and we can’t all hope to have David’s luck in the ring and out. Well, he had one brave, beautiful woman in his corner when he fought me; and she helped him to beat me without a doubt; and now he has got another brave, beautiful woman in his corner, and she’ll help him to win whatever battles he may have to fight. And here’s good luck and long life and happiness and content for them and God bless the pair of ’em from this day for ever!" Everybody rose, and David and Madge in their ignorance also rose, but were thrust back into their seats again. Immense applause welcomed Bartley’s great oratory, but for his part he kept his eyes on one face, while he drank the health that he had proposed. Rhoda, however, did not return the gaze. She had blushed faintly at the sudden allusion to herself and the cheer from the men that punctuated it; but Bartley’s craft and rhetoric quite missed her. The man seemed all of a piece to her: facile, unstable, untrustworthy--and his compliments touched her even less than he imagined. He had prejudiced himself in her eyes for ever, and it remained to be seen whether his own skill and pertinacity would prove strong enough to conquer and destroy that prejudice. It was true, as he had suspected earlier in the day, that her forgiveness was real; but her attitude towards him had been radically changed, or rather radically established, by his outrage. Before the event she had entertained no opinion, good or bad, concerning him. She was henceforth constitutionally unable to regard him as she regarded the bulk of men; and he felt this; but he also felt that he must always interest her; and there is no edifice of emotion that cannot be erected upon permanent foundations of interest. So he hoped on and when Mr. Charles Moses, to please Mrs. Crocker, and to show the company that others of the hamlet also possessed a pretty gift of words, arose to propose the good health of Bartley himself, he listened in the best possible humour and made a reply that was full of rough and ready fun.