far as she could recollect subsequently, there was a packet of letters, or a pocket-book containing letters of Nevil’s which he had lost, and which had been forwarded to Mr. Romfrey; for the pocket-book was originally his, and his address was printed inside.  But among these letters was one from Dr. Shrapnel to Nevil:  a letter so horrible that Rosamund frowned at the reminiscence of it, holding it to be too horrible for the quotation of a sentence.  She owned she had forgotten any three consecutive words.  Her known dislike of Captain Baskelett, however, was insufficient to make her see that it was unjustifiable in him to run about London reading it, with comments of the cruellest.  Rosamund’s greater detestation of Dr. Shrapnel blinded her to the offence committed by the man she would otherwise have been very ready to scorn.  So small did the circumstance appear to Cecilia, notwithstanding her gentle opposition at the time she listened to it, that she never thought of mentioning it to her father, and only remembered it when Captain Baskelett, with Lord Palmet in his company, presented himself at Mount Laurels, and proposed to the colonel to read to him ’a letter from that scoundrelly old Shrapnel to Nevil Beauchamp, upon women, wives, thrones, republics, British loyalty, et caetera,’—­an et caetera that rolled a series of tremendous reverberations down the list of all things held precious by freeborn Englishmen.

She would have prevented the reading.  But the colonel would have it.

‘Read on,’ said he.  ‘Mr. Romfrey saw no harm.’

Captain Baskelett held up Dr. Shrapnel’s letter to Commander Beauchamp, at about half a yard’s distance on the level of his chin, as a big-chested singer in a concert-room holds his music-scroll.

CHAPTER XXIX

THE EPISTLE OF DR. SHRAPNEL TO COMMANDER BEAUCHAMP

Before we give ear to the recital of Dr. Shrapnel’s letter to his pupil in politics by the mouth of Captain Baskelett, it is necessary to defend this gentleman, as he would handsomely have defended himself, from the charge that he entertained ultimate designs in regard to the really abominable scrawl, which was like a child’s drawing of ocean with here and there a sail capsized, and excited his disgust almost as much as did the contents his great indignation.  He was prepared to read it, and stood blown out for the task, but it was temporarily too much for him.  ‘My dear Colonel, look at it, I entreat you,’ he said, handing the letter for exhibition, after fixing his eye-glass, and dropping it in repulsion.  The common sentiment of mankind is offended by heterodoxy in mean attire; for there we see the self-convicted villain—­the criminal caught in the act; we try it and convict it by instinct without the ceremony of a jury; and so thoroughly aware of our promptitude in this respect has our arch-enemy become since his mediaeval disgraces that his particular advice to his followers is now to scrupulously copy the world in externals; never to appear poorly clothed, nor to impart deceptive communications in bad handwriting.  We can tell black from white, and our sagacity has taught him a lesson.