"Two gentlemen have had an unseemly wrangle," Alex said, "and in the midst Dr. Watson arrived, and a poor child begging. It is over now, and your chair waits, Miss Mainwaring."
CHAPTER V.
GRISELDA! GRISELDA!
When Griselda went down to the little lobby, she found Mr. Travers with a flushed and excited face, and Mr. Herschel trying to calm him.
"Take my word for it, my young friend, there are always two necessary to make a quarrel, and I should beware of yonder dandy, who bears no good character."
"I will take your advice as far as in me lies, sir; but if he ever dares to speak again, as just now—in the presence of others, too!—to dare to speak lightly of her——I will not pick the quarrel, but if he picks it, then I am no coward."
Dr. William Watson, who had come for a second time that day to visit the "moon-gazer" of the night before, had been a somewhat unwilling witness of the high words which had passed between Sir Maxwell Danby and Leslie Travers, and now seemed impatient to be taken upstairs to inspect the process of grinding and polishing the reflector for great twenty and thirty foot mirrors, which was then achieved by persistent manual labour.
Dr. William Watson was a Fellow of the Royal Society, and had come to invite Mr. Herschel to join the Philosophical Society in Bath, which invitation he accepted, and by this means came more prominently before the world.
Mr. Travers led Griselda to her chair, and as the boy lighted the torch at the door—for it was quite dark—a small and piteous voice was heard: