton, for some weeks
past, had grown to be almost sublime in her wrath against him. That a
man should live and treat her daughter as Florence was about to be
treated! Had not her husband forbidden such a journey, as being useless
in regard to the expenditure, she would have gone up to London that she
might have told Harry what she thought of him. Then came the news that
Harry was again a divinity--an Apollo, whom the Burton Penates ou