CHAPTER VIL

THE CHEVALIER BAYARD.

It was all explained to me afterwards. Percy Lascelles had been summoned abroad on some business of importance of this fact I was aware at the time; but knowing that he went for duty, not for pleasure, and also knowing that his visit was a very short one, it had never entered my head that he could by any chance have encountered Nelly O'Brien; nor had he for an instant imagined that the lovely girl to whom he had on two separate occasions been of such signal service, was the fair Irish governess, of whom he had so frequently heard.

All this being cleared up to my entire satisfaction, there was no longer the shadow of a misunderstanding between any of us. I laughed at Nelly's superstitious feeling in connexion with the dark, handsome stranger; and said all her odd emotions on first beholding him were sufficiently accounted for by the fact of his being my particular friend, with whom she would necessarily be much brought into contact, but whose influence over her we might be sure would never be exerted for anything but her good and happiness. And so we were all very happy at the

cottage; and this little cloud passed entirely away, leaving not a trace behind to mark that it had ever been there.

Percy frequently accompanied me on my visits, and he became a very great favourite with both ladies, and ever met with the warmest of welcomes. He was always in the way when wanted; and never by any chance an intruder on occasions when, perhaps, I did not much mind seeing the light of his cigar glimmering at the far end of the garden walk; for there are times and seasons when the best and dearest of friends may be de trop; and of this fact Percy seemed to be as well aware as myself.

Lady Dun den frequently regretted that she was not musical, for she knew that I liked music and that Percy was devoted to it; but instead of this, we chatted, had long and interesting discussions on all manner of subjects, and very often we had a rubber of whist, an amusement to which Miss Carew was remarkably partial, and at which she was quite a proficient. Percy, also, played admirably, but I fear they found but poor coadjutors in Nelly and myself; for we knew very little of the game, and I regret to say, did not bestow a sufficient portion of attention on it to lead to the supposition that some day we should do great things in that line.

Miss Carew made comical grimaces when I trumped a trick that was already hers; and Percy smiled and shook his head despairingly when Lady Duneden palpably revoked, and appeared unconscious of having done anything rather out of the permitted order of things. Then we took delicious strolls by the broad light of the full summer moon; Miss Carew and Percy usually started with us, but the worthy

spinster had an antagonistic feeling towards rheumatism, and after divers muttered allusions to "heavy dew," and "night air," we discovered on rounding a corner that she had retreated to the cosy drawingroom; and that Percy, too, had deserted us, and was studying the stars from a little terrace in front of the windows, the point of his cigar looking like an earthbound meteor of very erratic movements.

It was while returning to the barracks after one of those pleasant, social evenings, that Percy and I discussed my future prospects more freely than we had almost ever done.

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Well, Percy," I continued, in a gay tone, "I think I may flatter myself that your aversion to widows is a thing of the past. Nelly has worked quite a revolution in your ideas on that subject."

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She has worked a revolution in many of my ideas, Charley," he replied, warmly. "She is a good, true-hearted woman, whom any man might be proud to call his wife; but you are not undeserving of her, my boy; I will say that for you;" and he gave my hand an affectionate grasp.

"She is too good for me, Percy; I feel that."

"No, my boy," he said, kindly, "she is not one of your overwrought monsters of perfection, too ethereal and highly strung for any use or good in this world; I should not like her nearly so well if she were; there is no feeling sympathy with angels of this description. She is a warm-hearted, loving woman, and has doubtless her own faults and failings, though I must say I cannot name them. I fancy, Charley, that she may be impulsive and perhaps apt to be swayed by the feeling of the moment; but, God knows, on this head I have no right to offer an opinion, it is only too

much my own nature. I think that her Irish disposition may incline her to speak and act hastily where her pride or her affection were wounded by one for whom she felt regard; but this is the fault of a noble nature, and all with her is open and transparent as the day; you will never meet with deception or duplicity from her, if she is the woman I take her to be. Prize her, Charley, for you have indeed found a pearl of the purest water; prize her well, and do all in your power to secure her happiness."

"I will, indeed I will;" I replied, warmly. "You may trust me for that; I will do my very best to make Nelly happy."

If the lady of my love were thus fortunate in the possession of Percy's good opinion, he occupied a no less honourable position in her regard and esteem; indeed, I sometimes laughingly declared that I was jealous of the way in which she and Miss Carew reechoed his praises.

The two ladies and myself were sitting in the garden one evening, and I had just been apologizing for Percy's unavoidable absence, he having been detained in barracks by some business of consequence.

"Charley," said Nelly, suddenly, "how is it that your friend Captain Lascelles has never married?"

"Never married!" I replied; " you say that as if he were sixty, at the very least; instead of a handsome man in the very prime of life, with time enough before him to marry a dozen wives, if he pleases."

"Of course I don't mean that he is old, for he is quite young; but he is so nice, that I wonder he has not been picked up long ago. He has such domestic tastes, too; hates balls and racket of all kinds, and he so thoroughly understands women and their ways.

Why, there is Miss Carew has quite lost her heart to him, and she has the worst possible opinion of young men now-a-days. Haven't you, dear?"

“Oh, no, Lady Duneden, I am not quite so bad as that; people would be apt to say the grapes were sour if I affected to look down on mankind generally. Besides, my dear, I really do nothing of the kind."

"Oh, you traitress!" said Nelly, laughing, and shaking her fore-finger reproachfully at the worthy old lady; "how can you tell such very shocking fibs? Did not you and I return home only last night, and sit in judgment on all the fine gentlemen at Lady Mary's party; and didn't we abuse above all those loungers at the doorway who stood there the whole time, stroking their great, ugly moustaches, and staring so ferociously about them, just as if they could have eaten up everybody that minute, and then looked about for more?"

"Yes, my dear, but--"

"And didn't you say that we wouldn't give the tip of our Charley's little finger for the whole lot of them? Don't blush, Charley; as I do not often flatter you, I shall just hint confidentially that Miss Carew considers you a model worthy of all imitation; and that you and Captain Lascelles are most honourable exceptions to her railings at the degenerate youth of the present day. Now, Miss Carew, is not this the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?"

"Yes, my dear, that is all very true; but I don't exactly rail at the gentlemen of the present day; I only think many of them are sadly deficient in that respect and courtesy towards ladies which I have always been accustomed to consider as one of the chief marks of good breeding. I don't like the care