I nodded.

'You let him think they robbed you, and you had your purse to give me a
gold guinea out of it!' Eveleen cried, and finding herself in the wrong
track, volubly resumed: 'That they didn't, for they hadn't time, whether
they meant to, and the night black as a coal, whoever they were.'

The mystery of my not having sent word to Bulsted or to Riversley
perplexed my father.

'Comfortable here!' he echoed me, disconsolately, and glanced at the
heath, the tent, the black circle of the broth-pot, and the wild girl.




CHAPTER XLVII

MY FATHER ACTS THE CHARMER AGAIN

Kiomi's mother was seen in a turn of the gravel-cutting, bearing
purchases from Durstan village. She took the new circumstances in with a
single cast up of her wary eyelids; and her, and her skill in surgery and
art in medicine, I praised to lull her fears, which procured me the
denomination of old friend, as well as handsome gentleman: she went so
far as to add, in a fit of natural warmth, nice fellow; and it is the
truth, that this term effected wonders in flattering me: it seemed to
reveal to me how simple it was for Harry Richmond, one whom gipsies could
think a nice fellow, to be the lord of Janet's affections--to be her
husband. My heart throbbed; yet she was within range of a mile and a