And the landlady at the "Punch-Bowl" that night drank to his memory, declaring that he had died game, as was fitting for a gentleman of the road.
CHAPTER II
BARBARA LANISON
As the coach rolled heavily homewards towards St. James's Square, Lady Bolsover speedily recovered from her anxiety concerning her niece; she did not even reprimand her for getting lost in the crowd, and seemed to take no interest whatever in the gentleman who had come to the rescue and had not waited to be thanked. He could have been no person of consequence, or he would not have neglected the opportunity of bowing over her hand. She talked of nothing but the trial and the excellent manner in which her friend Judge Marriott had conducted it. Some of his witticisms she remembered and repeated with such excellent point that her niece shuddered again as she had done when they fell from the judge's lips.
"It was altogether horrible," said the girl. "I wonder why you made me go."
"Judge Marriott's wit horrible!" exclaimed Lady Bolsover. "Pray do not say so in company, or you will be taken for a fool."
"I meant the trial—the whole thing. Why did we go?"
"Would you be altogether out of the fashion, Barbara?"
"Such fashion, yes, I think so."
"Ah, that's the drawback of living in the country," was the answer. "All one's morals and manners smell of the soil, and a woman's attainments are limited to the making of gooseberry wine and piecrusts. I was of that pattern myself once, but, thank heaven! I married wisely and escaped from it. You must do the same, Barbara."