conduct or his person; grave silence.  Reflecting on it, Cecilia grew indignant at the thought that Mr. Tuckham might have been acting a sinister part.  Mrs. Beauchamp alluded to a newspaper article of her favourite great-nephew Blackburn, written, Cecilia knew through her father, to controvert some tremendous proposition of Nevil’s.  That was writing, Mrs. Beauchamp said.  ’I am not in the habit of fearing a conflict, so long as we have stout defenders.  I rather like it,’ she said.

The colonel entertained Mrs. Beauchamp, while Mr. Tuckham led Miss Halkett over the garden.  Cecilia considered that his remarks upon Nevil were insolent.

’Seriously, Miss Halkett, to take him at his best, he is a very good fellow, I don’t doubt; I am told so; and a capital fellow among men, a good friend and not a bad boon-fellow, and for that matter, the smoking-room is a better test than the drawing-room; all he wants is emphatically school—­school—­school.  I have recommended the simple iteration of that one word in answer to him at his meetings, and the printing of it as a foot-note to his letters.’

Cecilia’s combative spirit precipitated her to say, ’I hear the mob in it shouting Captain Beauchamp down.’

‘Ay,’ said Mr. Tuckham, ’it would be setting the mob to shout wisely at last.’

‘The mob is a wild beast.’

‘Then we should hear wisdom coming out of the mouth of the wild beast.’

‘Men have the phrase, “fair play."’

’Fair play, I say, is not applicable to a man who deliberately goes about to stir the wild beast.  He is laughed at, plucked, hustled, and robbed, by those who deafen him with their “plaudits”—­their roars.  Did you see his advertisement of a great-coat, lost at some rapscallion gathering down in the North, near my part of the country?  A great-coat and a packet of letters.  He offers a reward of L10.  But that’s honest robbery compared with the bleeding he’ll get.’

‘Do you know Mr. Seymour Austin?’ Miss Halkett asked him.

‘I met him once at your father’s table.  Why?’

‘I think you would like to listen to him.’

‘Yes, my fault is not listening enough,’ said Mr. Tuckham.

He was capable of receiving correction.

Her father told her he was indebted to Mr. Tuckham past payment in coin, for services rendered by him on a trying occasion among the miners in Wales during the first spring month.  ’I dare say he can speak effectively to miners,’ Cecilia said, outvying the contemptuous young man in superciliousness, but with effort and not with satisfaction.

She left London in July, two days before her father could be induced to return to Mount Laurels.  Feverish, and strangely subject to caprices now, she chose the longer way round by Sussex, and alighted at the station near Steynham to call on Mrs. Culling, whom she knew to be at the Hall, preparing it for Mr. Romfrey’s occupation.  In imitation of her father she was Rosamund’s fast friend, though she had never quite realized her position, and did not thoroughly understand her.  Would it not please her father to hear that she had chosen the tedious route for the purpose of visiting this lady, whose champion he was?