LITMIR.BIZ

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was going to reform the world, after your fashion, Austin,--you have something to answer for. Unfortunately he began with the feminine side of it. Cupid proud of Phoebus newly slain, or Pluto wishing to people his kingdom, if you like, put it into the soft head of one of the guileless grateful creatures to kiss him for his good work. Oh, horror! he never expected that. Conceive the System in the flesh, and you have our Richard. The consequence is, that this male Peri refuses to enter his Paradise, though the gates are open for him, the trumpets blow, and the fair unspotted one awaits him fruitful within. We heard of him last that he was trying the German waters--preparatory to his undertaking the release of Italy from the subjugation of the Teuton. Let's hope they'll wash him. He is in the company of Lady Judith Felle--your old friend, the ardent female Radical who married the decrepit to carry out her principles. They always marry English lords, or foreign princes: I admire their tactics."

      "Judith is bad for him in such a state. I like her, but she was always too sentimental," said Austin.

      "Sentiment made her marry the old lord, I suppose? I like her for her sentiment, Austin. Sentimental people are sure to live long and die fat. Feeling, that's the slayer, coz. Sentiment! 'tis the cajolery of existence: the soft bloom which whoso weareth, he or she is enviable. Would that I had more!"

      "You're not much changed, Adrian."

      "I'm not a Radical, Austin."

      Further inquiries, responded to in Adrian's figurative speech, instructed Austin that the baronet was waiting for his son, in a posture of statuesque offended paternity, before he would receive his daughter-in-law and grandson. That was what Adrian meant by the efforts of the System to swallow the baby.

      "We're in a tangle," said the wise youth. "Time will extricate us, I presume, or what is the venerable signor good for?"

      Austin mused some minutes, and asked for Lucy's place of residence.

      "We'll go to her by and by," said Adrian.

      "I shall go and see her now," said Austin.

      "Well, we'll go and order the dinner first, coz."

      "Give me her address."

      "Really, Austin, you carry matters with too long a beard," Adrian objected. "Don't you care what you eat?" he roared hoarsely, looking humorously hurt. "I daresay not. A slice out of him that's handy--sauce du ciel! Go, batten on the baby, cannibal. Dinner at seven."

      Adrian gave him his own address, and Lucy's, and strolled off to do the better thing.

      Overnight Mrs. Berry had observed a long stranger in her tea-cup. Posting him on her fingers and starting him with a smack, he had vaulted lightly and thereby indicated that he was positively coming the next day. She forgot him in the bustle of her duties and the absorption of her faculties in thoughts of the incomparable stranger Lucy had presented to the world, till a knock at the street-door reminded her. "There he is!" she cried, as she ran to open to him. "There's my stranger come!" Never was a woman's faith in omens so justified. The stranger desired to see Mrs. Richard Feverel. He said his name was Mr. Austin Wentworth. Mrs. Berry clasped her hands, exclaiming, "Come at last!" and ran bolt out of the house to look up and down the street. Presently she returned with many excuses for her rudeness, saying: "I expected to see her comin' home, Mr. Wentworth. Every day twice a day she go out to give her blessed angel an airing. No leavin' the child with nursemaids for her! She is a mother! and good milk, too, thank the Lord! though her heart's so low."

      Indoors Mrs. Berry stated who she was, related the history of the young couple and her participation in it, and admired the beard. "Although I'd swear you don't wear it for ornament, now!" she said, having in the first impulse designed a stroke at man's vanity.

      Ultimately Mrs. Berry spoke of the family complication, and with dejected head and joined hands threw out dark hints about Richard.

      While Austin was giving his cheerfuller views of the case, Lucy came in preceding the baby.

      "I am Austin Wentworth," he said, taking her hand. They read each other's faces, these two, and smiled kinship.

      "Your name is Lucy?"

      She affirmed it softly.

      "And mine is Austin, as you know."

      Mrs. Berry allowed time for Lucy's charms to subdue him, and presented Richard's representative, who, seeing a new face, suffered himself to be contemplated before he commenced crying aloud and knocking at the doors of Nature for something that was due to him.

      "Ain't he a lusty darlin'?" says Mrs. Berry. "Ain't he like his own father? There can't be no doubt about zoo, zoo pitty pet. Look at his fists. Ain't he got passion? Ain't he a splendid roarer? Oh!" and she went off rapturously into baby-language.

      A fine boy, certainly. Mrs. Berry exhibited his legs for further proof, desiring Austin's confirmation as to their being dumplings.

      Lucy murmured a word of excuse, and bore the splendid roarer out of the room.

      "She might a done it here," said Mrs. Berry. "There's no prettier sight, I say. If her dear husband could but see that! He's off in his heroics--he want to be doin' all sorts o' things: I say he'll never do anything grander than that baby. You should 'a seen her uncle over that baby--he came here, for I said, you shall see your own family, my dear, and so she thinks. He come, and he laughed over that baby in the joy of his heart, poor man! he cried, he did. You should see that Mr. Thompson, Mr. Wentworth--a friend o' Mr. Richard's, and a very modest-minded young gentleman--he worships her in his innocence. It's a sight to see him with that baby. My belief is he's unhappy 'cause he can't anyways be nurse-maid to him. O Mr. Wentworth! what do you think of her, sir?"

      Austin's reply was as satisfactory as a man's poor speech could make it. He heard that Lady Feverel was in the house, and Mrs. Berry prepared the way for him to pay his respects to her. Then Mrs. Berry ran to Lucy, and the house buzzed with new life. The simple creatures felt in Austin's presence something good among them. "He don't speak much," said Mrs. Berry, "but I see by his eye he mean a deal. He ain't one o' yer long-word gentry, who's all gay deceivers, every one of 'em."

      Lucy pressed the hearty suckling into her breast. "I wonder what he thinks of me, Mrs. Berry? I could not speak to him. I loved him before I saw him. I knew what his face was like."

      "He looks proper even with a beard, and that's a trial for a virtuous man," said Mrs. Berry. "One sees straight through the hair with him. Think! he'll think what any man'd think--you a-suckin spite o' all your sorrow, my sweet,--and my Berry talkin' of his Roman matrons!--here's a English wife'll match 'em all! that's what he thinks. And now that leetle dark under yer eye'll clear, my darlin', now he've come."

      Mrs. Berry looked to no more than that; Lucy to no more than the peace she had in being near Richard's best friend. When she sat down to tea it was with a sense that the little room that held her was her home perhaps for many a day.

      A chop procured and cooked by Mrs. Berry formed Austin's dinner. During the meal he entertained them with anecdotes of his travels. Poor Lucy had no temptation to try to conquer Austin. That heroic weakness of hers was gone.

      Mrs. Berry had said: "Three cups--I goes no further," and Lucy had rejected the proffer of more tea, when Austin, who was in the thick of a Brazilian forest, asked her if she was a good traveller.

      "I mean, can you start at a minute's notice?"

      Lucy hesitated, and then said; "Yes," decisively, to which Mrs. Berry added, that she was not a "luggage-woman"

      "There used to be a train at seven o'clock," Austin remarked, consulting his watch.

      The two women were silent.

      "Could you get ready to come with me to Raynham in ten minutes?"

      Austin looked as if he had asked a commonplace question.

      Lucy's

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