WYLDER'S HAJVD.
19
in, when I saw that long-chinned apparition of the pale
portrait? Many a wiser man. than I had been mystified by
dyspepsia and melancholic vapors.
CHAPTER XV.
DORCAS SHOWS HER JEWELS TO MISS LAKE.
Stanley Lake and his sister dined next day at Brandon.
Under the cold shadow of Lady Chelford, the proprieties
flourished, and generally very little else. Awful she was,
and prompt to lecture young people before their peers, and
spoke her mind with fearful directness and precision. But
sometimes she would talk, and treat her hearers to her re-
collections, and recount anecdotes with a sort of grim
cleverness, not wholly unamusing.
When I entered the drawing-room after dinner, Lord
Chelford was plainly arguing a point with the young
ladies, and by the time I drew near, it was Miss Lake's
turn to speak. "Flattering of mankind, I am sure, I
have no talent for; and without flattering and wheedling
you'll never have conjugal obedience. Don't you remem-
ber Robin Hood? how —
The mother of Robin said to her husband,
My honey, my love, and my dear!
And all this for leave to ride with her son to see her own
brother at Gam well"
"I remember," said Dorcas, with a smile. "I wonder
what has become of that old book, with its odd little wood-
cuts.
And he said, I grant thee thy boon, gentle Joan!
Take one of my horses straitway."