“Madam,” I said, “you have listened so kindly to all I have ventured to tell you, that I hope you will let me ask one question, without being thought impertinent. It is only that I should like to know, who it is that has begged you to speak to me, and whether Captain Fairthorn is aware of it.” At once her demeanour was changed to me, and her lofty indifference was gone. Her eyebrows rose, and her eyelids quivered, and her face flushed with wrath, like a storm-cloud with the sun. “I think that I have listened too kindly to you, and the things you have dared to tell me. It will teach me to have less to say to underbred young men henceforth. Charles, show this young man where the front door is.” This was very clever, and abashed me deeply; as if I had no right to know any other than the back-entrance. And I observed that she did not lose her self-command, nor revile me as if on her own level, as her far less dignified sister did. I was much more entirely smitten down, and made sensible of my distance from her, as one too deep to be bridged by words. And yet the sense of justice, which is always strongest in the young, stood up and bade me take all this as only of human ordinance. For no thought of presumption had been in my mind, or of undue familiarity. A cat may look at a king; and the king (like a dog) hath only his own day. CHAPTER XXIII. AT BAY, AND IN THE BAY. EVERY one, who can call to mind that year of bad weather, 1860, will bear me out in saying that it showed no weakness, no lack of consistency to the last. Rain and chill were the rule of the summer, snow and severe cold the order of the winter. In the beginning of December, the earth was sodden, and the rivers thick with flood. Then the sky was amassed with fog, and the trees hung low with trembling drip, and even the humble weeds and grass were bearded with a glaucous reek, not crisp nor bright as of rime or frost, but limp, and dull, and bleary. Having never seen such a thing till now, I could not tell what to make of it; but Uncle Corny, who had been compelled for years to watch the weather, said—“Up with all the winter apples, and the Glou Morceau, and Beurré Rance, up with them all to Covent Garden, or we shall have them frozen on the shelves. Or even if we can keep the frost out, we shall have the van snowed up. Things looked just as they do now, in December, 1837, only the ground was not so wet. Go down to the barges, and order in ten tons of coal, we shall want it all, and twenty chaldrons of gas-coke. The frost will last till February, and fuel will cost a rare price then.”