Why can't you put on your surplice and make Oscar happy to-morrow, after breakfast ?" More even than this, he showed the most vivid interest--like a woman's interest rather than a man's--in learning how the love-affair between Oscar and Lucilla had begun.

I referred him, so far as Oscar was concerned, to his brother as the fountain-head of information.

He did not decline to consult his brother.
He did not own to me that he felt any difficulty in doing so.

He simply dropped Oscar in silence; and asked about Lucilla.

How had it begun on her side?
I reminded him of his brother's romantic position at Dimchurch and told him to judge for himself of the effect it would produce on the excitable imagination of a young girl.