CHAPTER XXIII.
Don Sanchez proposes a very artful way to make Mr. Godwin a party to our knavery, etc.
I returned to Hurst Court the following day in the forenoon, and there I found Mr. Godwin, with Moll clinging to his arm, in an upper room commanding a view of the northern slopes, discussing their future, and Moll told me with glee how this room was to be her husband's work-room, where he would paint pictures for the admiration of all the world, saying that he would not (nor would she have him) renounce his calling to lead the idle life of a country gentleman.
"If the world admire my pictures, the world shall pay to have them," says he, with a smile; then turning to her he adds very tenderly: "I will owe all my happiness to you, sweetheart; yet guard my independence in more material matters. No mercenary question shall ever cast suspicion on my love."
Seeing I was not wanted here, I left them to settle their prospectives, and sought Don Sanchez, whom I found reading in a room below, seated in a comfortable chair before a good fire of apple logs. To please me, he shut up his book and agreed to take a stroll in the park while dinner was a-dressing. So we clap on our hats and cloaks and set forth, talking of indifferent matters till we are come into a fair open glade (which sort of place the pru-
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