“I understand, though I will not as yet make you any positive promise. Meanwhile, if you are staying in town, lodge with me; my landlady can find you a room.”
“Thank you heartily, sir; but I go back by the evening train; and, bless me! how late it is now! I must wish you good-by. I have some commissions to do for my aunt, and I must buy a new doll for Susey.”
“Susey is the name of the little girl with the flower-ball?”
“Yes. I must run off now; I feel quite light at heart seeing you again and finding that you receive me still so kindly, as if we were equals.”
“Ah, Tom, I wish I was your equal,—nay, half as noble as Heaven has made you!”
Tom laughed incredulously, and went his way.
“This mischievous passion of love,” said Kenelm to himself, “has its good side, it seems, after all. If it was nearly making a wild beast of that brave fellow,—nay, worse than wild beast, a homicide doomed to the gibbet,—so, on the other hand, what a refined, delicate, chivalrous nature of gentleman it has developed out of the stormy elements of its first madness! Yes, I will go and look at this new-married couple. I dare say they are already snarling and spitting at each other like cat and dog. Moleswich is within reach of a walk.”