He thought Christie Johnstone was somehow connected with it; but, conscious of no wrong, he felt little disposed to put up with any insult, especially from this boy, to whom he had been kind, he thought. His lordship was, besides, one of those good, simple-minded creatures, educated abroad, who, when invited to fight, simply bow, and load two pistols, and get themselves called at six; instead of taking down tomes of casuistry and puzzling their poor brains to find out whether they are gamecocks or capons, and why. As for Gatty, he hurried home in a fever of passion, begged his mother's pardon, and reproached himself for ever having disobeyed her on account of such a perfidious creature as Christie Johnstone. He then told her what he had seen, as distance and imagination had presented it to him; to his surprise the old lady cut him short. “Charles,” said she, “there is no need to take the girl's character away; she has but one fault--she is not in the same class of life as you, and such marriages always lead to misery; but in other respects she is a worthy young woman--don't speak against her character, or you will make my flesh creep; you don't know what her character is to a woman, high or low.” By this moderation, perhaps she held him still faster. Friday morning arrived. Gatty had, by hard work, finished his picture, collected his sketches from nature, which were numerous, left by memorandum everything to his mother, and was, or rather felt, as ready to die as live. He had hardly spoken a word or eaten a meal these four days; his mother was in anxiety about him. He rose early, and went down to Leith; an hour later, his mother, finding him gone out, rose and went to seek him at Newhaven. Meantime Flucker had entirely recovered, but his sister's color had left her cheeks. The boy swore vengeance against the cause of her distress. On Friday morning, then, there paced on Leith Sands two figures. One was Lord Ipsden. The other seemed a military gentleman, who having swallowed the mess-room poker, and found it insufficient, had added the ramrods of his company. The more his lordship reflected on Gatty, the less inclined he had felt to invite a satirical young dog from barracks to criticise such a _rencontre;_ he had therefore ordered Saunders to get up as a field-marshal, or some such trifle, and what Saunders would have called incomparable verticality was the result. The painter was also in sight. While he was coming up, Lord Ipsden was lecturing Marshal Saunders on a point on which that worthy had always thought himself very superior to his master--“Gentlemanly deportment.” “Now, Saunders, mind and behave like a gentleman, or we shall be found out.” “I trust, my lord, my conduct--”