resume her study of the play.

"He's a nasty, snappish little cur!" said Gregory, calculating from her
manner that the remark would be endorsed. "He snapped at my horse's tail
yesterday, and nearly made it throw me. I wonder his master didn't take
him, instead of leaving him here to be a nuisance to all of us!"

Lyndall seemed absorbed in her play; but he ventured another remark.

"Do you think now, Miss Lyndall, that he'll ever have anything in the
world--that German. I mean--money enough to support a wife on, and all
that sort of thing? I don't. He's what I call soft."

She was spreading her skirt out softly with her left hand for the dog to
lie down on it.

"I think I should be rather astonished if he ever became a respectable
member of society," she said. I don't expect to see him the possessor of
bank-shares, the chairman of a divisional council, and the father of a
large family; wearing a black hat, and going to church twice on a Sunday.
He would rather astonish me if he came to such an end."

"Yes; I don't expect anything of him either," said Gregory, zealously.

"Well, I don't know," said Lyndall; "there are some small things I rather
look to him for. If he were to invent wings, or carve a statue that one
might look at for half an hour without wanting to look at something else, I
should not be surprised. He may do some little thing of that kind perhaps,
when he has done fermenting and the sediment has all gone to the bottom."