"Naturally, therefore, Algernon Sidney Gale Jones baptizes his house Cromwell Lodge, seeing that Algernon Sidney held the Protectorate in especial abhorrence, and that the original Gale Jones, if an honest radical, must have done the same, considering what rough usage the advocates of Parliamentary Reform met with at the hands of his Highness. But we must be indulgent to men who have been unfortunately christened before they had any choice of the names that were to rule their fate. I myself should have been less whimsical had I not been named after a Kenelm who believed in sympathetic powders. Apart from his political doctrines, I like my landlord: he keeps his wife in excellent order. She seems frightened at the sound of her own footsteps, and glides to and fro, a pallid image of submissive womanhood in list slippers." "Great recommendations certainly, and Cromwell Lodge is very prettily situated. By the by, it is very near Mrs. Cameron's." "Now I think of it, so it is," said Kenelm, innocently. Ah! my friend Kenelm, enemy of shams, and truth-teller, /par excellence/, what hast thou come to? How are the mighty fallen! "Since you say you will dine with us, suppose we fix the day after to-morrow, and I will ask Mrs. Cameron and Lily." "The day after to-morrow: I shall be delighted." "An early hour?" "The earlier the better." "Is six o'clock too early?" "Too early! certainly not; on the contrary. Good-day: I must now go to Mrs. Somers; she has charge of my portmanteau." Then Kenelm rose. "Poor dear Lily!" said Mrs. Braefield; "I wish she were less of a child." Kenelm reseated himself. "Is she a child? I don't think she is actually a child." "Not in years; she is between seventeen and eighteen: but my husband says that she is too childish to talk to, and always tells me to take her off his hands; he would rather talk with Mrs. Cameron." "Indeed!" "Still I find something in her." "Indeed!" "Not exactly childish, nor quite womanish." "What then?" "I can't exactly define. But you know what Mr. Melville and Mrs. Cameron call her as a pet name?" "No." "Fairy! Fairies have no age; fairy is neither child nor woman." "Fairy. She is called fairy by those who know her best? Fairy!" "And she believes in fairies." "Does she?--so do I. Pardon me, I must be off. The day after to-morrow,--six o'clock." "Wait one moment," said Elsie, going to her writing-table. "Since you pass Grasmere on your way home, will you kindly leave this note?" "I thought Grasmere was a lake in the north?" "Yes; but Mr. Melville chose to call the cottage by the name of the lake. I think the first picture he ever sold was a view of Wordsworth's house there. Here is my note to ask Mrs. Cameron to meet you; but if you object to be my messenger--" "Object! my dear Mrs. Braefield. As you say, I pass close by the cottage." CHAPTER IV.