This young gentleman now stood looking from a window of his uncle’s house, upon all the dewy leafing beauty of the Park at May. His brow was knit, his lips tight shut, his hand amid his ruffles clenched. At the table sat Kennaston, inky-fingered, scribbling; eyes now rolling to the ceiling, now roving hither and yon. “Ah!” sighs this one. “If the critics do not find this canto to their taste, may I be damned!” “You’re like to go to Court to the Devil, I’m thinking then, dear lad,” speaks de Bohun over his shoulder. “Fame! Fame!” cries the young poet, pushing back in his chair, wig awry and quill poised in air. “I’ll hunt thee to my dying hour, and if thou escap’st me then, ’twill all be Lady Diana’s fault.” “How’s that?” asks Percy, with, however, but small ring of interest in his voice. “Oh!” exclaimed Peg’s twin, “the minx mocks me! ’Tis Monday, kindness and all smiles, to wake on Tuesday for indifference; pouts on Wednesday; lure-me-ons o’ Thursday; forgetfulness for Friday; radiance for Saturday, and all a-jumble, sweets-and-frowns! showers! sunshine! what you will!—and will not!—for my Sunday fare.” Percy sighs and smiles. “Percy, sometimes I think Diana does love you!” “No, Sir, never. We’re like brother and sister, nothing else, save my uncle’s absurd, obstinate (now-cured) whim, since childhood, to match his heir with Brookwood’s heiress. Odzooks! Ken, you’re like every other swain that ever sighed, always looking for a rival to be jealous of! Lady Di cares for you; an you doubted it before, ’tis time to take up hope, since you are asked to Brookwood for a visit, and go popping off to-night, with me left home to think alone on Peggy.” “Zounds! Sir, ’tis not you only that’s thinking of her!” cries the young man rising and crossing to the fire. “But, what would you! if I call out the bell-man, publish her disappearance in the newspapers; get word to my father and my mother; what comes of’t all, but scandal? and like as not dad an apoplexy, and My Lady mother a set of fits and a death-bed!” “Ken, I’m a damned fool ever to stop inside of doors or to cease pacing streets, haunting inns, shadowing Sir Robin McTart, until I find her!” “Fie, Sir, if she’s gone off with Sir Robin McTart, ’tis, I promise you, with a wedding-ring on her finger, and not else! An she loves him, what’s to be said or done, if he’s her lawful lord?” “Naught. I myself went down to Kennaston yesterday. I said nothing to you, Ken,” he adds, noting the other’s surprised and reproachful start, with a hand upon his junior’s shoulder. “I thought I’d not interrupt the epic and your frenzies about Lady Di, with my troubles.” “Well, what news of Peg? Any?” asks her twin anxiously.