And now in the month of February, 1812, before the witching festival of St Valentine was prepared for, with cudgelling of brains, and violent rhymes, and criminal assaults upon grammar, this “flower of Kent”--as the gallant hop-growers in toasting moments entitled her--was sitting, or standing, or drooping her head, or whatever suits best to their metaphor, at or near the fireplace in the warm old simple hall. Love, however warm and faithful, is all the better for a good clear fire, ere ever the snowdrops begin to spring. Also it loves to watch the dancing of the flames, and the flickering light, and even in the smoke discovers something to itself akin. Mabel was full of these beautiful dreams, because she was left altogether to herself; and because she remembered so well what had happened along every inch of the dining-table; and, above all, because she was sleepy. Long anxiety, and great worry, and the sense of having no one fit to understand a girl--but everybody taking low, and mercenary, and fickle views, and even the most trusty people giving base advice to one, in those odious proverbial forms,--“a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush,” “fast find fast bind,” “there is better fish in the sea,” &c.; Mabel thought there never had been such a selfish world to deal with. Has not every kind of fame, however pure it may be and exalted, its own special disadvantage, lest poor mortals grow too proud? At any rate Mabel now reflected, rather with sorrow than with triumph, upon her fame for pancakes--because it was Shrove-Tuesday now, and all her tender thrills and deep anxieties must be discarded for, or at any rate distracted by, the composition of batter. Her father’s sense of propriety was so strong, and that of excellence so keen, that pancakes he would have on Shrove-Tuesday, and pancakes only from Mabel’s hand. She had pleaded, however, for leave to make them here in the dining-hall, instead of frying at the kitchen fireplace, because she knew what Sally the cook and Susan the maid would be at with her. Those two girls would never leave her the smallest chance of retiring into her deeper nature, and meditating. Although they could understand nothing at all, they would take advantage of her good temper, to enjoy themselves with the most worn-out jokes. Such trumpery was below Mabel now; and some day or other she would let them know it. Without thinking twice of such low matters, the maiden was now in great trouble of the heart, by reason of sundry rumours. Paddy from Cork had brought home word from Maidstone only yesterday, that a desperate fight had been fought in Spain, and almost everybody had been blown up. Both armies had made up their minds to die, so that, with the drums beating and the colours flying, they marched into a powder-magazine, and tossed up a pin which should be the one to fire it, and blow up the others. And the English had lost the toss, and no one survived to tell the story.