ible--he
persisted in calling the three offensive young cricketers opposite to
account.

Before he could desist, Harmony, no longer coy, burst on the assembly
from three different sources. 'A Man who is given to Liquor,' soared
aloft with 'The Maid of sweet Seventeen,' who participated in the
adventures of 'Young Molly and the Kicking Cow'; while the guests
selected the chorus of the song that first demanded it.

Evan probably thought that Harmony was herself only when she came
single, or he was wearied of his fellows, and wished to gaze a moment on
the skies whose arms were over and around his young beloved. He went to
the window and threw it up, and feasted his sight on the moon standing
on the downs. He could have wept at the bitter ignominy that severed him
from Rose. And again he gathered his pride as a cloak, and defied the
world, and gloried in the sacrifice that degraded him. The beauty of the
night touched him, and mixed these feelings with mournfulness. He quite
forgot the bellow and clatter behind. The beauty of the night, and
heaven knows what treacherous hope in the depths of his soul, coloured
existence warmly.

He was roused from his reverie by an altercation unmistakeably fierce.

Raikes had been touched on a tender point. In reply to a bantering
remark of his, Laxley had hummed over bits of his oration, amid the
chuckles of his comrades. Unfortunately at a loss for a biting retort,
Raikes was reduced to that plain confession of a lack of wit; he offered
combat.

'I 'll tell you what,' said Laxley, 'I never soil my hands with a
blackguard; and a fellow who tries to make fun of Scripture, in my
opinion is one. A blackguard--do you hear? But, if you'll give me
satisfactory proofs that you really are what I have some difficulty
in believing the son of a gentleman--I 'll meet you when and where you
please.'

'Fight him, anyhow,' said Harry. 'I 'll take him myself after we finish
the match to-morrow.'

Laxley rejoined that Mr. Raikes must be left to him.

'Then I'll take the other,' said Harry. 'Where is he?'

Evan walked round to his place.

'I am here,' he answered, 'and at your service.'

'Will you fight?' cried Harry.

There was a disdainful smile on Evan's mouth, as he replied: 'I must
first enlighten you. I have no pretensions to your blue blood, or
yellow. If, sir, you will deign to challenge a man who is not the son
of a gentleman, and consider the expression of his thorough contempt