vigils clear the wits? I know not! but indeed they have enabled me to
do more in a week than would suffice for a lifetime. Hark to me. I have
discovered Rose's secret. Si! It is so! Rose loves you. You blush;
you blush like a girl. She loves you, and you have let yourself be seen
in a shop! Contrast me the two things. Oh! in verity, dreadful as it
is, one could almost laugh. But the moment I lose sight of you, my
instructions vanish as quickly as that hair on your superior lip, which
took such time to perfect. Alas! you must grow it again immediately.
Use any perfumer's contrivance. Rowland! I have great faith in Rowland.
Without him, I believe, there would have been many bald women committing
suicide! You remember the bottle I gave to the Count de Villa Flor?
"Countess," he said to me, "you have saved this egg-shell from a crack by
helping to cover it"--for so he called his head--the top, you know, was
beginning to shine like an egg. And I do fear me he would have done it.
Ah! you do not conceive what the dread of baldness is! To a woman death
--death is preferable to baldness! Baldness is death! And a wig--
a wig! Oh, horror! total extinction is better than to rise again in a
wig! But you are young, and play with hair. But I was saying, I went to
see the Jocelyns. I was introduced to Sir Franks and his lady and the
wealthy grandmother. And I have an invitation for you, Evan--you
unmannered boy, that you do not bow! A gentle incline forward of the
shoulders, and the eyes fixed softly, your upper lids drooping
triflingly, as if you thanked with gentle sincerity, but were
indifferent. Well, well, if you will not! An invitation for you to
spend part of the autumn at Beckley Court, the ancestral domain, where
there will be company the nobles of the land! Consider that. You say it
was bold in me to face them after that horrible man committed us on board
the vessel? A Harrington is anything but a coward. I did go and because
I am devoted to your interests. That very morning, I saw announced in
the paper, just beneath poor Andrew's hand, as he held it up at the