Mr. Austin dwelt on that subject. Cecilia perceived that she had praised Mr. Tuckham for his devotedness to her father without recognizing the beauty of nature in the young man who could voluntarily take service under the elder he esteemed, in simple admiration of him. Mr. Austin scarcely said so much, or expected her to see the half of it, but she wished to be extremely grateful, and could only see at all by kindling altogether. 'He does himself injustice in his manner,' said Cecilia. 'That has become somewhat tempered,' Mr. Austin assured her, and he acknowledged what it had been with a smile that she reciprocated. A rough man of rare quality civilizing under various influences, and half ludicrous, a little irritating, wholly estimable, has frequently won the benign approbation of the sex. In addition, this rough man over whom she smiled was one of the few that never worried her concerning her hand. There was not a whisper of it in him. He simply loved her father. Cecilia welcomed him to Mount Laurels with grateful gladness. The colonel had hastened Mr. Tuckham's visit in view of the expedition to Rome, and they discoursed of it at the luncheon table. Mr. Tuckham let fall that he had just seen Beauchamp. 'Did he thank you for his inheritance?' Colonel Halkett inquired. 'Not he!' Tuckham replied jovially. Cecilia's eyes, quick to flash, were dropped. The colonel said: 'I suppose you told him nothing of what you had done for him?' and said Tuckham: 'Oh no: what anybody else would have done'; and proceeded to recount that he had called at Dr. Shrapnel's on the chance of an interview with his friend Lydiard, who used generally to be hanging about the cottage. 'But now he's free: his lunatic wife is dead, and I'm happy to think I was mistaken as to Miss Denham. Men practising literature should marry women with money. The poor girl changed colour when I informed her he had been released for upwards of three months. The old Radical's not the thing in health. He's anxious about leaving her alone in the world; he said so to me. Beauchamp's for rigging out a yacht to give him a sail. It seems that salt water did him some good last year. They're both of them rather the worse for a row at one of their meetings in the North in support of that public nuisance, the democrat and atheist Roughleigh. The Radical doctor lost a hat, and Beauchamp almost lost an eye. He would have been a Nelson of politics, if he had been a monops, with an excuse for not seeing. It's a trifle to them; part of their education. They call themselves students. Rome will be capital, Miss Halkett. You're an Italian scholar, and I beg to be accepted as a pupil.' 'I fear we have postponed the expedition too long,' said Cecilia. She could have sunk with languor. 'Too long?' cried Colonel Halkett, mystified. 'Until too late, I mean, papa. Do you not think, Mr. Austin, that a fortnight in Rome is too short a time?'