Jenny said:  ’I think it is a good fable of self-help.  Does it quite illustrate the case?  I mean, the virtue of impatience.  But I like the fable and the moral; and I think it would do good if it were made popular, though it would be hard to condense it to a song.’

’It would be hard! ay, then we do it forthwith.  And you shall compose the music.  As for the “case of impatience,” my dear, you tether the soaring universal to your pet-lamb’s post, the special.  I spoke of seed sown.  I spoke of the fruits of energy and resolution.  Cared I for an apology?  I took the blows as I take hail from the clouds—­which apologize to you the moment you are in shelter, if you laugh at them.  So, good night to that matter!  Are we to have rain this evening?  I must away into Bevisham to the Workmen’s Hall, and pay the men.’

’There will not be rain; there will be frost, and you must be well wrapped if you must go,’ said Jenny.  ’And tell them not to think of deputations to Captain Beauchamp yet.’

’No, no deputations; let them send Killick, if they want to say anything,’ said Beauchamp.

‘Wrong!’ the doctor cried; ’wrong! wrong!  Six men won’t hurt you more than one.  And why check them when their feelings are up?  They burn to be speaking some words to you.  Trust me, Beauchamp, if we shun to encounter the good warm soul of numbers, our hearts are narrowed to them.  The business of our modern world is to open heart and stretch out arms to numbers.  In numbers we have our sinews; they are our iron and gold.  Scatter them not; teach them the secret of cohesion.  Practically, since they gave you not their entire confidence once, you should not rebuff them to suspicions of you as aristocrat, when they rise on the effort to believe a man of, as ’tis called, birth their undivided friend.  Meet them!’

‘Send them,’ said Beauchamp.

Jenny Denham fastened a vast cloak and a comforter on the doctor’s heedless shoulders and throat, enjoining on him to return in good time for dinner.

He put his finger to her cheek in reproof of such supererogatory counsel to a man famous for his punctuality.

The day had darkened.

Beauchamp begged Jenny to play to him on the piano.

‘Do you indeed care to have music?’ said she.  ’I did not wish you to meet a deputation, because your strength is not yet equal to it.  Dr. Shrapnel dwells on principles, forgetful of minor considerations.’

‘I wish thousands did!’ cried Beauchamp.  ’When you play I seem to hear ideas.  Your music makes me think.’

Jenny lit a pair of candles and set them on the piano.  ‘Waltzes?’ she asked.

‘Call in a puppet-show at once!’

She smiled, turned over some leaves, and struck the opening notes of the Ninth Symphony of Beethoven, and made her selections.

At the finish he said:  ’Now read me your father’s poem, “The Hunt of the Fates."’