hat ye're doin' better. But Sir
Harry, lad," says he, concerned, with a rub at his weathered nose,
"uses more chest. Head high, lad; shoulders back, chest out. Come now!
An' a mite more chest."

This time at a large swagger.

"Very good," says he, in a qualified way. "But could ye not scowl t'
more purpose?"

'Twas fair heroic to indulge him--with the room full of the smell of
browned meat. But, says I, desperately, "I'll try, sir."

"Jus' you think, Dannie," says he, "that that there ol' rockin'-chair
with the tidy is a belted knight o' the realm. Come now! Leave me see
how ye'd deal with _he_. An' a mite more chest, Dannie, if ye're
able."

A withering stare for the rocking-chair--superior to the point of
impudence--and a blank look for the unfortunate assemblage of
furniture.

"Good!" cries my uncle. "Ecod! but I never knowed Sir Harry t' do it
better. That there belted rockin'-chair o' the realm, Dannie, would
swear you was a lord! An' now, lad," says he, fondly smiling, "ye may
feed."[5]

This watchful cultivation, continuing through years, had flowered in a
pretty swagger, as you may well believe. In all my progress to this
day I have not observed a more genteelly insolent carriage than that
which memory gives to the lad that was I. I have now no regret: for
when I am abroad, at times, for the health and pleasure of us all,
'tis a not ungrateful thing, not unamusing, to be reminded, by the
deferential service and regard this ill-suited manner wins for the
outport man that I am, of those days when my fond uncle taught me to
scowl and strut and cry, "What the devil d'ye mean, sir!" to impress
my quality upon the saucy world. But when Judith came into our
care--when first she sat with us at table, crushed, as a blossom, by
the Hand that seems unkind: shy, tender-spirited, alien to our
ways--'twas with a tragical shock I realized the appearance of high
station my uncle's misguided effort and affection had stamped me
with.

She sat with my uncle in the steerage; and she was lovely, very gentle
and lovely, I recall, sitting there, with exquisitely dropping grace,
under the lamp--in the shower of soft, yellow light: by which her
tawny hair was set aglow, and the shadows, lying below her great, blue
eyes, were deepened, in sympathy with her appealing grief. Came, then,
this Dannie Callaway, in his London clothes, arrived direct per S.S.
_Cathian_: came this enamoured young fellow, with his educated stare,
his