interrupted by a question as to Dona Rosita.

'Like all the rest. Eyes and feet, that's all. Foolish business!
But what possessed Ormersfield to make such a blunder? I never saw
Ponsonby in such a tantrum, and his are no trifles.'

'It was all the fault of your clerk, Robson,' said James; 'he would
not refute the story.'

'Sharp fellow, Robson,' chuckled Oliver; 'couldn't refute it. No; as
he told me, he knew the way Ponsonby had gone on ever since his wife
went home, and of late he had sent him to Guayaquil, about the
Equatorial Navigation--so he had seen nothing;--and, says he to me,
he had no notion of bringing out poor Miss Ponsonby--did not know
whether her father would thank him; and yet the best of it is, that
he pacifies Ponsonby with talking of difficulty of dealing with
preconceived notions. Knows how to get hold of him. Marriage would
never have been if he had been there, but it was the less damage.
Mary would have had more reason to have turned about, if she had not
found him married.'

'But, Oliver,' said his mother, 'I thought this Robson was an honest
man, in whom you had entire confidence!'

'Ha! ha! D'ye think I'd put that in _any_ man? No, no; he knows how
far to go with me. I've plenty of checks on him. Can't get business
done but by a wide-awake chap like that.'

'Is Madison under him?' asked Louis, feeling as if he had been
apprenticing the boy to a chief of banditti.