' Dear, dear uncle, I
don't mind being under them to you, because I love you" (kisses).
"And not Mr. Dodd?"
"No, dear; and that is the reason I would rather give him a ship
than--the only other thing that would make him happy. And really, but
for your goodness, I should have been tempted to--ha! ha! Oh, I am so
happy now. No; much as I admire my preserver's courage and delicacy
and unselfishness and goodness, I don't love him; so, but for this, he
MUST have been unhappy for life, and then I should have been miserable
forever."
"Perfectly clear and satisfactory, my dear. Now, if the commission is
to be down to-morrow, you must not stay here, because I have other
letters to write, to go by the same courier that takes my application
for the ship."
"And do you really think I will go till I have kissed you, Uncle
Bazalgette?"
"On a subject so important, I hardly venture to give an opin--hallo!
kissing, indeed? Why, it is like a young wolf flying at horseflesh."
"Then that will teach you not to be kinder to me than anybody else
is."
Lucy ran out radiant and into the garden. Here she encountered
Kenealy, and, coming on him with a blaze of beauty and triumph, fired
a resolution that had smoldered in him a day or two.
He twirled his mustache and--popped briefly.
CHAPTER XXIII.
AFTER the first start of rueful astonishment, the indignation of the
just fired Lucy's eyes.
She scolded him well. "Was this his return for all her late kindness?"
She hinted broadly at the viper of Aesop, and indicated more faintly
an animal that, when one bestows the choicest favors on it, turns and
rends one.
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