'She is engaged to be married.' Janet came into the room--another Janet for me. She had engaged herself to marry the Marquis of Edbury. At the moment when she enslaved me with gratitude and admiration she was lost to me. I knew her too well to see a chance of her breaking her pledged word. My old grandfather said of Janet, 'She's a compassionate thing.' I felt now the tears under his speech, and how late I was in getting wisdom. Compassion for Edbury in Janet's bosom was the matchmaker's chief engine of assault, my aunt Dorothy told me. Lady Ilchester had been for this suitor, Sir Roderick for the other, up to the verge of a quarrel between the most united of wedding couples. Janet was persecuted. She heard that Edbury's life was running to waste; she liked him for his cricketing and hunting, his frankness, seeming manliness, and general native English enthusiasm. I permitted myself to comprehend the case as far as I could allow myself to excuse her. Dorothy Beltham told me something of Janet that struck me to the dust. 'It is this, dear Harry; bear to hear it! Janet and I and his good true woman of a housekeeper, whose name is Waddy, we are, I believe, the only persons that know it. He had a large company to dine at a City tavern, she told us, on the night after the decision--when the verdict went against him. The following morning I received a note from this good Mrs. Waddy addressed to Sir Roderick's London house, where I was staying with Janet; it said that he was ill; and Janet put on her bonnet at once to go to him.' 'The lady didn't fear contagion any longer?' 'She went, walking fast. He was living in lodgings, and the people of the house insisted on removing him, Mrs. Waddy told us. She was cowering in the parlour. I had not the courage to go upstairs. Janet went by herself.' My heart rose on a huge swell. 'She was alone with him, Harry. We could hear them.' Dorothy Beltham looked imploringly on me to waken my whole comprehension. 'She subdued him. When I saw him he was white as death, but quiet, not dangerous at all.' 'Do you mean she found him raving?' I cried out on our Maker's name, in grief and horror. 'Yes, dear Harry, it was so.' 'She stepped between him and an asylum?' 'She quitted Sir Roderick's house to lodge your father safe in one that she hired, and have him under her own care. She watched him day and night for three weeks, and governed him, assisted only at intervals by the poor frightened woman, Mrs. Waddy, and just as frightened me. And I am still subject to the poor woman's way of pressing her hand to her heart at a noise. It 's over now. Harry, Janet wished that you should never hear of it. She dreads any excitement for him. I think she is right in fancying her own influence the best: he is used to it. You know how gentle she is though she is so firm.' 'Oh! don't torture me, ma'am, for God's sake,' I called aloud. CHAPTER LV I MEET MY FIRST PLAYFELLOW AND TAKE MY PUNISHMENT