The old man stops, and regards his master reprovingly, nay, almost contemptuously. "I really don't see why you should think it was the boys, Joe?" says Sir James, meekly. "'Twarn't anythin' else, anyway," persists Joe, doggedly. "Poor little fellow!--dear fellow!" murmurs Miss Peyton, caressingly, to the great soft setter pup, patting its head lovingly, as it barks madly, and makes frantic efforts to get from Joe's arms to hers, while Bill shrieks in concert, being filled with an overwhelming amount of sympathy. "Better leave him to me, miss," says Joe, regarding the injured innocent with a parent's eye. "He knows me. I'll treat him proper," raising his old honest weather-beaten face to Clarissa, in a solemn reassuring manner, "you be bound. Yet them pups" (disgustedly) "is like children, allus ungrateful. For the sake o' your handsome face, now, he'd go to you if he could, forgetful of all my kindness to him. Well, 'tis the way o' the world, I believe," winds up old Joe, rising from his knees,--cheered, perhaps, by the thought that his favorite pup, if only following the common dictates of animals, is no worse than all others. He grumbles something else in an undertone, and finally carries off the puppy to his kennel. "I am too amazed for speech," says Sir James, rising also to his feet, and contemplating Clarissa with admiration. "That man," pointing to Joe's retiring figure, "has been in my father's service, and in mine, for fifty years, and never before did I hear a civil word from his lips. I think he said your face was handsome, just now?--or was I deceived?" "I like Joe," says Miss Peyton, elevating her rounded chin: "I downright esteem him. He knows where beauty lies." "How he differs from the rest of the world!" says Scrope, not looking at her. "Does he? That is unkind, I think. Why," says Clarissa, with a soft laugh, full of mischief, "should any one be blind to the claims of beauty?" "Why, indeed? It is, as I have been told, 'a joy forever.' No one nowadays disputes anything they are told, do they?" "Don't be cynical, Jim," says Miss Peyton, softly. What an awful thing it will be if, now when her story is absolutely upon her lips, he relapses into his unsympathetic mood! "Well, I won't, then," says Scrope, amiably, which much relieves her. And then he looks lovingly at his pipe, which he has held (as in duty bound) behind his back ever since her arrival, and sighs heavily, and proceeds to knock the ashes out of it. "Oh, don't do that," says Clarissa, entreatingly. "I really wish you wouldn't!" (This is the strict truth.) "You know you are dying for a smoke, and I--I perfectly love the smell of tobacco. There is, therefore, no reason why you should deny yourself." "Are you really quite sure?" says Scrope, politely and hopefully. "Quite,--utterly. Put it in your mouth again. And--do you mind?"--with a swift glance upwards, from under her soft plush hat,--"I want you to come for a little walk with me."