“So said I to Cicely,” Sir Humphrey cried, eagerly, too interested in his own cause to heed my slighting words for his sister. “’Tis the rankest folly, I told her.  Here is Harry Wingfield, old enough almost to be Mary’s father, and beside, beside—­oh, confound it, Harry,” the generous lad burst out.  “I would not like you for a rival, for you are a good half foot taller than I, and you have that about you which would make a woman run to you and think herself safe were all the Indians in Virginia up, and you are a dark man, and I have heard say they like that, but, but—­oh, I say, Harry, ’tis a damned shame that you are here as you are, and not as a gentleman and a cavalier with the rest of us, for all the evidence to the contrary and all the government to the contrary, ’tis, ’tis the way you should be, and not a word of that charge do I believe.  May the fiends take me if I do, Harry!” So saying, the lad looked at me, and verily the tears were in his blue eyes, and out he thrust his honest hand for me to grasp, which I did with more of comfort than I had had for many a day, though it was the hand of a rival, and the next minute forth he burst again:  “Say, Harry, if it be true that thou art out of the running, and I believe it must be so, for how could?—­ say, Harry, think you there is any chance for me?”

“I know of no reason why there should not be, Sir Humphrey,” I said.

“Only, only—­that she is what she is, and I but myself.  Oh, Harry, was there ever one like that girl?  All the spirit of daring of a man she has, and yet is she full of all the sweet ways of a maid.  Faith, she would draw sword one minute and tie a ribbon the next.  She would have followed Bacon to the death, and sat up all night to broider herself a kerchief.  Comrade and sweetheart both she is, and was there ever one like her for beauty?  Harry, Harry, saw you ever such a beauty as Mary Cavendish?”

“No, and never will,” cried I, so fervently and so echoing to the full his youthful enthusiasm that again that keen look flashed into his eyes.  “Harry,” he stammered out, “you do not—­say, for God’s sake, Harry, you are a man if you are a—­a—­, and every day have you seen that angel, and—­and—­Harry, may the devil take me if I would go against thee if she—­you know I would not, Harry, for I remember well how you taught me to shoot, and, and—­I love thee, Harry, not in such fool fashion as my sister loveth Mary, but I love thee, and never would I cross thee.”

“Sir Humphrey,” said I, “it is not what you would, nor what I would, nor what any other man would, but what be best for Mary Cavendish, and her true happiness of life, that is to consider, whether you love her, or I love her, or any other man love her.”

“Faith, and a score do,” he said, gloomily.  “There be my Lord Estes and her cousin Ralph, and I know not how many more.  Faith, I would not have her less fair, but sometimes I would that a few were colour-blind.  But ’tis different when it comes to thee, Harry.  If she—­”