"It is actually more than twelve years since I have seen him, and besides that, he is just as good as engaged to that niece of Mr Brandon's, who is a horrible mixture of a she-wolf and a female mule, if I am to believe Aunt Keswick, but I expect she is, truly, a very nice girl. Though, to be sure, she can't have much spirit if she consented to break off her marriage just on account of the back-handed benediction which Aunt Keswick told me she offered her as a wedding gift. If I had wanted to marry a man I would have let the old lady curse the heels off her boots before I would have paid any attention to her. Cursing don't hurt anybody but the curser. "What I want of Junius is to make a friend of him, if he turns out to be the right kind of a person, and to tell him about this Mr Croft who is so anxious to find him. The only person I have met yet who seems like an ordinary Christian is old Mr Brandon, and he's a sly one, I'm afraid. Aunt Keswick thinks he stopped here on his way somewhere, but I don't believe a word of it. I believe he came for reasons of his own, and went right straight back again. You are almost as much to him, Freddy, as you are to me. It would have made you laugh if you could have seen how his face lighted up when he heard we were happy together, and that I would not listen to a divorce. And yet I am sure he has promised Aunt Keswick to see what he can do about getting one. He wants me to stay here and make friends of Aunt Keswick and Junius, but he wouldn't like that if it were not for you, Mr Null. You make everything safe for him. "And now, Freddy, I tell you again, that all depends upon you. If I'm to stay here--and I want to do that, for a time any way, for although Aunt Keswick is so awfully queer, she's my own aunt, and that's more than I can say for anybody else in the world--you must stiffen up, and stand by me. It won't do to give way for a minute. If necessary you must take tonics, and have a steel rod down your back, if you can't keep yourself erect without it. You must have your legs padded, and your chest thrown out; and you must stand up very strong and sturdy, Freddy, and not let them push you an inch this way or that. And now that we have made up our minds on this subject, we'll go down, for it's getting a little cool on the top of this hill." CHAPTER IX.