“I am delighted to hear of my lord’s good sport.  He will choose to be in a good humour, I suppose.”

“Good humour? ca va sans dire!  Three stone of fish in three hours!”

“Then his little sister is going to do a very foolish thing, and wants his leave to do it; which if he will grant, she will let him do as many foolish things as he likes without scolding him, as long as they both shall live.”

“Do it then, I beg.  What is it?  Do you want to go up Snowdon with Headley to-morrow, to see the sun rise?  You’ll kill yourself!”

“No,” said Valencia very quietly; “I only want to marry him.”

“Marry him?” cried Scoutbush, starting up.

“Don’t try to look majestic, my dear little brother, for you are really not tall enough; as it is, you have only hooked all your flies into your dressing-gown.”

Scoutbush dashed himself down into his chair again.

“I’ll be shot if you shall!”

“You may be shot just as surely, whether I do or not,” said she softly; and she knelt down before him, and put her arms round him, and laid her head upon his lap.  “There, you can’t run away now; so you must hear me quietly.  And you know it may not be often that we shall be together again thus; and oh, Scoutbush! brother! if anything was to happen to you—­I only say if—­in this horrid war, you would not like to think that you had refused the last thing your little Val asked for, and that she was miserable and lonely at home.”

“I’ll be shot if you shall!” was all the poor Viscount could get out.

“Yes, miserable and lonely; you gone away, and mon Saint Pere too:  and Lucia, she has her children—­and I am so wild and weak—­I must have some one to guide me and protect me—­indeed I must!”

“Why, that was what I always said!  That was why I wanted you so to marry this season!  Why did not you take Chalkclere, or half-a-dozen good matches who were dying for you, and not this confounded black parson, of all birds in the air?”

“I did not take Lord Chalkclere for the very reason that I do take Mr. Headley.  I want a husband who will guide me, not one whom I must guide.”

“Guide?” said Scoutbush bitterly, with one of those little sparks of practical shrewdness which sometimes fell from him.  “Aye, I see how it is!  These intriguing rascals of parsons—­they begin as father confessors, like so many popish priests; and one fine morning they blossom out into lovers, and so they get all the pretty women, and all the good fortunes,—­the sneaking, ambitious, low-bred—­”

“He is neither!  You are unjust, Scoutbush!” cried Valencia, looking up.  “He is the very soul of honour.  He might be rich now, and have had a fine living, if he had not been too conscientious to let his uncle buy him one; and that offended his uncle, and he would allow him nothing.  And as for being low-bred, he is a gentleman, as you know; and if his uncle be in business, his mother is a lady, and he will be well enough off one day.”