“Very much. In spite of my frippery ways, you know, I do occasionally enjoy rational conversation, just as I can spend a very agreeable evening playing at lottery-tickets with Mama, and Sophy, and the children.”

“You did not do that!” she cried. “Oh, you are quizzing me! You must have been shockingly bored!”

“Nothing of the sort! The man who could be bored in the midst of such a lively family as yours must be an insufferable fellow, above being pleased by anything. By the by, if that uncle of yours does not come up to scratch, we must do something towards helping Harry to achieve his burning ambition to become a second Nelson. Not the eccentric uncle who died, and left you his entire fortune, but the one who still lives.”

“Oh, pray don’t speak of that dreadful fortune ever again!” begged Arabella, hanging down her head.

“But I must speak of it!” objected Mr. Beaumaris. “Since I presume that we shall frequently be inviting the various members of your family to stay with us, and can hardly pass them all off as heirs and heiresses, some explanation of your superior circumstances must be forthcoming! Your Mama—an admirable woman!—and I decided that the eccentric uncle would serve our turn very well. We were further agreed, quite tacitly, you know, that it will be unnecessary, and, indeed, quite undesirable, to mention the matter to Papa.”

“Oh, no it would never do to tell him that!” she said quickly. “He would not like it at all, and when he is grieved with any of us—Oh, if only he does not discover the scrape Bertram fell into, and if only Bertram didn’t fail to pass that examination at Oxford, which I am much afraid he may have, because it did not sound to me as though—”

“It is not of the slightest consequence,” he interrupted. “Bertram—though Papa does not yet know it—is not going to Oxford: he is going to join a good cavalry regiment, where he will feel very much more at home, and, I daresay, become a great credit to us all.”

At this, Arabella caught his hand in her free one, and kissed it, exclaiming, with a sob in her voice: “How good you are! How much, much too good you are, my dear Mr. Beaumaris!”

“Never,” said Mr. Beaumaris, snatching his hand away, and taking Arabella into his arms so ungently that the rest of the milk in the glass was spilt over her gown, “Never, Arabella, dare to do such a thing again! And don’t talk such fustian to me, or persist in calling me Mr. Beaumaris!”

“Oh, I must!” protested Arabella, into his shoulder. “I can’t call you—I can’t call you—Robert!”

“You have called me Robert very prettily, and you will find, if you persevere, that it will rise quite easily to your lips in a very short space of time.”

“Well, if it will please you, I will try to say it,” said Arabella. She sat up suddenly, as a thought occurred to her, and said in her impulsive way: “Oh, Mr. Beau—I mean, Leaky Peg, in that horrid house where I went to see poor Bertram, and she was so very kind to him! Do you think—?”

“No, Arabella,” said Mr. Beaumaris firmly. “I do not!”

She was disappointed, but docile. “No?” she said.

“No,” said Mr. Beaumaris, drawing her back into his arm.

“I thought we might have taken her away from that dreadful place,” suggested Arabella, smoothing his coat-lapel with a coaxing hand.

“I am quite sure you did, my love, but while I am prepared to receive into my household climbing-boys and stray curs, I must draw the line at a lady rejoicing in the name of Leaky Peg.”

“You don’t think she might learn to become a housemaid, or something of that sort? You know—”

“I only know two things,” interrupted Mr. Beaumaris. “The first is that she is not going to make the attempt in any house of mine; and the second, and by far the more important, is that I adore you, Arabella!”

Arabella was so much pleased by this disclosure that she lost interest in Leaky Peg, and confined herself to the far more agreeable task of convincing Mr. Beaumaris that his very obliging sentiments were entirely reciprocated.