"At all events," said Mr. Wilkinson, who saw that his client was becoming rather fatigued, and, perhaps, the more unmanageable from that circumstance. "At all events, Mr. Beauchamp, before you set out once more, like the Knight of La Mancha, upon a new sally in search of such perilous adventures, you must give me fuller powers to act for you, and fuller instructions, too, as to how I am to act; for good Mr. Tims has already been hinting at _winding up the affairs of the late Henry Beauchamp, Esquire_, as he phrases it." "Indeed!" said Beauchamp. "Indeed! Well, I do believe that if there were an act for hanging rogues, it would ultimately save a vast waste of hemp upon thieves, and leave honester men in the world after all. But I must now let you seek repose; and we will talk more of these matters to-morrow morning, when, if my Galen will suffer me, I will accompany you to London; for the last ten days I have been like poor Erminia:-- 'Cibo non prende già che de suoi mali Solo si pasce, e sol di pianto ha sete?' But I think I have made amends for one evening, at least." CHAPTER V. Now Mr. Wilkinson, though a very pleasant gentlemanly man--slightly inclined to be facetious, but never yielding to that vein farther than a subdued--one might almost say, internal--smile, at the odd things, and the absurd things, and the wicked things of this world--was quite in the wrong in taking it into his head that Maria Beauchamp was in love with Captain William Delaware. In truth, she was not; though certainly never were there circumstances more likely to make her become so. She had only got as far at present as being interested in the young sailor's fate in the highest degree; perfectly convinced, that he was innocent and injured--thinking him certainly a very handsome youth--and granting that he was, with all his simplicity, one of the most agreeable men she had ever seen. The reader may ask if all this, then, was not love? No, no, no! It was not! There were bricks, and mortar, and trowels, and hods; but it was not the tower of Babel--What I mean is, that there were all the materials for love, but they wanted putting together. In Lord Ashborough's house, however, with all these prepossessions in William Delaware's favour, she heard nothing coupled with his name but pompous censure, or flat and pointless sneers; and she dared not say a word in his favour. Now this, as it furnished her with a motive for not only thinking of him from morning till night, but furnished her also with a legitimate cause for connecting in the sweet, unanswering privacy of her own bosom, all those manifold arguments in his favour, which she could have put forth in society, had she not been afraid of their being controverted, caused imagination, and zeal, and generous enthusiasm, to labour hard to build up the said bricks and mortar into the firm and regular structure which Mr. Wilkinson, in his over-hasty conclusions, imagined to be already built.