"Upon my life, he said true," replied Austin Jute; "for I have seen a few heads roll in my own day, and have always thought it a pity that people cannot find some other means of putting those out of the way who stand in their light, but by cutting them on the back of the neck. Were men's heads no better than turnips, we could not treat them more carelessly than we do in our little island. Poor child, her misfortunes came early; and I hope and trust that she got over them all at once. People must eat black bread, they say, at one time of their life; and it is better to swallow it before we have tasted any other, than to eat the white bread first, and then have the other after." "God send that it be so with her," said the old woman, "for a dearer, sweeter girl never lived." "And, after all, what is her name?" said Austin Jute, in that quiet sort of easy tone which so often leads on confidence; but good old Tita answered quietly, with a shrewd glance of the eye, "Julia, to be sure--the Lady Julia. That has been enough for me all my life; and it should be enough for you too, I think." "Enough is as good as a feast," answered Austin Jute; but as he saw he could gain no more information he dropped the subject, and began to wonder at the length of his lord's visit. CHAPTER V. "It is done," said the earl, "and, I think, accurately." The old man bent over the paper, and examined every line. "Saturn is wanting in the third house," he replied; "and you have left out the sextile there." Lord Gowrie corrected the error, then folded the paper carefully, and put it in his bosom. When he had done so, he turned his eyes to Manucci's face, and saw that the old man was very pale, while a dropping heaviness of the eyelid and a quivering of the lip seemed to the young lord to indicate great weariness. "I wish much to speak to you, my good old friend," he said, "upon matters of great moment; but I see that you are weary, and I must not begin now, for our conversation might be long." "We must begin now and end now, Gowrie," said the old man, looking at him gravely; "for who shall say what a day will bring forth? I have learned this in eighty years, if nothing else, that the present only is ours, the past is gone beyond our recall, the future is in the hand of God. Then let no man think that he can command to-morrow, for health or sickness, strength or weakness, fortune or adversity, are all as unstable as the wind, changing how and why we know not. I have much to say to you too, and on the same subject, I believe. You would speak of Julia, is it not so?" "It is," answered Lord Gowrie.