where he lay stranded, to London, by I knew not what heaven-sent gift of money, bidding me keep in view the grand career I was to commence at Dipwell on arriving at my majority.  I would have gone with him had he beckoned a finger.  The four-and-twenty bottles of Hock were ranged in a line for the stable-boys to cock-shy at them under the squire’s supervision and my enforced attendance, just as revolutionary criminals are executed.  I felt like the survivor of friends, who had seen their blood flow.

He handed me a cheque for the payment of debts incurred in my recent adventures.  Who could help being grateful for it?  And yet his remorseless spilling of the kindly wine full of mellow recollections of my father and the little princess, drove the sense of gratitude out of me.

CHAPTER XX

NEWS OF A FRESH CONQUEST OF MY FATHER’S

Temple went to sea.  The wonder is that I did not go with him:  we were both in agreement that adventures were the only things worth living for, and we despised English fellows who had seen no place but England.  I could not bear the long separation from my father that was my reason for not insisting on the squire’s consent to my becoming a midshipman.  After passing a brilliant examination, Temple had the good fortune to join Captain Bulsted’s ship, and there my honest-hearted friend dismally composed his letter of confession, letting me know that he had been untrue to friendship, and had proposed to Janet Ilchester, and interchanged vows with her.  He begged my forgiveness, but he did love her so!—­he hoped I would not mind.  I sent him a reproachful answer; I never cared for him more warmly than when I saw the letter shoot the slope of the postoffice mouth.  Aunt Dorothy undertook to communicate assurances of my undying affection for him.  As for Janet—­Temple’s letter, in which he spoke of her avowed preference for Oriental presents, and declared his intention of accumulating them on his voyages, was a harpoon in her side.  By means of it I worried and terrified her until she was glad to have it all out before the squire.  What did he do?  He said that Margery, her mother, was niggardly; a girl wanted presents, and I did not act up to my duty; I ought to buy Turkey and Tunis to please her, if she had a mind for them.

The further she was flattered the faster she cried; she had the face of an old setter with these hideous tears.  The squire promised her fifty pounds per annum in quarterly payments, that she might buy what presents she liked, and so tie herself to constancy.  He said aside to me, as if he had a knowledge of the sex—­’Young ladies must have lots of knickknacks, or their eyes ‘ll be caught right and left, remember that.’  I should have been delighted to see her caught.  She talked of love in a ludicrous second-hand way, sending me into fits of disgusted laughter.  On other occasions her lips were not hypocritical, and her figure anything