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!”

“It sounds very nice,” said Ripton, modestly shutting his mouth.

“The Alps!  Italy!  Rome! and then I shall go to the East,” the hero continued.  “She’s ready to go anywhere with me, the dear brave heart!  Oh, the glorious golden East!  I dream of the desert.  I dream I’m chief of an Arab tribe, and we fly all white in the moonlight on our mares, and hurry to the rescue of my darling!  And we push the spears, and we scatter them, and I come to the tent where she crouches, and catch her to my saddle, and away!—­Rip! what a life!”

Ripton strove to imagine he could enjoy it.

“And then we shall come home, and I shall lead Austin’s life, with her to help me.  First be virtuous, Rip! and then serve your country heart and soul.  A wise man told me that.  I think I shall do something.”

Sunshine and cloud, cloud and sunshine, passed over the lover.  Now life was a narrow ring; now the distances extended, were winged, flew illimitably.  An hour ago and food was hateful.  Now he manfully refreshed his nature, and joined in Algernon’s encomiums on Miss Letitia Thompson.