“So Nurse Dove said, sir,” faltered Aurelia; “but it seemed too wicked, too monstrous, to be possible.” “I understand,” he said. “I thought there was an implied threat in my sweet sister-in-law’s soft voice when she spoke of my determined misanthropy. Well, I think we can guard against that expedient. After all, it is only till my nephew comes of age, or till his stepfather returns, that we must keep the enchantress at bay. Then the poor lad will be safe, providing always that she and her Colonel have not made a rake of him by that time. Alas, what a wretch am I not to be able to do more for him! Child, you have seen him?” “I danced with him, sir, but I was too much terrified to look in his face. And I saw his cocked hat over the thorn hedge.” “Fancy free,” muttered Mr. Belamour. “Fair exile for a cocked hat and diamond shoe-buckles! You would not recognise him again, nor his voice?” “No, sir. He scarcely spoke, and I was attending to my steps.” Mr. Belamour laughed, and then asked Aurelia for the passage in the _Iliad_ where Venus carries off Paris in a cloud. He thanked her somewhat absently, and then said, “Dr. Godfrey said something of coming hither before he goes to his living in Dorsetshire. May I ask of you the favour of writing and begging him to fix a day not far off, mentioning likewise that my sister-in-law has been here.” To this invitation Dr. Godfrey replied that he would deviate from the slow progress of his family coach, and ride to Bowstead, spending two nights there the next week; and to Aurelia’s greater amazement, she was next requested to write a billet to the Mistresses Treforth in Mr. Belamour’s name, asking them to bestow their company on him for the second evening of Dr. Godfrey’s visit. “You, my kind friend, will do the honours,” he said, “and we will ask Mrs. Aylward to provide the entertainment.” “They will be quite propitiated by being asked to meet Dr. Godfrey,” said Aurelia. “Shall you admit them, sir?” “Certainly. You do not seem to find them very engaging company, but they can scarce be worse than I should find in such an asylum as my charming sister-in-law seems to have in preparation for me.” “Oh! I wish I had said nothing about that. It is too shocking!” “Forewarned, forearmed, as the proverb says. Do you not see, my amiable friend, that we are providing a body of witnesses to the sanity of the recluse, even though he may ‘in dark Cimmerian desert ever dwell’?” The visit took place; Dr. Godfrey greeted Miss Delavie as an old friend, and the next day pronounced Mr. Belamour to be so wonderfully invigorated and animated, that he thought my Lady’s malignant plan was really likely to prove the best possible stimulus and cure.