You'll horsewhip Dick Darkly, Sir Everard! Why, he could take you with one hand by the waist-band, and lay you low in the kennel any day he liked! And he'll do it, too!" muttered Godsoe, turning slowly away.

"You won't be warned, and you won't take precaution, and you won't condescend to be afeard, and you'll come to grief afore you know it." The misty autumn twilight lay like a veil of silver blue over the peaceful English landscape; a cool breeze swept up from the sea over the golden downs and distant hills, and as Sir Everard rode along through the village, the cloud left his face, and a tender, dreamy look came in its place.
"She will be present, of course," he thought.

"I wonder if I shall find her as I left her last?
She is not the kind that play fast and loose, my stately, uplifted Lady Louise.

How queenly she looked at the reception last night in those velvet robes and the Carteret diamonds!--'queen rose of the rose-bud garden of girls.' She is my elder by three round years at least, but she is stately as a princess, and at twenty-five preserves the ripe bloom of eighteen.

She is all that is gracious when we meet, and my mother has set her heart upon the match.