Affairs glided on quietly till the Saturday, when Lord Ormersfield returned.  Never had he so truly known what it was to come home as when he mounted the stairs, with steps unlike his usual measured tread, and beheld his son’s look of animated welcome, and eager, outstretched hands.

‘I was afraid,’ said the Earl, presently, ’that you had not felt so well,’ and he touched his own upper lip to indicate that the same feature in his son was covered with down like a young bird.

Louis blushed a little, but spoke indifferently.  ’I thought it a pity not to leave it for the regulation moustache for the Yeomanry.’

’I wish I could think you likely to be fit to go out with the Yeomanry.’

‘Every effort must be made!’ cried Louis.  ’What do they say in London about the invasion?’

It was the year 1847, when a French invasion was in every one’s mouth, and Sydney Calcott had been retailing all sorts of facts about war-steamers and artillery, in a visit to Fitzjocelyn, whose patriotism had forthwith run mad, so that he looked quite baffled when his father coolly set the whole down as ‘the regular ten years’ panic.’  There was a fervid glow within him of awe, courage, and enterprise, the outward symbol of which was that infant yellow moustache.  He was obliged, however, to allow the subject to be dismissed, while his father told him of Sir Miles Oakstead’s kind inquiries, and gave a message of greeting from his aunt Lady Conway, delivering himself of it as an unpleasant duty, and adding, as he turned to Mrs. Ponsonby, ‘She desired to be remembered to you, Mary.’

‘I have not seen her for many years.  Is Sir Walter alive?’

‘No; he died about three years ago.’

‘I suppose her daughters are not come out yet?’

’Her own are in the school-room; but there is a step-daughter who is much admired.’

‘Those cousins of mine,’ exclaimed Louis, ’it is strange that I have never seen them.  I think I had better employ some of my spare time this summer in making their acquaintance.’

Mrs. Ponsonby perceived that the Earl had become inspired with a deadly terror of the handsome stepdaughter; for he turned aside and began to unpack a parcel.  It was M’Culloch’s Natural Theology, into which Louis had once dipped at Mr. Calcott’s, and had expressed a wish to read it.  His father had taken some pains to procure this too-scarce book for him, and he seized on it with delighted and surprised gratitude, plunging at once into the middle, and reading aloud a most eloquent passage upon electricity.  No beauty, however, could atone to Lord Ormersfield for the outrage upon method.  ’If you would oblige me, Louis,’ he said, ’you would read that book consecutively.’

‘To oblige you, certainly,’ said Louis, smiling, and turning to the first page, but his vivacious eagerness was extinguished.

M’Culloch is not an author to be thoroughly read without a strong effort.  His gems are of the purest ray, but they lie embedded in a hard crust of reasoning and disquisition; and on the first morning, Louis, barely strong enough yet for a battle with his own volatility, looked, and owned himself, dead beat by the first chapter.