“Poor orphan!”

“When you speak to him he never answers—­blushes instead.”

“Poor child!”

“He has read of eloquent blushes, and thinks there is no need to reply in words—­blushing must be such an interesting and effective substitute.”

“Poor boy, he wants a little judicious kindness.  We will have him here.”

“Here!” cried the old gentleman, with horror.  “What! make Font Abbey a kennel!!!  No, Lucy, no, this house is sacred; no nuisances admitted here.  Here, on this single spot of earth, reigns comfort, and shall reign unruffled while I live.  This is the temple of peace.  If I must be worried, I must, but not beneath this hallowed roof.”

This eloquence, delivered as it was with a sudden solemnity, told upon the mind.

“Dear Font Abbey,” murmured Lucy, half closing her eyes, “how well you describe it!  Societies of the cosey; the walls seem padded, the carpets velvet, and the whole structure care-proof; all is quiet gayety and sweet punctuality.  Here comfort and good humor move by clock-work; that is Font Abbey.  Yet you are right; if you were to be seen in it no more, it would lose the life of its charm, dear Uncle Fountain.”

“Thank you, my dear—­thank you.  I do like to see my friends about me comfortable, and, above all, to be comfortable myself.  The place is well enough, and I am bitterly sorry I must leave it, and sorry to leave you, my dear.”

“Leave us? not immediately?”

“This very day.  Why, the funeral is to be this week—­a grand funeral—­and I have to order it all.  Then there are relatives to be invited—­thirty letters—­others to be asked to the reading of the will.  It will be one hurry-scurry till we get the house clear of the corpse and the vultures; then at it I must go, head-foremost, into fathomless addition—­subtraction—­multiplication, and vexation.  ’Oh, now forever farewell, something or other—­farewell content!’ You talk of misanthropy.  I shall end there.  Lucy.”

“Yes, dear uncle.”

“I never—­do—­a good-natured thing—­but—­I—­bitterly—­repent it.  By Jupiter! the coffee is cold; the first time that has befallen me since I turned off seven servants that battled that point of comfort with me.”

Lucy suggested that the coffee might have cooled a little while he was being so kind as to answer her question at unusual length.  Then she came round to him bringing a fresh supply of fragrant slow poison, and sat beside him and soothed him till his ire went down, and came the calm depression of a man who, accustomed for many years to do just what he liked, found himself suddenly obliged to do something he did not like—­a thing out of the groove of his habits too.

Sure enough, he left Font Abbey the same day, with a promise, exacted by Lucy, that he should make her the partner of all his vexations by writing to her every day.

“And, Lucy,” said the old Parthian, as he stepped into his traveling-carriage, “my friend Talboys will miss me; pray be kind to him while I am away.  He is a particular friend of mine.  I may be wrong, but I do like men of known origin—­of old family.”