“Keep me, keep me, now you have me!” sang the little glove, and amused the lover with a thousand conceits.

“When will she wake, do you think, Mrs. Berry?” he asked.

“Oh! we mustn’t go for disturbing her,” said the guileful good creature.  “Bless ye! let her sleep it out.  And if you young gentlemen was to take my advice, and go and take a walk for to get a appetite—­everybody should eat! it’s their sacred duty, no matter what their feelings be! and I say it who’m no chicken!—­I’ll frickashee this—­which is a chicken—­against your return.  I’m a cook, I can assure ye!”

The lover seized her two hands.  “You’re the best old soul in the world!” he cried.  Mrs. Berry appeared willing to kiss him.  “We won’t disturb her.  Let her sleep.  Keep her in bed, Mrs. Berry.  Will you?  And we’ll call to inquire after her this evening, and come and see her to-morrow.  I’m sure you’ll be kind to her.  There! there!” Mrs. Berry was preparing to whimper.  “I trust her to you, you see.  Good-bye, you dear old soul.”

He smuggled a handful of gold into her keeping, and went to dine with his uncles, happy and hungry.

Before they reached the hotel, they had agreed to draw Mrs. Berry into their confidence, telling her (with embellishments) all save their names, so that they might enjoy the counsel and assistance of that trump of a woman, and yet have nothing to fear from her.  Lucy was to receive the name of Letitia, Ripton’s youngest and best-looking sister.  The heartless fellow proposed it in cruel mockery of an old weakness of hers.

“Letitia!” mused Richard.  “I like the name.  Both begin with L. There’s something soft—­womanlike—­in the L.’s.”

Material Ripton remarked that they looked like pounds on paper.  The lover roamed through his golden groves.  “Lucy Feverel! that sounds better!  I wonder where Ralph is.  I should like to help him.  He’s in love with my cousin Clare.  He’ll never do anything till he marries.  No man can.  I’m going to do a hundred things when it’s over.  We shall travel first.  I want to see the Alps.  One doesn’t know what the earth is till one has seen the Alps.  What a delight it will be to her!  I fancy I see her eyes gazing up at them.

    ’And oh, your dear blue eyes, that heavenward glance
       With kindred beauty, banished humbleness,
       Past weeping for mortality’s distress—­
     Yet from your soul a tear hangs there in trance. 
          And fills, but does not fall;
          Softly I hear it call
     At heaven’s gate, till Sister Seraphs press
     To look on you their old love from the skies: 
     Those are the eyes of Seraphs bright on your blue eyes!

“Beautiful!  These lines, Rip, were written by a man who was once a friend of my father’s.  I intend to find him and make them friends again.  You don’t care for poetry.  It’s no use your trying to swallow it, Rip!”