CAPTAIN JENKIN 217 



(of whose good heart and taste I do not hear for 

 the first time the news had come to me by way 

 of the Infirmary) and their next-door neighbour, 

 unwearied in service, Miss Hannah Mayne. Nor 

 should I omit to mention that John Ruffini con- 

 tinued to write to Mrs. Jenkin till his own death, 

 and the clever lady known to the world as Vernon 

 Lee until the end : a touching, a becoming atten- 

 tion to what was only the wreck and survival of 

 their brilliant friend. 



But he to whom this affliction brought the Captain 



Jenkin. 



greatest change was the Captain himself. What 

 was bitter in his lot, he bore with unshaken 

 courage ; only once, in these ten years of trial, 

 has Mrs. Fleeming Jenkin seen him weep ; for the 

 rest of the time his wife his commanding officer, 

 now become his trying child was served not 

 with patience alone, but with a lovely happiness 

 of temper. He had belonged all his life to the 

 ancient, formal, speech-making compliment-pre- 

 senting school of courtesy ; the dictates of this 

 code partook in his eyes of the nature of a duty ; 

 and he must now be courteous for two. Partly 

 from a happy illusion, partly in a tender fraud, 

 he kept his wife before the world as a still active 

 partner. When he paid a call, he would have 

 her write ' with love ' upon a card ; or if that 

 (at the moment) was too much, he would go 

 armed with a bouquet and present it in her name. 



