This was the scene in Mr. Laurence Fairfax’s study.  He was seated at ease in his great leathern chair, and perched on his knee, with one arm round his neck and a ripe pomegranate cheek pressed against his ear, was that winsome little lady in blue who was to be known henceforward as the philosopher’s wife:  if she had not been so exquisitely pretty it would have seemed a liberty to take with so much learning.  Opposite to them, and grim as a monumental effigy, sat Miss Jocund, and Bessie Fairfax, with an amazed and amused countenance, listened and looked on.  The philosopher and his wife were laughing:  they loved one another, they had two dear little boys; what could the world give them or take away in comparison with such joys?  Their secret, long suspected in various quarters, had transpired publicly since yesterday, and Lady Angleby had that morning appealed haughtily to Miss Jocund in her own shop to know how it had all happened.

Miss Jocund now reported what she had answered:  “I reckon, your ladyship, that Dan Cupid is no more open in his tactics than ever he was.  All I have to tell is, that one evening, some six years ago, my niece Rosy, who was a timid little thing, went for a walk by the river with a school-fellow, and a hulking, rude boy gave them a fright.  Mr. Laurence Fairfax, by good luck, was in the way and brought them home, and said to me that Rosy was much too pretty to be allowed to wander out unprotected.  When they met after he had a kind nod and a word for her, and I’ve no doubt she had a shy blush for him.  A philosopher is but a man, and liable to fall in love, and that is what he did:  he fell in love with Rosy and married her.  It suited all parties to keep it a secret at first; but a secret is like a birth—­when its time is full forth it must come.  Two little boys with Fairfax writ large on their faces are bad to hide.  Therefore it suits all parties now to declare the marriage.  And that is the whole story, an’ it please your ladyship.”

“I warrant it did not please her ladyship at all,” said Mr. Laurence Fairfax, laughing at the recital.

“No.  She turned and went away in a rage; then came back to expound her views with respect to Rosy’s origin.  I begged to inform her that from time immemorial king’s jesters had been of the Jocund family—­an office to the full as dignified as the office of public barber.  And a barber her ladyship’s great-grandfather was, and shaved His Majesty’s lieges for a penny.  Mr. Cecil Burleigh waited for her outside, and to him immediately she of course repeated the tale.  How does it come to be a concern of his, I should be glad to know?” Nobody volunteered to gratify her curiosity, but Mr. Laurence Fairfax could have done so, no doubt.