And so went through all the disagreeable details regularly. The reply came by return of post, though not exactly in the shape that he expected. The steward came in with scant ceremony, an evil smile on his face (he probably guessed at the truth), charged with his lord's commands that the visitor should quit Grandmanoir before sunset and never return there. Thus rudely was broken the last of poor Tom's golden dreams. The Great Marquis, when the circumstances were alluded to, never could be brought to see any harshness in his own conduct, but spoke of his _protégé's_ rather plaintively as "an instance of human ingratitude that he was really not prepared for." He did not give the species many chances of surprising him in _that_ way again. If the chiefs of his tribe were ready to comfort and cherish the disabled "brave," now that he could no longer put on paint and plume, and go forth with them on the "war-trail," be sure that the matrons and maidens were yet more active and demonstrative in sympathy. There must be extraordinarily bad features in the case of distress that fails to secure feminine compassion; except in a matrimonial point of view, our sisters rarely consider a man deteriorated because he is ruined. Though he was a general favourite in his set, Wyverne possessed many more real friends of the other sex than of his own. If there is anything in reciprocity, it was only fair that it should be so. Alan's reverence and affection for Womanhood in the abstract were so intense and sincere, as to be almost independent of individual attributes. His companion for the moment might be the homeliest, humblest, least attractive female you can conceive; but with the first word his tone and manner would change and soften in a way that she could not but perceive, even if she did not appreciate it. Most of them _did_ appreciate it, though, and this was the secret of his invariable and proverbial success. Wyverne could like a woman honestly, and let her know it, without a thought of love, and could always render courtesy where admiration, or even respect, unfortunately, were out of the question. However good the sport might be in other ways, he considered the day comparatively lost in which the feminine element was wanting. While his comrades were resting for an hour before dinner--dead beat with seven hours' hard stalking in the corries of Benmac-Dhui--Alan would be found loitering about the door of the chief keeper's bothy, carrying on, under extreme difficulties of dialect, a flirtation on first principles with his orange-haired daughter. He seemed to derive some refreshment from the process, though the absence of a beard, and the (occasional) presence of a petticoat, were about the only distinctive characteristics of her sex that the robust Oread could boast of. When the season was at the flood, he would spend hours of an afternoon in the quiet twilight of a boudoir in Mayfair, by the side of an invalid's sofa. Sooth to say, that room held