of the day when Lord Levellier sprang upon him! It shows the old
campaigner's shrewdness in guessing where his prey would come, and not
putting him on his guard by a call at his house. Out of the window he
looked for all the hours of light during an entire fortnight. 'In the
service of my sister's child,' he said. 'To save him from the cost of
maintaining her,' say his enemies. At any rate he did it.

He was likely to have done the worse which I suspect.

Now, the imparting of the wonderful news to Admiral Baldwin Fakenham
was, we read, the whiff of a tropical squall to lay him on his beam ends.
He could not but doubt; and his talk was like the sails of a big ship
rattling to the first puff of wind. He had to believe; and then, we
read, he was for hours like a vessel rolling in the trough of the sea.
Of course he was a disappointed father. Naturally his glance at the loss
to Henrietta of the greatest prize of the matrimonial market of all
Europe and America was vexing and saddening. Then he woke up to think of
the fortunes of his 'other girl,' as he named her, and cried: 'Crinny
catches him!'

He cried it in glee and rubbed his hands.

So thereupon, standing before him, Chillon John, from whom he had the
news, bent to him slightly, as his elegant manner was, and lengthened the
admiral's chaps with another proposal; easy, deliberate, precise, quite
the respectful bandit, if you please, determined on having his daughter
by all means, only much preferring the legal, formal, and friendly. Upon
that, in the moment of indecision, Henrietta enters, followed by Admiral
Baldwin's heroine, his Crinny, whom he embraced and kissed, congratulated
and kissed again. One sees the contrivance to soften him.