"Then his little sister is going to do a very foolish thing, and wants his leave to do it; which if he will grant, she will let him do as many foolish things as he likes without scolding him, as long as they both shall live."

"Do it then, I beg. What is it? Do you want to go up Snowdon with Headley to-morrow, to see the sun rise? You'll kill yourself!"

"No," said Valencia very quietly; "I only want to marry him."

"Marry him?" cried Scoutbush, starting up.

"Don't try to look majestic, my dear little brother, for you are really not tall enough; as it is, you have only hooked all your flies into your dressing-gown."

Scoutbush dashed himself down into his chair again.

"I'll be shot if you shall!"

"You may be shot just as surely, whether I do or not," said she softly; and she knelt down before him, and put her arms round him, and laid her head upon his lap. "There, you can't run away now; so you must hear me quietly. And you know it may not be often that we shall be together again thus; and oh, Scoutbush! brother! if anything was to happen to you--I only say if--in this horrid war, you would not like to think that you had refused the last thing your little Val asked for, and that she was miserable and lonely at home."

"I'll be shot if you shall!" was all the poor Viscount could get out.

"Yes, miserable and lonely; you gone away, and mon Saint Pere too: and Lucia, she has her children--and I am so wild and weak--I must have some one to guide me and protect me--indeed I must!"

"Why, that was what I always said! That was why I wanted you so to marry this season! Why did not you take Chalkclere, or half-a-dozen good matches who were dying for you, and not this confounded black parson, of all birds in the air?"

"I did not take Lord Chalkclere for the very reason that I do take Mr.

Headley. I want a husband who will guide me, not one whom I must guide."

"Guide?" said Scoutbush bitterly, with one of those little sparks of practical shrewdness which sometimes fell from him. "Aye, I see how it is! These intriguing rascals of parsons--they begin as father confessors, like so many popish priests; and one fine morning they blossom out into lovers, and so they get all the pretty women, and all the good fortunes,--the sneaking, ambitious, low-bred--"

"He is neither! You are unjust, Scoutbush!" cried Valencia, looking up.

"He is the very soul of honour. He might be rich now, and have had a fine living, if he had not been too conscientious to let his uncle buy him one; and that offended his uncle, and he would allow him nothing.

And as for being low-bred, he is a gentleman, as you know; and if his uncle be in business, his mother is a lady, and he will be well enough off one day."

"You seem to know a great deal about his affairs."

"He told me all, months ago--before there was any dream of this. And, my dear," she went on, relapsing into her usual arch tone, "there is no fear but his uncle will be glad enough to patronise him again, when he finds that he has married a viscount's sister."

Scoutbush laughed. "You scheming little Irish rogue! But I won't! I've said it, and I won't. It's enough to have one sister married to a poor poet, without having another married to a poor parson. Oh! what have I done that I should be bothered in this way? Isn't it bad enough to be a landlord, and to have an estate, and be responsible for a lot of people that will die of the cholera, and have to vote in the house about a lot of things I don't understand, or anybody else, I believe, but that, over and above, I must be the head of the family, and answerable to all the world for whom my mad sisters many? I won't, I say!"

"Then I shall just go and marry without your leave! I'm of age, you know, and my fortune's my own; and then we shall come in as the runaway couples do in a play, while you sit there in your dressing-gown as the stern father--Won't you borrow a white wig for the occasion, my lord?-- And we shall fall down on our knees so,"--and she put herself in the prettiest att.i.tude in the world,--"and beg your blessing--please forgive us this time, and we'll never do so any more! And then you will turn your face away, like the baron in the ballad,--

'And brushed away the springing tear He proudly strove to hide,'

Et cetera, et cetera,--Finish the scene for yourself, with a 'Bless ye, my children; bless ye!'"

"Go along, and marry the cat if you like! You are mad; and I am mad; and all the world's mad, I think."

"There," she said, "I knew that he would be a good boy at last!" And she sprang up, threw her arms round his neck, and, to his great astonishment, burst into the most violent fit of crying.

"Good gracious, Valencia! do be reasonable! You'll go into a fit, or somebody will hear you! You know how I hate a scene. Do be good, there's a darling! Why didn't you tell me at first how much you wished for it, and I would have said yes in a moment."

"Because I didn't know myself," cried she pa.s.sionately. "There, I will be good, and love you better than all the world, except one. And if you let those horrid Russians hurt you, I will hate you as long as I live, and be miserable all my life afterwards."

"Why, Valencia, do you know, that sounds very like a bull?"

"Am I not a wild Irish girl?" said she, and hurried out, leaving Scoutbush to return to his flies.

She bounded into Lucia's room, there to pour out a bursting heart--and stopped short.

Lucia was sitting on the bed, her shawl and bonnet tossed upon the floor, her head sunk on her bosom, her arms sunk by her side.

"Lucia, what is it? Speak to me, Lucia!"

She pointed faintly to a letter on the floor--Valencia caught it up-- Lucia made a gesture as if to stop her.

"No, you must not read it. Too dreadful!"

But Valencia read it; while Lucia covered her face in her hands, and uttered a long, low, shuddering moan of bitter agony.

Valencia read, with flashing eyes and bursting brow. It was a hideous letter. The words of a man trying to supply the place of strength by virulence. A hideous letter, unfit to be written here.

"Valencia! Valencia! It is false--a mistake--he is dreaming. You know it is false! You will not leave me too!"

Valencia dashed it on the ground, clasped her sister in her arms, and covered her head with kisses.

"My Lucia! My own sweet good sister! Base, cowardly," sobbed she, in her rage; while Lucia's agony began to find a vent in words, and she moaned on--

"What have I done? All that flower, that horrid flower: but who would have dreamed--and Major Campbell, too, of all men upon earth! Valencia, it is some horrid delusion of the devil. Why, he was there all the while--and you too. Could he think that I should before his very face?

What must he fancy me? Oh, it is a delusion of the devil, and nothing else!"

"He is a wretch! I will take the letter to my brother; he shall right you!"

"Ah no! no! never! Let me tear it to atoms--hide it! It is all a mistake! He did not mean it! He will recollect himself to-morrow and come back."

"Let him come back if he dare!" cried Valencia, in a tone which said, "I could kill him with my own hands!"

"Oh, he will come back! He cannot have the heart to leave his poor little Lucia. Oh, cruel, cowardly, not to have said one word--not one word to explain all--but it was all my fault, my wicked, odious temper; and after I had seen how vexed he was, too!--Oh, Elsley, Elsley, come back, only come back, and I will beg your pardon on my knees! anything?

Scold me, beat me, if you will! I deserve it all! Only come back, and let me see your face, and hear your voice, instead of leaving me here all alone, and the poor children too! Oh, what shall I say to them to-morrow, when they wake and find no father!"

Valencia's indignation had no words. She could only sit on the bed, with Lucia in her arms, looking defiance at all the world above that fair head which one moment dropped on her bosom, and the next gazed up into her face in pitiful child-like pleading.

"Oh, if I but knew where he was gone! If I could but find him! One word --one word would set all right! It always did, Valencia, always! He was so kind, so dear in a moment, when I put away my naughty, naughty temper, and smiled in his face like a good wife. Wicked creature that I was! and this is my punishment. Oh, Elsley, one word, one word! I must find him if I went barefoot over the mountains--I must go, I must--"

And she tried to rise: but Valencia held her down, while she entreated piteously--

"I will go, and see about finding him!" she said at last as her only resource. "Promise me to be quiet here, and I will."

"Quiet? Yes! quiet here!" and she threw herself upon her face on the floor.

She looked up eagerly. "You will not tell Scoutbush?"

"Why not?"