“Oh, yes,” cried the boy; “out over Bournden, through Mewsey up to Closharn Beacon, and down on Aspenwell, where there’s a common for racing.  And ford the stream!”

“An inducement for you,” De Craye said to her.

She smiled and squeezed the boy’s hand.

“We won’t go without you, Crossjay.”

“You don’t carry a comb, my man, when you bathe?”

At this remark of the colonel’s young Crossjay conceived the appearance of his matted locks in the eyes of his adorable lady.  He gave her one dear look through his redness, and fled.

“I like that boy,” said De Craye.

“I love him,” said Clara.

Crossjay’s troubled eyelids in his honest young face became a picture for her.

“After all, Miss Middleton, Willoughby’s notions about him are not so bad, if we consider that you will be in the place of a mother to him.”

“I think them bad.”

“You are disinclined to calculate the good fortune of the boy in having more of you on land than he would have in crown and anchor buttons!”

“You have talked of him with Willoughby.”

“We had a talk last night.”

Of how much? thought she.

“Willoughby returns?” she said.

“He dines here, I know; for he holds the key of the inner cellar, and Doctor Middleton does him the honour to applaud his wine.  Willoughby was good enough to tell me that he thought I might contribute to amuse you.”

She was brooding in stupefaction on her father and the wine as she requested Colonel De Craye to persuade Willoughby to take the general view of Crossjay’s future and act on it.

“He seems fond of the boy, too,” said De Craye, musingly.

“You speak in doubt?”

“Not at all.  But is he not—­men are queer fish!—­make allowance for us—­a trifle tyrannical, pleasantly, with those he is fond of?”

“If they look right and left?”

It was meant for an interrogation; it was not with the sound of one that the words dropped.  “My dear Crossjay!” she sighed.  “I would willingly pay for him out of my own purse, and I will do so rather than have him miss his chance.  I have not mustered resolution to propose it.”

“I may be mistaken, Miss Middleton.  He talked of the boy’s fondness of him.”

“He would.”

“I suppose he is hardly peculiar in liking to play Pole-star.”

“He may not be.”

“For the rest, your influence should be all-powerful.”

“It is not.”

De Craye looked with a wandering eye at the heavens.

“We are having a spell of weather perfectly superb.  And the odd thing is, that whenever we have splendid weather at home we’re all for rushing abroad.  I’m booked for a Mediterranean cruise—­postponed to give place to your ceremony.”

“That?” she could not control her accent.

“What worthier?”

She was guilty of a pause.