Acting upon this idea, Samuel Chute struck out of the main street and went swiftly along a narrow lane, and then by the footpath over the meadows to the road, a walk of a good mile and a half before he was out into the winding road that led by Mr Burge's. "She'll come upon me here, plump," he said with a laugh. "I wonder what she'll say, and whether she'll look at me again in that pretty, shy way, same as she did when I took the school pence! Hah, things are going on right for you, my boy; and what could be better?" There was no answer to his question, so Samuel Chute went on making arrangements, like the Eastern man with his basket of crockery ware. "I'll tell you what we'll do; we'll put both the old ladies together in one house, while we live in the other. Nothing could be easier. I say, isn't it time she was here?" He glanced at his watch, and it certainly seemed to be time for Hazel to have reached as far. She was not long, however, in appearing now round the bend of the road, looking brighter and more attractive than Samuel Chute had seen her yet, for there was a warm flush in her cheek, and her eyes were sparkling and full of vivacity. But in spite of this the schoolmaster drew his breath through his teeth with a spiteful hiss, and as he leaned a little forward and stared at Hazel Thorne, his countenance assumed the same ugly look, full of dislike and spite, that had been seen in his mother's face only a short time before. CHAPTER SIXTEEN. A MATCH-MAKING MAMMA. "Don't you think, George, that dear Beatrice looks rather pale and thin?" said Mrs Canninge. "Who--Beatrice Lambent?" said the young man, raising his eyes from his paper at breakfast. "Yes, dear; very thin and pale indeed." "Now you mention it yes, of course; but so she always did." "Slightly, George; and there was a delicacy in the tinting of her skin-- liliaceous, I might say, but she was not pale." "Bravo, dear! That's a capital word. Do for a Tennysonian poem--`the Lay of the Liliaceous Lady.'" "I was speaking seriously, my dear," said Mrs Canninge stiffly. "I beg that you will not make those absurd remarks." "Certainly not, dear; but liliaceous is not a serious way of speaking of a lady." "Then I will not use it, George, for I wish to speak to you very seriously about Beatrice Lambent." The young man winced a little, but said nothing. He merely rustled his newspaper and assumed an air of attention. "I don't think that dear Beatrice is well, George." "Tell Lambent to send her off to the seaside for a good blow." "To pine away and grow worse, George." "To the interior, then, mother." "To still pine away, George." "Try homeopathy, then. Like cures like. Send her into Surrey amongst the fir-trees--pine to cure pine." Mrs Canninge sipped her coffee. "Or get Miss Penstemon to give her a few pilules out of one of her bottles--the one she selected when I came down on the Czar last year at that big hedge."