The little quarrel between George and his cousin caused the former to discontinue his visits to Bloomsbury in a great measure; for Mr. Will was more than ever assiduous in his attentions; and, now that both were bound over to peace, so outrageous in his behaviour, that George found the greatest difficulty in keeping his hands from his cousin. The artless little Lydia had certainly a queer way of receiving her friends. But six weeks before madly jealous of George’s preference for another, she now took occasion repeatedly to compliment Theo in her conversation. Miss Theo was such a quiet, gentle creature, Lyddy was sure George was just the husband for her. How fortunate that horrible quarrel had been prevented! The constables had come up just in time; and it was quite ridiculous to hear Mr. Esmond cursing and swearing, and the rage he was in at being disappointed of his duel! “But the arrival of the constables saved your valuable life, dear Mr. George, and I am sure Miss Theo ought to bless them forever,” says Lyddy, with a soft smile. “You won’t stop and meet Mr. Esmond at dinner today? You don’t like being in his company? He can’t do you any harm; and I am sure you will do him none.” Kind speeches like these addressed by a little girl to a gentleman, and spoken by a strange inadvertency in company, and when other gentlemen and ladies were present, were not likely to render Mr. Warrington very eager for the society of the young American lady.

George’s meeting with Mr. Will was not known for some days in Dean Street, for he did not wish to disturb those kind folks with his quarrel; but when the ladies were made aware of it, you may be sure there was a great flurry and to-do. “You were actually going to take a fellow-creature’s life, and you came to see us, and said not a word! Oh, George, it was shocking!” said Theo.

“My dear, he had insulted me and my brother,” pleaded George. “Could I let him call us both cowards, and sit by and say, Thank you?”

The General sate by and looked very grave.

“You know you think, papa, it is a wicked and unChristian practice; and have often said you wished gentlemen would have the courage to refuse!”

“To refuse? Yes,” says Mr. Lambert, still very glum.

“It must require a prodigious strength of mind to refuse,” says Jack Lambert, looking as gloomy as his father; “and I think if any man were to call me a coward, I should be apt to forget my orders.”

“You see brother Jack is with me!” cries George.

“I must not be against you, Mr. Warrington,” says Jack Lambert.

“Mr. Warrington!” cries George, turning very red.

“Would you, a clergyman, have George break the Commandments, and commit murder, John?” asks Theo, aghast.

“I am a soldier’s son, sister,” says the young divine, drily. “Besides, Mr. Warrington has committed no murder at all. We must soon be hearing from Canada, father. The great question of the supremacy of the two races must be tried there ere long!” He turned his back on George as he spoke, and the latter eyed him with wonder.

Hetty, looking rather pale at this original remark of brother Jack, is called out of the room by some artful pretext of her sister. George started up and followed the retreating girls to the door.

“Great powers, gentlemen!” says he, coming back, “I believe, on my honour, you are giving me the credit of shirking this affair with Mr. Esmond!” The clergyman and his father looked at one another.

“A man’s nearest and dearest are always the first to insult him,” says George, flashing out.

“You mean to say, ‘Not guilty?’ God bless thee, my boy!” cries the General. “I told thee so, Jack.” And he rubbed his hand across his eyes, and blushed, and wrung George’s hand with all his might.

“Not guilty of what, in heaven’s name?” asks Mr. Warrington.

“Nay,” said the General, “Mr. Jack, here, brought the story. Let him tell it. I believe ’tis a ——— lie, with all my heart.” And uttering this wicked expression, the General fairly walked out of the room.

The Rev. J. Lambert looked uncommonly foolish.

“And what is this — this d —— d lie, sir, that somebody has been telling of me?” asked George, grinning at the young clergyman.

“To question the courage of any man is always an offence to him,” says Mr. Lambert, “and I rejoice that yours has been belied.”

“Who told the falsehood, sir, which you repeated?” bawls out Mr. Warrington. “I insist on the man’s name!”

“You forget you are bound over to keep the peace,” says Jack.

“Curse the peace, sir! We can go and fight in Holland. Tell me the man’s name, I say!”

“Fair and softly, Mr. Warrington!” cries the young parson; “my hearing is perfectly good. It was not a man who told me the story which, I confess, I imparted to my father.”

“What?” asks George, the truth suddenly occurring. “Was it that artful, wicked little vixen in Bloomsbury Square?”

“Vixen is not the word to apply to any young lady, George Warrington!” exclaims Lambert, “much less to the charming Miss Lydia. She artful — the most innocent of Heaven’s creatures! She wicked — that angel! With unfeigned delight that the quarrel should be over — with devout gratitude to think that blood consanguineous should not be shed — she spoke in terms of the highest praise of you for declining this quarrel, and of the deepest sympathy with you for taking the painful but only method of averting it.”

“What method?” demands George, stamping his foot.

“Why, of laying an information, to be sure!” says Mr. Jack; on which George burst forth into language much too violent for us to repeat here, and highly uncomplimentary to Miss Lydia.

“Don’t utter such words, sir!” cried the parson, who, as it seemed, now took his turn to be angry. “Do not insult, in my hearing, the most charming, the most innocent of her sex! If she has been mistaken in her information regarding you, and doubted your willingness to commit what, after all, is a crime — for a crime homicide is, and of the most awful description — you, sir, have no right to blacken that angel’s character with foul words: and, innocent yourself, should respect the most innocent as she is the most lovely of women! Oh, George, are you to be my brother?”

“I hope to have that honour,” answered George, smiling. He began to perceive the other’s drift.

“What, then, what — though ’tis too much bliss to be hoped for by sinful man — what, if she should one day be your sister? Who could see her charms without being subjugated by them? I own that I am a slave. I own that those Latin Sapphics in the September number of the Gentleman’s Magazine, beginning Lydicae quondam cecinit venustae (with an English version by my friend Hickson of Corpus), were mine. I have told my mother what hath passed between us, and Mrs. Lambert also thinks that the most lovely of her sex has deigned to look favourably on me. I have composed a letter — she another. She proposes to wait on Miss Lydia’s grandpapa this very day, and to bring me the answer, which shall make me the happiest or the most wretched of men! It was in the unrestrained intercourse of family conversation that I chanced to impart to my father the sentiments which my dear girl had uttered. Perhaps I spoke slightingly of your courage, which I don’t doubt — by Heaven, I don’t doubt: it may be, she has erred, too, regarding you. It may be that the fiend jealousy has been gnawing at my bosom, and — horrible suspicion! — that I thought my sister’s lover found too much favour with her I would have all my own. Ah, dear George, who knows his faults? I am as one distracted with passion. Confound it, sir! What right have you to laugh at me? I would have you to know that risu inepto”

“What, have you two boys made it up?” cries the General, entering at this moment, in the midst of a roar of laughter from Georg............