proof of it, he quoted my words, that my father's time had been spent in
superintending the opening of a coal-mine on Prince Ernest's estate.
'That fellow pretending to manage a coal-mine!' Could not a girl see it
was a shuffle to hoodwink a greenhorn? And now he remembered it was
Colonel Goodwin and his daughter who had told him of having seen 'the
fellow' engaged in playing Court-buffoon to a petty German prince, and
performing his antics, cutting capers like a clown at a fair.

'Shame!' said Janet.

'Hear her!' The squire turned to me.

But she cried: 'Oh! grandada, hear yourself! or don't, be silent. If
Harry has offended you, speak like one gentleman to another. Don't rob
me of my love for you: I haven't much besides that.'

'No, because of a scoundrel and his young idiot!'

Janet frowned in earnest, and said: 'I don't permit you to change the
meaning of the words I speak.'

He muttered a proverb of the stables. Reduced to behave temperately, he
began the whole history of my bankers' book anew--the same queries, the
same explosions and imprecations.

'Come for a walk with me, dear Harry,' said Janet.

I declined to be protected in such a manner, absurdly on my dignity; and
the refusal, together possibly with some air of contemptuous independence
in the tone of it, brought the squire to a climax. 'You won't go out and