pokering of the country! and lie in peace, old Shrapnel! and get on your
legs when you can, and offend no more; especially be mindful not to let
fly one word against a woman! With Cecilia for wife, and a year of
marriage devoted to a son and heir, Nevil might be expected to resume his
duties as a naval officer, and win an honourable name for the inheritance
of the young one he kissed.

There was benevolence in these previsions of Mr. Romfrey, proving how
good it is for us to bow to despotic authority, if only we will bring
ourselves unquestioningly to accept the previous deeds of the directing
hand.

Colonel Halkett gave up his daughter for lost when she did not appear at
the breakfast-table: for yet more decidedly lost when the luncheon saw
her empty place; and as time drew on toward the dinner-hour, he began to
think her lost beyond hope, embarked for good and all with the madbrain.
Some little hope of a dissension between the pair, arising from the
natural antagonism of her strong sense to Nevil's extravagance, had
buoyed him until it was evident that they must have alighted at an inn to
eat, which signified that they had overleaped the world and its hurdles,
and were as dreamy a leash of lovers as ever made a dreamland of hard
earth. The downs looked like dreamland through the long afternoon. They
shone as in a veil of silk-softly fair, softly dark. No spot of
harshness was on them save where a quarry South-westward gaped at the
evening sun.

Red light struck into that round chalk maw, and the green slopes and
channels and half-circle hollows were brought a mile-stride higher
Steynham by the level beams.