It gave no beating of the heart to Rose to hear good of Evan now: but an increased serenity of confidence in the accuracy of her judgment of persons.
The arrival of lawyer Perkins supplied the key to Caroline’s communication. No one was less astonished than Rose at the news that Evan renounced the estate. She smiled at Harry’s contrite stupefaction, and her father’s incapacity of belief in conduct so singular, caused her to lift her head and look down on her parent.
“Shows he knows nothing of the world, poor young fellow!” said Sir Franks.
“Nothing more clearly,” observed Lady Jocelyn. “I presume I shall cease to be blamed for having had him here?”
“Upon my honour, he must have the soul of a gentleman!” said the Baronet. “There’s nothing he can expect in return, you know!”
“One would think, papa, you had always been dealing with tradesmen!” remarked Rose, to whom her father now accorded the treatment due to a sensible girl.
Laxley was present at the family consultation. What was his opinion? Rose manifested a slight anxiety to hear it.
“What those sort of fellows do never surprises me,” he said, with a semi-yawn.
Rose felt fire on her cheeks.
“It’s only what the young man is bound to do,” said Mrs. Shorne.
“His duty, aunt? I hope we may all do it!” Rose interjected.
“Championing him again?”
Rose quietly turned her face, too sure of her cold appreciation of him to retort. But yesterday night a word from him might have made her his; and here she sat advocating the nobility of his nature with the zeal of a barrister in full swing of practice. Remember, however, that a kiss separates them: and how many millions of leagues that counts for in love, I leave you to guess.
Now, in what way was Evan to be thanked? how was he to be treated? Sir Franks proposed to go down to him in person, accompanied by Harry. Lady Jocelyn acquiesced. But Rose said to her mother:
“Will not you wound his sensitiveness by going to him there?”
“Possibly,” said her ladyship. “Shall we write and ask him to come to us?”
“No, mama. Could we ask him to make a journey to receive our thanks?”
“Not till we have solid ones to offer, perhaps.”
“He will not let us help him, mama, unless we have all given him our hands.”
“Probably not. There’s always a fund of nonsense in those who are capable of great things, I observe. It shall be a family expedition, if you like.”
“What!” exclaimed Mrs. Shorne. “Do you mean that you intend to allow Rose to make one of the party? Franks! is that your idea?”
Sir Franks looked at his wife.
“What harm?” Lady Jocelyn asked; for Rose’s absence of conscious guile in appealing to her reason had subjugated that great faculty.
“Simply a sense of propriety, Emily,” said Mrs. Shorne, with a glance at Ferdinand.
“You have no objection, I suppose?” Lady Jocelyn addressed him.
“Ferdinand will join us,” said Rose.
“Thank you, Rose, I’d rather not,” he replied. “I thought we had done with the fellow for good last night.”
“Last night?” quoth Lady Jocelyn.
No one spoke. The interrogation was renewed. Was it Rose’s swift instinct which directed her the shortest way to gain her point? or that she was glad to announce that her degrading engagement was at an end?
She said: “Ferdinand and Mr. Harrington came to an understanding last night, in my presence.”
That, strange as it struck on their ears, appeared to be quite sufficient to all, albeit the necessity for it was not so very clear. The carriage was ordered forthwith; Lady Jocelyn went to dress; Rose drew Ferdinand away into the garden. There, with all her powers, she entreated him to join her.
“Thank you, Rose,” he said; “I’ve no taste for tailors.”
“For my sake I beg it, Ferdinand.”
“It’s really too much to ask of me, Rose.”
“If you care for me, you will.”
“’Pon my honour, quite impossible!”
“You refuse, Ferdinand?”
“My London tailor’d find me out, and never forgive me.”
This pleasantry stopped her soft looks. Why she wished him to be with her, she could not have said. For a thousand reasons: which implies, no distinct one: something prophetically pressing in her blood.
GREAT GUNS AND ARMOURED WAR-SHIPS.
The work-people of our “faithful ally” across the Channel have just launched for him an armoured frigate christened La Gloire. We know nothing about it save what the scribes of the ruler have set down by his permission, and if all be gold that glitters, wonders have been achieved, for the craft is wholly impregnable to shot—at what distance we are not told—and may defy and vanquish the whole British fleet. In fact, the Gallic Emperor is now the ruler of the seas, and the “meteor flag” of England is no better than a shooting star gone out, while a decree has gone forth that henceforth the Gallic cock is to be a web-footed bird. And Captain Halsted, writing to the “Times,” seems to think that there is something in it—that the Gauls have stolen a sea march over the descendants of the Norse coursers, and that the indigenous gnomes of the iron mines are to be conjured beyond seas, the Red Sea inclusive.
Well, before we sit down under this last Imperial dispensation, let us at least look into it. In the first place, “whatever man has done man may do,” was a maxim written over my schoolroom-door; but climbing, as the world still is, over the