He glanced at Lydiard, to indicate that it came of that gentleman’s influence upon her mind.  It was impossible for him to think that women thought.  The idea of a pretty woman exercising her mind independently, and moreover moving him to examine his own, made him smile.  Could a sweet-faced girl, the nearest to Renee in grace of manner and in feature of all women known to him, originate a sentence that would set him reflecting?  He was unable to forget it, though he allowed her no credit for it.

On the other hand, his admiration of her devotedness to Dr. Shrapnel was unbounded.  There shone a strictly feminine quality! according to the romantic visions of the sex entertained by Commander Beauchamp, and by others who would be the objects of it.  But not alone the passive virtues were exhibited by Jenny Denham:  she proved that she had high courage.  No remonstrance could restrain Dr. Shrapnel from going out to watch the struggle, and she went with him as a matter of course on each occasion.  Her dress bore witness to her running the gauntlet beside him.

‘It was not thrown at me purposely,’ she said, to quiet Beauchamp’s wrath.  She saved the doctor from being rough mobbed.  Once when they were surrounded she fastened his arm under hers, and by simply moving on with an unswerving air of serenity obtained a passage for him.  So much did she make herself respected, that the gallant rascals became emulous in dexterity to avoid powdering her, by loudly execrating any but dead shots at the detested one, and certain boys were maltreated for an ardour involving clumsiness.  A young genius of this horde conceiving, in the spirit of the inventors of our improved modern ordnance, that it was vain to cast missiles which left a thing standing, hurled a stone wrapped in paper.  It missed its mark.  Jenny said nothing about it.  The day closed with a comfortable fight or two in by-quarters of the town, probably to prove that an undaunted English spirit, spite of fickle Fortune, survived in our muscles.

CHAPTER XXVIII

TOUCHING A YOUNG LADY’S HEART AND HER INTELLECT

Mr. Tuckham found his way to Dr. Shrapnel’s cottage to see his kinsman on the day after the election.  There was a dinner in honour of the Members for Bevisham at Mount Laurels in the evening, and he was five minutes behind military time when he entered the restive drawing-room and stood before the colonel.  No sooner had he stated that he had been under the roof of Dr. Shrapnel, than his unpunctuality was immediately overlooked in the burst of impatience evoked by the name.

‘That pestilent fellow!’ Colonel Halkett ejaculated.  ’I understand he has had the impudence to serve a notice on Grancey Lespel about encroachments on common land.’

Some one described Dr. Shrapnel’s appearance under the flour storm.

‘He deserves anything,’ said the colonel, consulting his mantelpiece clock.