Charlotte's heart was exceedingly touched, and she had tears in her eyes when she moved forward in the attitude of the porcelain shepherdess in the parlour, to return a little volume of selections of tender poetry, bound in crimson silk, that he had lent to her some time since. 'Would she not honour him by accepting a trifling gift?' She blushed, she accepted; and with needle-like pen, in characters fine as hair, upon a scroll garlanded with forget-me-nots, and borne in mid air by two portly doves, was Charlotte Arnold's name inscribed by the hero of the barricades. Oh, vanity! vanity! how many garbs dost thou wear! Delaford went away, satisfied that he had produced an impression such as he could improve if they should ever be thrown together again. The Lady of Eschalott remained anything but satisfied. She was touchy and fretful, found everything a grievance, left cobwebs in the corners, and finally went into hysterics because the cat jumped at the canary-bird's cage. CHAPTER XXII. BURGOMASTERS AND GREAT ONE-EYERS. When full upon his ardent soul The champion feels the influence roll, He swims the lake, he leaps the wall, Heeds not the depth, nor plumbs the fall. Unshielded, mailless, on he goes, Singly against a host of foes! Harold the Dauntless. 'Jem! Jem! have you heard?' 'What should I hear?' 'Mr. Lester is going to retire at Christmas!' 'Does that account for your irrational excitement?' 'And it has not occurred to you that the grammar-school would be the making of you! Endowment, 150 pounds--thirty, forty boys at 10 pounds per annum, 400 pounds at least. That is 550 pounds--say 600 pounds for certain; and it would be doubled under a scholar and a gentleman--1200 pounds a year! And you might throw it open to boarders; set up the houses in the Terrace, and let them at--say 40 pounds? Nine houses, nine times forty--' 'Well done, Fitzjocelyn! At this rate one need not go out to Peru.' 'Exactly so; you would be doubling the value of your own property as a secondary consideration, and doing incalculable good--' 'As if there were any more chance of my getting the school than of the rest of it!' 'So you really had not thought of standing?' 'I would, most gladly, if there were the least hope of success. I can't afford to miss any chance; but it is mere folly to talk of it. One-half of the trustees detest my principles; the others would think themselves insulted by a young man in deacon's orders offering himself.' 'It is evident that you are the only man on whom they can combine who can save the school, and do any good to all those boys--mind you, the important middle class, whom I would do anything to train in sound principles.' 'So far, it is in my favour that I am one of the few University men educated here.' 'You are your grandmother's grandson--that is everything! and you have more experience of teaching than most men twice your age.'