The adjective, as applied to himself by Elizabeth and her mother, has not the merit of novelty in the hearer's ears, which is perhaps the reason why the elation that he must naturally feel on hearing it does not translate itself into words. "So dependable," repeats Byng, apparently pleased with the epithet. "She says you give her the idea of being a sort of rock; you will come to-morrow, and wish her joy, will not you?" "I am afraid that my wishing it her will not help her much to it," answers Burgoyne, rather sadly; "but I do not think you need much doubt that I do wish it. Joy"--repeating the word over reflectively--"it is a big thing to wish anyone." The extreme dampness of his tone arrests for a few minutes Byng's jubilant pæan. "You do not think that my mother will be pleased with the news?" he asks presently, in a changed and hesitating key. "I do not think about it; I know she will not!" "I suppose not; and yet"--with an accent of stupefaction--"it is inconceivable that she, who has always shown such a tender sympathy for me in any paltry little bit of luck that has happened to me, should not rejoice with me when all heaven ope----" "Yes, yes; of course." "Do you think"--with a gleam of hope--"that my mother may have tried to dissuade me because she thought I was only laying up disappointment for myself--because she thought it so unlikely that _she_ should deign to stoop to me?" Burgoyne shakes his head. "Perhaps," he says, with the slowness of a man who is saying what he himself does not believe, "a part of your mother's dislike to the idea may be in the fact of Miss Le Marchant's being older than you." "_Older!_" cries Byng, with almost a shout of angry derision at the suggestion. "What have creatures like _her_ to do with age? I neither know nor care what her age is! If you know, do not tell me! I will not listen! Upon that exquisite body time and change are powerless to work their hideous metamorphoses!" "Fiddlesticks!" replies Burgoyne gruffly. "If she live long enough, she will be an old woman, and will look like one, I suppose!" though, even as he speaks, he realizes that to him this is almost as incredible as to the young madman whom he is so pitilessly snubbing. "But, however that may be, I think you had better make up your mind to meeting the most resolved opposition on the part of your mother." "I believe you are right," replies Byng, out of whose voice his kind Mentor has at last succeeded in momentarily conjuring the exaltation. "Her prejudice against them, against _her_, always filled me with stupefaction. I never dared trust myself to discuss it with her; I was afraid that if I did I might be led into saying something to her, something I should be sorry for afterwards. Thank God, I have never spoken unkindly to her in all my life!" "You would have been a sweep if you had!" interjects Jim.