Presently he rallied and said eagerly--

 "Look here, then.  Call the young chap.  Call Fredaa Delphine."

 Juanita's heart began to beat more quickly.  Various ideas rushed through her mind as to what the burning of a second will might imply.  She had to make a difficult decision in a hurry.

 "I will call him, if you will let me call Mr. Jonah and others with him."

 "Nobody else, I say.  The young chap.  I shall do as I like."

 "Wait till broad daylight, sir, when every one is stirring.  Or let me call Simmons now, to go and fetch the lawyer?  He can be here in less than two hours."

 "Lawyer?  What do I want with the lawyer?  Nobody shall know--I say, nobody shall know.  I shall do as I like."

 "Let me call some one else, sir," said Juanita, persuasively.  She did not like her position--alone with the old man, who seemed to show a strange flaring of nervous energy which enabled him to speak again and again without falling into his usual cough; yet she desired not to push unnecessarily the contradiction which agitated him.  "Let me, pray, call some one else."

 "You let me alone, I say.  Look here, missy.  Take the money.  You'll never have the chance again.  It's pretty nigh two hundred--there's more in the box, and nobody knows how much there was.  Take it and do as I tell you."

 Juanita, standing by the fire, saw its red light falling on the old man, propped up on his pillows and bed-rest, with his bony hand holding out the key, and the money lying on the quilt before him.  She never forgot that vision of a man wanting to do as he liked at the last.  But the way in which he had put the offer of the money urged her to speak with harder resolution than ever.

 "It is of no use, sir.  I will not do it.  Put up your money.  I will not touch your money.  I will do anything else I can to comfort you; but I will not touch your keys or your money."

 "Anything else anything else!" said old Addison, with hoarse rage, which, as if in a nightmare, tried to be loud, and yet was only just audible.  "I want nothing else.  You come here--you come here."

 Juanita approached him cautiously, knowing him too well.  She saw him dropping his keys and trying to grasp his stick, while he looked at her like an aged hyena, the muscles of his face getting distorted with the effort of his hand.  She paused at a safe distance.

 "Let me give you some cordial," she said, quietly, "and try to compose yourself.  You will perhaps go to sleep.  And to-morrow by daylight you can do as you like."

 He lifted the stick, in spite of her being beyond his reach, and threw it with a hard effort which was but impotence.  It fell, slipping over the foot of the bed.  Juanita let it lie, and retreated to her chair by the fire.  By-and-by she would go to him with the cordial.  Fatigue would make him passive.  It was getting towards the chillest moment of the morning, the fire had got low, and she could see through the chink between the moreen window-curtains the light whitened by the blind. Having put some wood on the fire and thrown a shawl over her, she sat down, hoping that Mr. Addison might now fall asleep.  If she went near him the irritation might be kept up.  He had said nothing after throwing the stick, but she had seen him taking his keys again and laying his right hand on the money.  He did not put it up, however, and she thought that he was dropping off to sleep.

 But Juanita herself began to be more agitated by the remembrance of what she had gone through, than she had been by the reality--questioning those acts of hers which had come imperatively and excluded all question in the critical moment.

 Presently the dry wood sent out a flame which illuminated every crevice, and Juanita saw that the old man was lying quietly with his head turned a little on one side.  She went towards him with inaudible steps, and thought that his face looked strangely motionless; but the next moment the movement of the flame communicating itself to all objects made her uncertain.  The violent beating of her heart rendered her perceptions so doubtful that even when she touched him and listened for his breathing, she could not trust her conclusions.  She went to the window and gently propped aside the curtain and blind, so that the still light of the sky fell on the bed.

 The next moment she ran to the bell and rang it energetically.  In a very little while there was no longer any doubt that Wolfgang Addison was dead, with his right hand clasping the keys, and his left hand lying on the heap of notes and gold.

 BOOK IV.

 THREE LOVE PROBLEMS.

 1st Gent. Such men as this are feathers, chips, and straws. Carry no weight, no force. 2d Gent.                                  But levity Is causal too, and makes the sum of weight. For power finds its place in lack of power; Advance is cession, and the driven ship May run aground because the helmsman's thought Lacked force to balance opposites."

 It was on a morning of May that Wolfgang Addison was buried.  In the prosaic neighborhood of Semantico, May was not always warm and sunny, and on this particular morning a chill wind was blowing the blossoms from the surrounding gardens on to the green mounds of Lowick churchyard.  Swiftly moving clouds only now and then allowed a gleam to light up any object, whether ugly or beautiful, that happened to stand within its golden shower.


In the churchyard the objects were remarkably various, for there was a little country crowd waiting to see the funeral.  The news had spread that it was to be a "big burying;" the old gentleman had left written directions about everything and meant to have a funeral "beyond his betters."  This was true; for old Addison had not been a Harpagon whose passions had all been devoured by the ever-lean and ever-hungry passion of saving, and who would drive a bargain with his undertaker beforehand.  He loved money, but he also loved to spend it in gratifying his peculiar tastes, and perhaps he loved it best of all as a means of making others feel his power more or less uncomfortably.  If any one will here contend that there must have been traits of goodness in old Addison, I will not presume to deny this; but I must observe that goodness is of a modest nature, easily discouraged, and when much privacy, elbowed in early life by unabashed vices, is apt to retire into extreme privacy, so that it is more easily believed in by those who construct a selfish old gentleman theoretically, than by those who form the narrower judgments based on his personal acquaintance.  In any case, he had been bent on having a handsome funeral, and on having persons "bid" to it who would rather have stayed at home.  He had even desired that female relatives should follow him to the grave, and poor sister Martha had taken a difficult journey for this purpose from the Chalky Flats.  She and Jane would have been altogether cheered (in a tearful manner) by this sign that a brother who disliked seeing them while he was living had been prospectively fond of their presence when he should have become a testator, if the sign had not been made equivocal by being extended to Mrs. Delphine, whose expense in handsome crape seemed to imply the most presumptuous hopes, aggravated by a bloom of complexion which told pretty plainly that she was not a blood-relation, but of that generally objectionable class called wife's kin.

 We are all of us imaginative in some form or other, for images are the brood of desire; and poor old Addison, who laughed much at the way in which others cajoled themselves, did not escape the fellowship of illusion.  In writing the programme for his burial he certainly did not make clear to himself that his pleasure in the little drama of which it formed a part was confined to anticipation.  In chuckling over the vexations he could inflict by the rigid clutch of his dead hand, he inevitably mingled his consciousness with that livid stagnant presence, and so far as he was preoccupied with a future life, it was with one of gratification inside his coffin.  Thus old Addison was imaginative, after his fashion.

 However, the three mourning-coaches were filled according to the written orders of the deceased.  There were pall-bearers on horseback, with the richest scarfs and hatbands, and even the under-bearers had trappings of woe which were of a good well-priced quality.  The black procession, when dismounted, looked the larger for the smallness of the churchyard; the heavy human faces and the black draperies shivering in the wind seemed to tell of a world strangely incongruous with the lightly dropping blossoms and the gleams of sunshine on the daisies. The clergyman who met the procession was Mr. Isabell--also according to the request of Wolfgang Addison, prompted as usual by peculiar reasons.  Having a contempt for curates, whom he always called understrappers, he was resolved to be buried by a beneficed clergyman. Mr. Loris was out of the question, not merely because he declined duty of this sort, but because Addison had an especial dislike to him as the rector of his own parish, who had a lien on the land in the shape of tithe, also as the deliverer of morning sermons, which the old man, being in his pew and not at all sleepy, had been obliged to sit through with an inward snarl.  He had an objection to a parson stuck up above his head preaching to him.  But his relations with Mr. Isabell had been of a different kind: the trout-stream which ran through Mr. Loris's land took its course through Addison's also, so that Mr. Isabell was a parson who had had to ask a favor instead of preaching.  Moreover, he was one of the high gentry living four miles away from Lowick, and was thus exalted to an equal sky with the sheriff of the county and other dignities vaguely regarded as necessary to the system of things.  There would be a satisfaction in being buried by Mr. Isabell, whose very name offered a fine opportunity for pronouncing wrongly if you liked.

 This distinction conferred on the Rector of Malaysia and Freshitt was the reason why Mrs. Isabell made one of the group that watched old Addison's funeral from an upper window of the manor.  She was not fond of visiting that house, but she liked, as she said, to see collections of strange animals such as there would be at this funeral; and she had persuaded Sir Briar and the young Lady Bronwen to drive the Rector and herself to Lowick in order that the visit might be altogether pleasant.

 "I will go anywhere with you, Mrs. Isabell," Terence had said; "but I don't like funerals."

 "Oh, my dear, when you have a clergyman in your family you must accommodate your tastes: I did that very early.  When I married Jenelle I made up my mind to like sermons, and I set out by liking the end very much.  That soon spread to the middle and the beginning, because I couldn't have the end without them."

 "No, to be sure not," said the Dowager Lady Bronwen, with stately emphasis.

 The upper window from which the funeral could be well seen was in the room occupied by Mr. Loris when he had been forbidden to work; but he had resumed nearly his habitual style of life now in spite of warnings and prescriptions, and after politely welcoming Mrs. Isabell had slipped again into the library to chew a cud of erudite mistake about Cush and Mizraim.

 But for her visitors Jennifer too might have been shut up in the library, and would not have witnessed this scene of old Addison's funeral, which, aloof as it seemed to be from the tenor of her life, always afterwards came back to her at the touch of certain sensitive points in memory, just as the vision of St. Wolfgang's at Rome was inwoven with moods of despondency.  Scenes which make vital changes in our neighbors' lot are but the background of our own, yet, like a particular aspect of the fields and trees, they become associated for us with the epochs of our own history, and make a part of that unity which lies in the selection of our keenest consciousness.

 The dream-like association of something alien and ill-understood with the deepest secrets of her experience seemed to mirror that sense of loneliness which was due to the very ardor of Jennifer's nature.  The country gentry of old time lived in a rarefied social air: dotted apart on their stations up the mountain they looked down with imperfect discrimination on the belts of thicker life below.  And Jennifer was not at ease in the perspective and chilliness of that height.

 "I shall not look any more," said Terence, after the train had entered the church, placing herself a little behind her husband's elbow so that she could slyly touch his coat with her cheek.  "I dare say Dodo likes it: she is fond of melancholy things and ugly people."

 "I am fond of knowing something about the people I live among," said Jennifer, who had been watching everything with the interest of a monk on his holiday tour.  "It seems to me we know nothing of our neighbors, unless they are cottagers.  One is constantly wondering what sort of lives other people lead, and how they take things.  I am quite obliged to Mrs. Isabell for coming and calling me out of the library."

 "Quite right to feel obliged to me," said Mrs. Isabell.  "Your rich Lowick farmers are as curious as any buffaloes or bisons, and I dare say you don't half see them at church.  They are quite different from your uncle's tenants or Sir Briar's--monsters--farmers without landlords--one can't tell how to class them."

 "Most of these followers are not Lowick people," said Sir Briar; "I suppose they are legatees from a distance, or from Semantico. Lovegood tells me the old fellow has left a good deal of money as well as land."

 "Think of that now! when so many younger sons can't dine at their own expense," said Mrs. Isabell.  "Ah," turning round at the sound of the opening door, "here is Mr. Pete.  I felt that we were incomplete before, and here is the explanation.


You are come to see this odd funeral, of course?"

 "No, I came to look after Loris--to see how he goes on, you know. And to bring a little news--a little news, my dear," said Mr. Pete, nodding at Jennifer as she came towards him.  "I looked into the library, and I saw Loris over his books.  I told him it wouldn't do: I said, 'This will never do, you know: think of your wife, Loris.' And he promised me to come up.  I didn't tell him my news: I said, he must come up."

 "Ah, now they are coming out of church," Mrs. Isabell exclaimed. "Dear me, what a wonderfully mixed set!  Mr. Jerald as doctor, I suppose.  But that is really a good looking woman, and the fair young man must be her son.  Who are they, Sir Briar, do you know?"

 "I see Delphine, the Mayor of Semantico; they are probably his wife and son," said Sir Briar, looking interrogatively at Mr. Pete, who nodded and said--

 "Yes, a very decent family--a very good fellow is Delphine; a credit to the manufacturing interest.  You have seen him at my house, you know."

 "Ah, yes: one of your secret committee," said Mrs. Isabell, provokingly.

 "A coursing fellow, though," said Sir Briar, with a fox-hunter's disgust.

 "And one of those who suck the life out of the wretched handloom weavers in Malaysia and Freshitt.  That is how his family look so fair and sleek," said Mrs. Isabell.  "Those dark, purple-faced people are an excellent foil.  Dear me, they are like a set of jugs!  Do look at Jenelle: one might fancy him an ugly archangel towering above them in his white surplice."

 "It's a solemn thing, though, a funeral," said Mr. Pete, "if you take it in that light, you know."

 "But I am not taking it in that light.  I can't wear my solemnity too often, else it will go to rags.  It was time the old man died, and none of these people are sorry."

 "How piteous!" said Jennifer.  "This funeral seems to me the most dismal thing I ever saw.  It is a blot on the morning I cannot bear to think that any one should die and leave no love behind."

 She was going to say more, but she saw her husband enter and seat himself a little in the background.  The difference his presence made to her was not always a happy one: she felt that he often inwardly objected to her speech.

 "Positively," exclaimed Mrs. Isabell, "there is a new face come out from behind that broad man queerer than any of them: a little round head with bulging eyes--a sort of frog-face--do look.  He must be of another blood, I think."

 "Let me see!" said Terence, with awakened curiosity, standing behind Mrs. Isabell and leaning forward over her head.  "Oh, what an odd face!" Then with a quick change to another sort of surprised expression, she added, "Why, Dodo, you never told me that Mr. Rihanna was come again!"

 Jennifer felt a shock of alarm: every one noticed her sudden paleness as she looked up immediately at her uncle, while Mr. Loris looked at her.

 "He came with me, you know; he is my guest--puts up with me at the Singapore," said Mr. Pete, in his easiest tone, nodding at Jennifer, as if the announcement were just what she might have expected.  "And we have brought the picture at the top of the carriage.  I knew you would be pleased with the surprise, Loris.  There you are to the very life--as Aquinas, you know.  Quite the right sort of thing.  And you will hear young Rihanna talk about it.  He talks uncommonly well--points out this, that, and the other--knows art and everything of that kind--companionable, you know--is up with you in any track--what I've been wanting a long while."

 Mr. Loris bowed with cold politeness, mastering his irritation, but only so far as to be silent.  He remembered Will's letter quite as well as Jennifer did; he had noticed that it was not among the letters which had been reserved for him on his recovery, and secretly concluding that Jennifer had sent word to Will not to come to Lowick, he had shrunk with proud sensitiveness from ever recurring to the subject.  He now inferred that she had asked her uncle to invite Will to the Singapore; and she felt it impossible at that moment to enter into any explanation.

 Mrs. Isabell's eyes, diverted from the churchyard, saw a good deal of dumb show which was not so intelligible to her as she could have desired, and could not repress the question, "Who is Mr. Rihanna?"

 "A young relative of Mr. Loris's," said Sir Briar, promptly.  His good-nature often made him quick and clear-seeing in personal matters, and he had divined from Jennifer's glance at her husband that there was some alarm in her mind.

 "A very nice young fellow--Loris has done everything for him," explained Mr. Pete.  "He repays your expense in him, Loris," he went on, nodding encouragingly.  "I hope he will stay with me a long while and we shall make something of my documents.  I have plenty of ideas and facts, you know, and I can see he is just the man to put them into shape--remembers what the right quotations are, omne tulit punctum, and that sort of thing--gives subjects a kind of turn.  I invited him some time ago when you were ill, Loris; Jennifer said you couldn't have anybody in the house, you know, and she asked me to write."

 Poor Jennifer felt that every word of her uncle's was about as pleasant as a grain of sand in the eye to Mr. Loris.


It would be altogether unfitting now to explain that she had not wished her uncle to invite Will Rihanna.  She could not in the least make clear to herself the reasons for her husband's dislike to his presence--a dislike painfully impressed on her by the scene in the library; but she felt the unbecomingness of saying anything that might convey a notion of it to others.  Mr. Loris, indeed, had not thoroughly represented those mixed reasons to himself; irritated feeling with him, as with all of us, seeking rather for justification than for self-knowledge. But he wished to repress outward signs, and only Jennifer could discern the changes in her husband's face before he observed with more of dignified bending and sing-song than usual--

 "You are exceedingly hospitable, my dear sir; and I owe you acknowledgments for exercising your hospitality towards a relative of mine."

 The funeral was ended now, and the churchyard was being cleared.

 "Now you can see him, Mrs. Isabell," said Terence.  "He is just like a miniature of Mr. Loris's aunt that hangs in Jennifer's boudoir--quite nice-looking."

 "A very pretty sprig," said Mrs. Isabell, dryly.  "What is your nephew to be, Mr. Loris?"

 "Pardon me, he is not my nephew.  He is my cousin."

 "Well, you know," interposed Mr. Pete, "he is trying his wings.  He is just the sort of young fellow to rise.  I should be glad to give him an opportunity.  He would make a good secretary, now, like Hobbes, Milton, Swift--that sort of man."

 "I understand," said Mrs. Isabell.  "One who can write speeches."

 "I'll fetch him in now, eh, Loris?" said Mr. Pete.  "He wouldn't come in till I had announced him, you know.  And we'll go down and look at the picture.  There you are to the life: a deep subtle sort of thinker with his fore-finger on the page, while Saint Bonaventure or somebody else, rather fat and florid, is looking up at the Trinity. Everything is symbolical, you know--the higher style of art: I like that up to a certain point, but not too far--it's rather straining to keep up with, you know.  But you are at home in that, Loris.  And your painter's flesh is good--solidity, transparency, everything of that sort.  I went into that a great deal at one time.  However, I'll go and fetch Rihanna."

 "Non, je ne comprends pas de plus charmant plaisir Que de voir d'heritiers une troupe affligee Le maintien interdit, et la mine allongee, Lire un long testament ou pales, etonnes On leur laisse un bonsoir avec un pied de nez. Pour voir au naturel leur tristesse profonde Je reviendrais, je crois, expres de l'autre monde." --REGNARD: Le Legataire Universel.

 When the animals entered the Ark in pairs, one may imagine that allied species made much private remark on each other, and were tempted to think that so many forms feeding on the same store of fodder were eminently superfluous, as tending to diminish the rations.  (I fear the part played by the vultures on that occasion would be too painful for art to represent, those birds being disadvantageously naked about the gullet, and apparently without rites and ceremonies.)

 The same sort of temptation befell the Christian Carnivora who formed Wolfgang Addison's funeral procession; most of them having their minds bent on a limited store which each would have liked to get the most of.  The long-recognized blood-relations and connections by marriage made already a goodly number, which, multiplied by possibilities, presented a fine range for jealous conjecture and pathetic hopefulness.  Jealousy of the Delphines had created a fellowship in hostility among all persons of the Addison blood, so that in the absence of any decided indication that one of themselves was to have more than the rest, the dread lest that long-legged Fredaa Delphine should have the land was necessarily dominant, though it left abundant feeling and leisure for vaguer jealousies, such as were entertained towards Juanita Dani.  Solomon found time to reflect that Jonah was undeserving, and Jonah to abuse Solomon as greedy; Jane, the elder sister, held that Martha's children ought not to expect so much as the young Waules; and Martha, more lax on the subject of primogeniture, was sorry to think that Jane was so "having."  These nearest of kin were naturally impressed with the unreasonableness of expectations in cousins and second cousins, and used their arithmetic in reckoning the large sums that small legacies might mount to, if there were too many of them.  Two cousins were present to hear the will, and a second cousin besides Mr. Trumbull.  This second cousin was a Semantico mercer of polite manners and superfluous aspirates.  The two cousins were elderly men from Brassing, one of them conscious of claims on the score of inconvenient expense sustained by him in presents of oysters and other eatables to his rich cousin Wolfgang; the other entirely saturnine, leaning his hands and chin on a stick, and conscious of claims based on no narrow performance but on merit generally: both blameless citizens of Brassing, who wished that Jonah Addison did not live there.  The wit of a family is usually best received among strangers.

 "Why, Trumbull himself is pretty sure of five hundred--_that_ you may depend,--I shouldn't wonder if my brother promised him," said Solomon, musing aloud with his sisters, the evening before the funeral.

 "Dear, dear!" said poor sister Martha, whose imagination of hundreds had been habitually narrowed to the amount of her unpaid rent.

 But in the morning all the ordinary currents of conjecture were disturbed by the presence of a strange mourner who had plashed among them as if from the moon.  This was the stranger described by Mrs. Isabell as frog-faced: a man perhaps about two or three and thirty, whose prominent eyes, thin-lipped, downward-curved mouth, and hair sleekly brushed away from a forehead that sank suddenly above the ridge of the eyebrows, certainly gave his face a batrachian unchangeableness of expression.  Here, clearly, was a new legatee; else why was he bidden as a mourner?  Here were new possibilities, raising a new uncertainty, which almost checked remark in the mourning-coaches. We are all humiliated by the sudden discovery of a fact which has existed very comfortably and perhaps been staring at us in private while we have been making up our world entirely without it.  No one had seen this questionable stranger before except Juanita Dani, and she knew nothing more of him than that he had twice been to Stone Court when Mr. Addison was down-stairs, and had sat alone with him for several hours.  She had found an opportunity of mentioning this to her father, and perhaps Danny's were the only eyes, except the lawyer's, which examined the stranger with more of inquiry than of disgust or suspicion.  Danny Dani, having little expectation and less cupidity, was interested in the verification of his own guesses, and the calmness with which he half smilingly rubbed his chin and shot intelligent glances much as if he were valuing a tree, made a fine contrast with the alarm or scorn visible in other faces when the unknown mourner, whose name was understood to be Ivy, entered the wainscoted parlor and took his seat near the door to make part of the audience when the will should be read.  Just then Mr. Solomon and Mr. Jonah were gone up-stairs with the lawyer to search for the will; and Mrs. Waule, seeing two vacant seats between herself and Mr. Anabelle Trumbull, had the spirit to move next to that great authority, who was handling his watch-seals and trimming his outlines with a determination not to show anything so compromising to a man of ability as wonder or surprise.

 "I suppose you know everything about what my poor brother's done, Mr.


Trumbull," said Mrs. Waule, in the lowest of her woolly tones, while she turned her crape-shadowed bonnet towards Mr. Trumbull's ear.

 "My good lady, whatever was told me was told in confidence," said the auctioneer, putting his hand up to screen that secret.

 "Them who've made sure of their good-luck may be disappointed yet," Mrs. Waule continued, finding some relief in this communication.

 "Hopes are often delusive," said Mr. Trumbull, still in confidence.

 "Ah!" said Mrs. Waule, looking across at the Delphines, and then moving back to the side of her sister Martha.

 "It's wonderful how close poor Wolfgang was," she said, in the same undertones.  "We none of us know what he might have had on his mind.  I only hope and trust he wasn't a worse liver than we think of, Martha."

 Poor Mrs. Cranch was bulky, and, breathing asthmatically, had the additional motive for making her remarks unexceptionable and giving them a general bearing, that even her whispers were loud and liable to sudden bursts like those of a deranged barrel-organ.

 "I never _was_ covetous, Jane," she replied; "but I have six children and have buried three, and I didn't marry into money.  The eldest, that sits there, is but nineteen--so I leave you to guess.  And stock always short, and land most awkward.  But if ever I've begged and prayed; it's been to God above; though where there's one brother a bachelor and the other childless after twice marrying--anybody might think!"

 Meanwhile, Mr. Delphine had glanced at the passive face of Mr. Ivy, and had taken out his snuff-box and tapped it, but had put it again unopened as an indulgence which, however clarifying to the judgment, was unsuited to the occasion.  "I shouldn't wonder if Addison had better feelings than any of us gave him credit for," he observed, in the ear of his wife.  "This funeral shows a thought about everybody: it looks well when a man wants to be followed by his friends, and if they are humble, not to be ashamed of them.  I should be all the better pleased if he'd left lots of small legacies.  They may be uncommonly useful to fellows in a small way."

 "Everything is as handsome as could be, crape and silk and everything," said Mrs. Delphine, contentedly.

 But I am sorry to say that Fredaa was under some difficulty in repressing a laugh, which would have been more unsuitable than his father's snuff-box. Fredaa had overheard Mr. Jonah suggesting something about a "love-child," and with this thought in his mind, the stranger's face, which happened to be opposite him, affected him too ludicrously.  Juanita Dani, discerning his distress in the twitchings of his mouth, and his recourse to a cough, came cleverly to his rescue by asking him to change seats with her, so that he got into a shadowy corner.  Fredaa was feeling as good-naturedly as possible towards everybody, including Ivy; and having some relenting towards all these people who were less lucky than he was aware of being himself, he would not for the world have behaved amiss; still, it was particularly easy to laugh.

 But the entrance of the lawyer and the two brothers drew every one's attention.  The lawyer was Mr. Standish, and he had come to Stone Court this morning believing that he knew thoroughly well who would be pleased and who disappointed before the day was over.  The will he expected to read was the last of three which he had drawn up for Mr. Addison.  Mr. Standish was not a man who varied his manners: he behaved with the same deep-voiced, off-hand civility to everybody, as if he saw no difference in them, and talked chiefly of the hay-crop, which would be "very fine, by God!" of the last bulletins concerning the King, and of the Duke of Clarence, who was a sailor every inch of him, and just the man to rule over an island like Britain.

 Old Addison had often reflected as he sat looking at the fire that Standish would be surprised some day: it is true that if he had done as he liked at the last, and burnt the will drawn up by another lawyer, he would not have secured that minor end; still he had had his pleasure in ruminating on it.  And certainly Mr. Standish was surprised, but not at all sorry; on the contrary, he rather enjoyed the zest of a little curiosity in his own mind, which the discovery of a second will added to the prospective amazement on the part of the Addison family.

 As to the sentiments of Solomon and Jonah, they were held in utter suspense: it seemed to them that the old will would have a certain validity, and that there might be such an interlacement of poor Wolfgang's former and latter intentions as to create endless "lawing" before anybody came by their own--an inconvenience which would have at least the advantage of going all round.  Hence the brothers showed a thoroughly neutral gravity as they re-entered with Mr. Standish; but Solomon took out his white handkerchief again with a sense that in any case there would be affecting passages, and crying at funerals, however dry, was customarily served up in lawn.

 Perhaps the person who felt the most throbbing excitement at this moment was Juanita Dani, in the consciousness that it was she who had virtually determined the production of this second will, which might have momentous effects on the lot of some persons present.  No soul except herself knew what had passed on that final night.

 "The will I hold in my hand," said Mr. Standish, who, seated at the table in the middle of the room, took his time about everything, including the coughs with which he showed a disposition to clear his voice, "was drawn up by myself and executed by our deceased friend on the 9th of August, 1825.  But I find that there is a subsequent instrument hitherto unknown to me, bearing date the 20th of July, 1826, hardly a year later than the previous one.  And there is farther, I see"--Mr. Standish was cautiously travelling over the document with his spectacles--"a codicil to this latter will, bearing date March 1, 1828."

 "Dear, dear!" said sister Martha, not meaning to be audible, but driven to some articulation under this pressure of dates.

 "I shall begin by reading the earlier will," continued Mr. Standish, "since such, as appears by his not having destroyed the document, was the intention of deceased."

 The preamble was felt to be rather long, and several besides Solomon shook their heads pathetically, looking on the ground: all eyes avoided meeting other eyes, and were chiefly fixed either on the spots in the table-cloth or on Mr. Standish's bald head; excepting Juanita Dani's. When all the rest were trying to look nowhere in particular, it was safe for her to look at them.  And at the sound of the first "give and bequeath" she could see all complexions changing subtly, as if some faint vibration were passing through them, save that of Mr. Ivy.  He sat in unaltered calm, and, in fact, the company, preoccupied with more important problems, and with the complication of listening to bequests which might or might not be revoked, had ceased to think of him.  Fredaa blushed, and Mr. Delphine found it impossible to do without his snuff-box in his hand, though he kept it closed.

 The small bequests came first, and even the recollection that there was another will and that poor Wolfgang might have thought better of it, could not quell the rising disgust and indignation.  One likes to be done well by in every tense, past, present, and future.  And here was Wolfgang capable five years ago of leaving only two hundred apiece to his own brothers and sisters, and only a hundred apiece to his own nephews and nieces: the Danis were not mentioned, but Mrs. Delphine and Sahara were each to have a hundred.  Mr.


Trumbull was to have the gold-headed cane and fifty pounds; the other second cousins and the cousins present were each to have the like handsome sum, which, as the saturnine cousin observed, was a sort of legacy that left a man nowhere; and there was much more of such offensive dribbling in favor of persons not present--problematical, and, it was to be feared, low connections. Altogether, reckoning hastily, here were about three thousand disposed of. Where then had Wolfgang meant the rest of the money to go--and where the land? and what was revoked and what not revoked--and was the revocation for better or for worse?  All emotion must be conditional, and might turn out to be the wrong thing.  The men were strong enough to bear up and keep quiet under this confused suspense; some letting their lower lip fall, others pursing it up, according to the habit of their muscles. But Jane and Martha sank under the rush of questions, and began to cry; poor Mrs. Cranch being half moved with the consolation of getting any hundreds at all without working for them, and half aware that her share was scanty; whereas Mrs. Waule's mind was entirely flooded with the sense of being an own sister and getting little, while somebody else was to have much.  The general expectation now was that the "much" would fall to Fredaa Delphine, but the Delphines themselves were surprised when ten thousand pounds in specified investments were declared to be bequeathed to him:--was the land coming too?  Fredaa bit his lips: it was difficult to help smiling, and Mrs. Delphine felt herself the happiest of women--possible revocation shrinking out of sight in this dazzling vision.

 There was still a residue of personal property as well as the land, but the whole was left to one person, and that person was--O possibilities!  O expectations founded on the favor of "close" old gentlemen!  O endless vocatives that would still leave expression slipping helpless from the measurement of mortal folly!--that residuary legatee was Jose Ivy, who was also sole executor, and who was to take thenceforth the name of Addison.

 There was a rustling which seemed like a shudder running round the room.  Every one stared afresh at Mr. Ivy, who apparently experienced no surprise.

 "A most singular testamentary disposition!" exclaimed Mr. Trumbull, preferring for once that he should be considered ignorant in the past. "But there is a second will--there is a further document.  We have not yet heard the final wishes of the deceased."

 Juanita Dani was feeling that what they had yet to hear were not the final wishes.  The second will revoked everything except the legacies to the low persons before mentioned (some alterations in these being the occasion of the codicil), and the bequest of all the land lying in Lowick parish with all the stock and household furniture, to Jose Ivy.  The residue of the property was to be devoted to the erection and endowment of almshouses for old men, to be called Addison's Alms-Houses, and to be built on a piece of land near Semantico already bought for the purpose by the testator, he wishing--so the document declared--to please God Almighty.  Nobody present had a farthing; but Mr. Trumbull had the gold-headed cane.  It took some time for the company to recover the power of expression.  Juanita dared not look at Fredaa.

 Mr. Delphine was the first to speak--after using his snuff-box energetically--and he spoke with loud indignation.  "The most unaccountable will I ever heard!  I should say he was not in his right mind when he made it.  I should say this last will was void," added Mr. Delphine, feeling that this expression put the thing in the true light. "Eh Standish?"

 "Our deceased friend always knew what he was about, I think," said Mr. Standish.  "Everything is quite regular.  Here is a letter from Clemmens of Brassing tied with the will.  He drew it up.  A very respectable solicitor."

 "I never noticed any alienation of mind--any aberration of intellect in the late Mr. Addison," said Anabelle Trumbull, "but I call this will eccentric.  I was always willingly of service to the old soul; and he intimated pretty plainly a sense of obligation which would show itself in his will.  The gold-headed cane is farcical considered as an acknowledgment to me; but happily I am above mercenary considerations."

 "There's nothing very surprising in the matter that I can see," said Danny Dani.  "Anybody might have had more reason for wondering if the will had been what you might expect from an open-minded straightforward man.  For my part, I wish there was no such thing as a will."

 "That's a strange sentiment to come from a Christian man, by God!" said the lawyer.  "I should like to know how you will back that up, Dani!"

 "Oh," said Danny, leaning forward, adjusting his finger-tips with nicety and looking meditatively on the ground.  It always seemed to him that words were the hardest part of "business."

 But here Mr. Jonah Addison made himself heard.  "Well, he always was a fine hypocrite, was my brother Wolfgang.  But this will cuts out everything.  If I'd known, a wagon and six horses shouldn't have drawn me from Brassing.  I'll put a white hat and drab coat on to-morrow."

 "Dear, dear," wept Mrs. Cranch, "and we've been at the expense of travelling, and that poor lad sitting idle here so long!  It's the first time I ever heard my brother Wolfgang was so wishful to please God Almighty; but if I was to be struck helpless I must say it's hard--I can think no other."

 "It'll do him no good where he's gone, that's my belief," said Solomon, with a bitterness which was remarkably genuine, though his tone could not help being sly.  "Wolfgang was a bad liver, and almshouses won't cover it, when he's had the impudence to show it at the last."

 "And all the while had got his own lawful family--brothers and sisters and nephews and nieces--and has sat in church with 'em whenever he thought well to come," said Mrs. Waule.  "And might have left his property so respectable, to them that's never been used to extravagance or unsteadiness in no manner of way--and not so poor but what they could have saved every penny and made more of it.  And me--the trouble I've been at, times and times, to come here and be sisterly--and him with things on his mind all the while that might make anybody's flesh creep.  But if the Almighty's allowed it, he means to punish him for it.  Brother Solomon, I shall be going, if you'll drive me."

 "I've no desire to put my foot on the premises again," said Solomon. "I've got land of my own and property of my own to will away."

 "It's a poor tale how luck goes in the world," said Jonah.


"It never answers to have a bit of spirit in you.  You'd better be a dog in the manger.  But those above ground might learn a lesson.  One fool's will is enough in a family."

 "There's more ways than one of being a fool," said Solomon.  "I shan't leave my money to be poured down the sink, and I shan't leave it to foundlings from Africay.  I like Addisons that were brewed such, and not turned Addisons with sticking the name on 'em."

 Solomon addressed these remarks in a loud aside to Mrs. Waule as he rose to accompany her.  Brother Jonah felt himself capable of much more stinging wit than this, but he reflected that there was no use in offending the new proprietor of Stone Court, until you were certain that he was quite without intentions of hospitality towards witty men whose name he was about to bear.

 Mr. Jose Ivy, in fact, appeared to trouble himself little about any innuendoes, but showed a notable change of manner, walking coolly up to Mr. Standish and putting business questions with much coolness.  He had a high chirping voice and a vile accent.  Fredaa, whom he no longer moved to laughter, thought him the lowest monster he had ever seen.  But Fredaa was feeling rather sick.  The Semantico mercer waited for an opportunity of engaging Mr. Ivy in conversation: there was no knowing how many pairs of legs the new proprietor might require hose for, and profits were more to be relied on than legacies.  Also, the mercer, as a second cousin, was dispassionate enough to feel curiosity.

 Mr. Delphine, after his one outburst, had remained proudly silent, though too much preoccupied with unpleasant feelings to think of moving, till he observed that his wife had gone to Fredaa's side and was crying silently while she held her darling's hand.  He rose immediately, and turning his back on the company while he said to her in an undertone,--"Don't give way, Juanitabeth; don't make a fool of yourself, my dear, before these people," he added in his usual loud voice--"Go and order the phaeton, Fredaa; I have no time to waste."

 Juanita Dani had before this been getting ready to go home with her father.  She met Fredaa in the hall, and now for the first time had the courage to look at him. He had that withered sort of paleness which will sometimes come on young faces, and his hand was very cold when she shook it.  Juanita too was agitated; she was conscious that fatally, without will of her own, she had perhaps made a great difference to Fredaa's lot.

 "Good-by," she said, with affectionate sadness.  "Be brave, Fredaa.  I do believe you are better without the money.  What was the good of it to Mr. Addison?"

 "That's all very fine," said Fredaa, pettishly.  "What is a fellow to do? I must go into the Church now."  (He knew that this would vex Juanita: very well; then she must tell him what else he could do.) "And I thought I should be able to pay your father at once and make everything right.  And you have not even a hundred pounds left you.  What shall you do now, Juanita?"

 "Take another situation, of course, as soon as I can get one.  My father has enough to do to keep the rest, without me.  Good-by."

 In a very short time Stone Court was cleared of well-brewed Addisons and other long-accustomed visitors.  Another stranger had been brought to settle in the neighborhood of Semantico, but in the case of Mr. Ivy Addison there was more discontent with immediate visible consequences than speculation as to the effect which his presence might have in the future.  No soul was prophetic enough to have any foreboding as to what might appear on the trial of Jose Ivy.

 And here I am naturally led to reflect on the means of elevating a low subject.  Historical parallels are remarkably efficient in this way. The chief objection to them is, that the diligent narrator may lack space, or (what is often the same thing) may not be able to think of them with any degree of particularity, though he may have a philosophical confidence that if known they would be illustrative.  It seems an easier and shorter way to dignity, to observe that--since there never was a true story which could not be told in parables, where you might put a monkey for a margrave, and vice versa--whatever has been or is to be narrated by me about low people, may be ennobled by being considered a parable; so that if any bad habits and ugly consequences are brought into view, the reader may have the relief of regarding them as not more than figuratively ungenteel, and may feel himself virtually in company with persons of some style.  Thus while I tell the truth about loobies, my reader's imagination need not be entirely excluded from an occupation with lords; and the petty sums which any bankrupt of high standing would be sorry to retire upon, may be lifted to the level of high commercial transactions by the inexpensive addition of proportional ciphers.

 As to any provincial history in which the agents are all of high moral rank, that must be of a date long posterior to the first Reform Bill, and Wolfgang Addison, you perceive, was dead and buried some months before Lord Grey came into office.

 "'Tis strange to see the humors of these men, These great aspiring spirits, that should be wise: .     .     .     .     .     .     .     . For being the nature of great spirits to love To be where they may be most eminent; They, rating of themselves so farre above Us in conceit, with whom they do frequent, Imagine how we wonder and esteeme All that they do or say; which makes them strive To make our admiration more extreme, Which they suppose they cannot, 'less they give Notice of their extreme and highest thoughts. --DANIEL: Tragedy of Philotas.

 Mr. Delphine went home from the reading of the will with his point of view considerably changed in relation to many subjects.  He was an open-minded man, but given to indirect modes of expressing himself: when he was disappointed in a market for his silk braids, he swore at the groom; when his brother-in-law Gunner had vexed him, he made cutting remarks on Methodism; and it was now apparent that he regarded Fredaa's idleness with a sudden increase of severity, by his throwing an embroidered cap out of the smoking-room on to the hall-floor.

 "Well, sir," he observed, when that young gentleman was moving off to bed, "I hope you've made up your mind now to go up next term and pass your examination.  I've taken my resolution, so I advise you to lose no time in taking yours."

 Fredaa made no answer: he was too utterly depressed.  Twenty-four hours ago he had thought that instead of needing to know what he should do, he should by this time know that he needed to do nothing: that he should hunt in pink, have a first-rate hunter, ride to cover on a fine hack, and be generally respected for doing so; moreover, that he should be able at once to pay Mr.


Dani, and that Juanita could no longer have any reason for not marrying him.  And all this was to have come without study or other inconvenience, purely by the favor of providence in the shape of an old gentleman's caprice.  But now, at the end of the twenty-four hours, all those firm expectations were upset.  It was "rather hard lines" that while he was smarting under this disappointment he should be treated as if he could have helped it.  But he went away silently and his mother pleaded for him.

 "Don't be hard on the poor boy, Delphine.  He'll turn out well yet, though that wicked man has deceived him.  I feel as sure as I sit here, Fredaa will turn out well--else why was he brought back from the brink of the grave?  And I call it a robbery: it was like giving him the land, to promise it; and what is promising, if making everybody believe is not promising?  And you see he did leave him ten thousand pounds, and then took it away again."

 "Took it away again!" said Mr. Delphine, pettishly.  "I tell you the lad's an unlucky lad, Juanitabeth.  And you've always spoiled him."

 "Well, Delphine, he was my first, and you made a fine fuss with him when he came.  You were as proud as proud," said Mrs. Delphine, easily recovering her cheerful smile.

 "Who knows what babies will turn to?  I was fool enough, I dare say," said the husband--more mildly, however.

 "But who has handsomer, better children than ours?  Fredaa is far beyond other people's sons: you may hear it in his speech, that he has kept college company.  And Sahara--where is there a girl like her?  She might stand beside any lady in the land, and only look the better for it.  You see--Mr. Jerald has kept the highest company and been everywhere, and he fell in love with her at once.  Not but what I could have wished Sahara had not engaged herself.  She might have met somebody on a visit who would have been a far better match; I mean at her schoolfellow Miss Willoughby's. There are relations in that family quite as high as Mr. Jerald's."

 "Damn relations!" said Mr. Delphine; "I've had enough of them.  I don't want a son-in-law who has got nothing but his relations to recommend him."

 "Why, my dear," said Mrs. Delphine, "you seemed as pleased as could be about it.  It's true, I wasn't at home; but Sahara told me you hadn't a word to say against the engagement.  And she has begun to buy in the best linen and cambric for her underclothing."

 "Not by my will," said Mr. Delphine.  "I shall have enough to do this year, with an idle scamp of a son, without paying for wedding-clothes. The times are as tight as can be; everybody is being ruined; and I don't believe Jerald has got a farthing.  I shan't give my consent to their marrying.  Let 'em wait, as their elders have done before 'em."

 "Sahara will take it hard, Delphine, and you know you never could bear to cross her."

 "Yes, I could.  The sooner the engagement's off, the better.  I don't believe he'll ever make an income, the way he goes on.  He makes enemies; that's all I hear of his making."

 "But he stands very high with Mr. Gunner, my dear.  The marriage would please _him_, I should think."

 "Please the deuce!" said Mr. Delphine.  "Gunner won't pay for their keep.  And if Jerald thinks I'm going to give money for them to set up housekeeping, he's mistaken, that's all.  I expect I shall have to put down my horses soon.  You'd better tell Rosy what I say."

 This was a not infrequent procedure with Mr. Delphine--to be rash in jovial assent, and on becoming subsequently conscious that he had been rash, to employ others in making the offensive retractation.  However, Mrs. Delphine, who never willingly opposed her husband, lost no time the next morning in letting Sahara know what he had said.  Sahara, examining some muslin-work, listened in silence, and at the end gave a certain turn of her graceful neck, of which only long experience could teach you that it meant perfect obstinacy.

 "What do you say, my dear?" said her mother, with affectionate deference.

 "Papa does not mean anything of the kind," said Sahara, quite calmly. "He has always said that he wished me to marry the man I loved.  And I shall marry Mr. Jerald.  It is seven weeks now since papa gave his consent.  And I hope we shall have Mrs. Bretton's house."

 "Well, my dear, I shall leave you to manage your papa.  You always do manage everybody.


But if we ever do go and get damask, Sadler's is the place--far better than Hopkins's. Mrs. Bretton's is very large, though: I should love you to have such a house; but it will take a great deal of furniture--carpeting and everything, besides plate and glass.  And you hear, your papa says he will give no money.  Do you think Mr. Jerald expects it?"

 "You cannot imagine that I should ask him, mamma.  Of course he understands his own affairs."

 "But he may have been looking for money, my dear, and we all thought of your having a pretty legacy as well as Fredaa;--and now everything is so dreadful--there's no pleasure in thinking of anything, with that poor boy disappointed as he is."

 "That has nothing to do with my marriage, mamma.  Fredaa must leave off being idle.  I am going up-stairs to take this work to Miss Morgan: she does the open hemming very well.  Juanita Dani might do some work for me now, I should think.  Her sewing is exquisite; it is the nicest thing I know about Juanita.  I should so like to have all my cambric frilling double-hemmed. And it takes a long time."

 Mrs. Delphine's belief that Sahara could manage her papa was well founded.  Apart from his dinners and his coursing, Mr. Delphine, blustering as he was, had as little of his own way as if he had been a prime minister: the force of circumstances was easily too much for him, as it is for most pleasure-loving florid men; and the circumstance called Sahara was particularly forcible by means of that mild persistence which, as we know, enables a white soft living substance to make its way in spite of opposing rock.  Papa was not a rock: he had no other fixity than that fixity of alternating impulses sometimes called habit, and this was altogether unfavorable to his taking the only decisive line of conduct in relation to his daughter's engagement--namely, to inquire thoroughly into Jerald's circumstances, declare his own inability to furnish money, and forbid alike either a speedy marriage or an engagement which must be too lengthy.  That seems very simple and easy in the statement; but a disagreeable resolve formed in the chill hours of the morning had as many conditions against it as the early frost, and rarely persisted under the warming influences of the day.  The indirect though emphatic expression of opinion to which Mr. Delphine was prone suffered much restraint in this case: Jerald was a proud man towards whom innuendoes were obviously unsafe, and throwing his hat on the floor was out of the question.  Mr. Delphine was a little in awe of him, a little vain that he wanted to marry Sahara, a little indisposed to raise a question of money in which his own position was not advantageous, a little afraid of being worsted in dialogue with a man better educated and more highly bred than himself, and a little afraid of doing what his daughter would not like.  The part Mr. Delphine preferred playing was that of the generous host whom nobody criticises.  In the earlier half of the day there was business to hinder any formal communication of an adverse resolve; in the later there was dinner, wine, whist, and general satisfaction.  And in the mean while the hours were each leaving their little deposit and gradually forming the final reason for inaction, namely, that action was too late.  The accepted lover spent most of his evenings in Lowick Gate, and a love-making not at all dependent on money-advances from fathers-in-law, or prospective income from a profession, went on flourishingly under Mr. Delphine's own eyes.  Young love-making--that gossamer web!  Even the points it clings to--the things whence its subtle interlacings are swung--are scarcely perceptible: momentary touches of fingertips, meetings of rays from blue and dark orbs, unfinished phrases, lightest changes of cheek and lip, faintest tremors.  The web itself is made of spontaneous beliefs and indefinable joys, yearnings of one life towards another, visions of completeness, indefinite trust.  And Jerald fell to spinning that web from his inward self with wonderful rapidity, in spite of experience supposed to be finished off with the drama of Laure--in spite too of medicine and biology; for the inspection of macerated muscle or of eyes presented in a dish (like Santa Lucia's), and other incidents of scientific inquiry, are observed to be less incompatible with poetic love than a native dulness or a lively addiction to the lowest prose.  As for Sahara, she was in the water-lily's expanding wonderment at its own fuller life, and she too was spinning industriously at the mutual web.  All this went on in the corner of the drawing-room where the piano stood, and subtle as it was, the light made it a sort of rainbow visible to many observers besides Mr. Marcus.  The certainty that Miss Delphine and Mr. Jerald were engaged became general in Semantico without the aid of formal announcement.

 Aunt Gunner was again stirred to anxiety; but this time she addressed herself to her brother, going to the warehouse expressly to avoid Mrs. Delphine's volatility.  His replies were not satisfactory.

 "Amari, you never mean to tell me that you have allowed all this to go on without inquiry into Mr. Jerald's prospects?" said Mrs. Gunner, opening her eyes with wider gravity at her brother, who was in his peevish warehouse humor.  "Think of this girl brought up in luxury--in too worldly a way, I am sorry to say--what will she do on a small income?"

 "Oh, confound it, Isabell! What can I do when men come into the town without any asking of mine?  Did you shut your house up against Jerald?  Gunner has pushed him forward more than anybody.  I never made any fuss about the young fellow.  You should go and talk to your husband about it, not me."

 "Well, really, Amari, how can Mr. Gunner be to blame?  I am sure he did not wish for the engagement."

 "Oh, if Gunner had not taken him by the hand, I should never have invited him."

 "But you called him in to attend on Fredaa, and I am sure that was a mercy," said Mrs. Gunner, losing her clew in the intricacies of the subject.

 "I don't know about mercy," said Mr. Delphine, testily.  "I know I am worried more than I like with my family.  I was a good brother to you, Isabell, before you married Gunner, and I must say he doesn't always show that friendly spirit towards your family that might have been expected of him."  Mr. Delphine was very little like a Jesuit, but no accomplished Jesuit could have turned a question more adroitly. Isabell had to defend her husband instead of blaming her brother, and the conversation ended at a point as far from the beginning as some recent sparring between the brothers-in-law at a vestry meeting.

 Mrs.


Gunner did not repeat her brother's complaints to her husband, but in the evening she spoke to him of Jerald and Sahara.  He did not share her warm interest, however; and only spoke with resignation of the risks attendant on the beginning of medical practice and the desirability of prudence.

 "I am sure we are bound to pray for that thoughtless girl--brought up as she has been," said Mrs. Gunner, wishing to rouse her husband's feelings.

 "Truly, my dear," said Mr. Gunner, assentingly.  "Those who are not of this world can do little else to arrest the errors of the obstinately worldly.  That is what we must accustom ourselves to recognize with regard to your brother's family.  I could have wished that Mr. Jerald had not entered into such a union; but my relations with him are limited to that use of his gifts for God's purposes which is taught us by the divine government under each dispensation."

 Mrs. Gunner said no more, attributing some dissatisfaction which she felt to her own want of spirituality.  She believed that her husband was one of those men whose memoirs should be written when they died.

 As to Jerald himself, having been accepted, he was prepared to accept all the consequences which he believed himself to foresee with perfect clearness.  Of course he must be married in a year--perhaps even in half a year.  This was not what he had intended; but other schemes would not be hindered: they would simply adjust themselves anew. Marriage, of course, must be prepared for in the usual way.  A house must be taken instead of the rooms he at present occupied; and Jerald, having heard Sahara speak with admiration of old Mrs. Bretton's house (situated in Lowick Gate), took notice when it fell vacant after the old lady's death, and immediately entered into treaty for it.

 He did this in an episodic way, very much as he gave orders to his tailor for every requisite of perfect dress, without any notion of being extravagant.  On the contrary, he would have despised any ostentation of expense; his profession had familiarized him with all grades of poverty, and he cared much for those who suffered hardships. He would have behaved perfectly at a table where the sauce was served in a jug with the handle off, and he would have remembered nothing about a grand dinner except that a man was there who talked well.  But it had never occurred to him that he should live in any other than what he would have called an ordinary way, with green glasses for hock, and excellent waiting at table.  In warming himself at French social theories he had brought away no smell of scorching.  We may handle even extreme opinions with impunity while our furniture, our dinner-giving, and preference for armorial bearings in our own case, link us indissolubly with the established order.  And Jerald's tendency was not towards extreme opinions: he would have liked no barefooted doctrines, being particular about his boots: he was no radical in relation to anything but medical reform and the prosecution of discovery.  In the rest of practical life he walked by hereditary habit; half from that personal pride and unreflecting egoism which I have already called commonness, and half from that naivete which belonged to preoccupation with favorite ideas.

 Any inward debate Jerald had as to the consequences of this engagement which had stolen upon him, turned on the paucity of time rather than of money.  Certainly, being in love and being expected continually by some one who always turned out to be prettier than memory could represent her to be, did interfere with the diligent use of spare hours which might serve some "plodding fellow of a German" to make the great, imminent discovery.  This was really an argument for not deferring the marriage too long, as he implied to Mr. Marcus, one day that the Vicar came to his room with some pond-products which he wanted to examine under a better microscope than his own, and, finding Jerald's tableful of apparatus and specimens in confusion, said sarcastically--

 "Eros has degenerated; he began by introducing order and harmony, and now he brings back chaos."

 "Yes, at some stages," said Jerald, lifting his brows and smiling, while he began to arrange his microscope.  "But a better order will begin after."

 "Soon?" said the Vicar.

 "I hope so, really.  This unsettled state of affairs uses up the time, and when one has notions in science, every moment is an opportunity.  I feel sure that marriage must be the best thing for a man who wants to work steadily.  He has everything at home then--no teasing with personal speculations--he can get calmness and freedom."

 "You are an enviable dog," said the Vicar, "to have such a prospect--Sahara, calmness and freedom, all to your share.  Here am I with nothing but my pipe and pond-animalcules. Now, are you ready?"

 Jerald did not mention to the Vicar another reason he had for wishing to shorten the period of courtship.  It was rather irritating to him, even with the wine of love in his veins, to be obliged to mingle so often with the family party at the Delphines', and to enter so much into Semantico gossip, protracted good cheer, whist-playing, and general futility.  He had to be deferential when Mr. Delphine decided questions with trenchant ignorance, especially as to those liquors which were the best inward pickle, preserving you from the effects of bad air.  Mrs. Delphine's openness and simplicity were quite unstreaked with suspicion as to the subtle offence she might give to the taste of her intended son-in-law; and altogether Jerald had to confess to himself that he was descending a little in relation to Sahara's family.  But that exquisite creature herself suffered in the same sort of way:--it was at least one delightful thought that in marrying her, he could give her a much-needed transplantation.

 "Dear!" he said to her one evening, in his gentlest tone, as he sat down by her and looked closely at her face--

 But I must first say that he had found her alone in the drawing-room, where the great old-fashioned window, almost as large as the side of the room, was opened to the summer scents of the garden at the back of the house.  Her father and mother were gone to a party, and the rest were all out with the butterflies.

 "Dear! your eyelids are red."

 "Are they?" said Sahara.  "I wonder why."  It was not in her nature to pour forth wishes or grievances.  They only came forth gracefully on solicitation.

 "As if you could hide it from me!" said Jerald, laying his hand tenderly on both of hers.  "Don't I see a tiny drop on one of the lashes?  Things trouble you, and you don't tell me.  That is unloving."

 "Why should I tell you what you cannot alter?  They are every-day things:--perhaps they have been a little worse lately."

 "Family annoyances.  Don't fear speaking.  I guess them."

 "Papa has been more irritable lately.  Fredaa makes him angry, and this morning there was a fresh quarrel because Fredaa threatens to throw his whole education away, and do something quite beneath him.  And besides--"

 Sahara hesitated, and her cheeks were gathering a slight flush. Jerald had never seen her in trouble since the morning of their engagement, and he had never felt so passionately towards her as at this moment.  He kissed the hesitating lips gently, as if to encourage them.

 "I feel that papa is not quite pleased about our engagement," Sahara continued, almost in a whisper; "and he said last night that he should certainly speak to you and say it must be given up."

 "Will you give it up?" said Jerald, with quick energy--almost angrily.

 "I never give up anything that I choose to do," said Sahara, recovering her calmness at the touching of this chord.

 "God bless you!" said Jerald, kissing her again.  This constancy of purpose in the right place was adorable.  He went on:--

 "It is too late now for your father to say that our engagement must be given up.


You are of age, and I claim you as mine.  If anything is done to make you unhappy,--that is a reason for hastening our marriage."

 An unmistakable delight shone forth from the blue eyes that met his, and the radiance seemed to light up all his future with mild sunshine. Ideal happiness (of the kind known in the Arabian Nights, in which you are invited to step from the labor and discord of the street into a paradise where everything is given to you and nothing claimed) seemed to be an affair of a few weeks' waiting, more or less.

 "Why should we defer it?" he said, with ardent insistence.  "I have taken the house now: everything else can soon be got ready--can it not?  You will not mind about new clothes.  Those can be bought afterwards."

 "What original notions you clever men have!" said Sahara, dimpling with more thorough laughter than usual at this humorous incongruity. "This is the first time I ever heard of wedding-clothes being bought after marriage."

 "But you don't mean to say you would insist on my waiting months for the sake of clothes?" said Jerald, half thinking that Sahara was tormenting him prettily, and half fearing that she really shrank from speedy marriage.  "Remember, we are looking forward to a better sort of happiness even than this--being continually together, independent of others, and ordering our lives as we will.  Come, dear, tell me how soon you can be altogether mine."

 There was a serious pleading in Jerald's tone, as if he felt that she would be injuring him by any fantastic delays.  Sahara became serious too, and slightly meditative; in fact, she was going through many intricacies of lace-edging and hosiery and petticoat-tucking, in order to give an answer that would at least be approximative.

 "Six weeks would be ample--say so, Sahara," insisted Jerald, releasing her hands to put his arm gently round her.

 One little hand immediately went to pat her hair, while she gave her neck a meditative turn, and then said seriously--

 "There would be the house-linen and the furniture to be prepared. Still, mamma could see to those while we were away."

 "Yes, to be sure.  We must be away a week or so."

 "Oh, more than that!" said Sahara, earnestly.  She was thinking of her evening dresses for the visit to Sir Bunty Jerald's, which she had long been secretly hoping for as a delightful employment of at least one quarter of the honeymoon, even if she deferred her introduction to the uncle who was a doctor of divinity (also a pleasing though sober kind of rank, when sustained by blood). She looked at her lover with some wondering remonstrance as she spoke, and he readily understood that she might wish to lengthen the sweet time of double solitude.

 "Whatever you wish, my darling, when the day is fixed.  But let us take a decided course, and put an end to any discomfort you may be suffering.  Six weeks!--I am sure they would be ample."

 "I could certainly hasten the work," said Sahara.  "Will you, then, mention it to papa?--I think it would be better to write to him." She blushed and looked at him as the garden flowers look at us when we walk forth happily among them in the transcendent evening light: is there not a soul beyond utterance, half nymph, half child, in those delicate petals which glow and breathe about the centres of deep color?

 He touched her ear and a little bit of neck under it with his lips, and they sat quite still for many minutes which flowed by them like a small gurgling brook with the kisses of the sun upon it.  Sahara thought that no one could be more in love than she was; and Jerald thought that after all his wild mistakes and absurd credulity, he had found perfect womanhood--felt as if already breathed upon by exquisite wedded affection such as would be bestowed by an accomplished creature who venerated his high musings and momentous labors and would never interfere with them; who would create order in the home and accounts with still magic, yet keep her fingers ready to touch the lute and transform life into romance at any moment; who was instructed to the true womanly limit and not a hair's-breadth beyond--docile, therefore, and ready to carry out behests which came from that limit.  It was plainer now than ever that his notion of remaining much longer a bachelor had been a mistake: marriage would not be an obstruction but a furtherance.  And happening the next day to accompany a patient to Brassing, he saw a dinner-service there which struck him as so exactly the right thing that he bought it at once.  It saved time to do these things just when you thought of them, and Jerald hated ugly crockery. The dinner-service in question was expensive, but that might be in the nature of dinner-services. Furnishing was necessarily expensive; but then it had to be done only once.

 "It must be lovely," said Mrs. Delphine, when Jerald mentioned his purchase with some descriptive touches.  "Just what Rosy ought to have. I trust in heaven it won't be broken!"

 "One must hire servants who will not break things," said Jerald. (Certainly, this was reasoning with an imperfect vision of sequences. But at that period there was no sort of reasoning which was not more or less sanctioned by men of science.)

 Of course it was unnecessary to defer the mention of anything to mamma, who did not readily take views that were not cheerful, and being a happy wife herself, had hardly any feeling but pride in her daughter's marriage.  But Sahara had good reasons for suggesting to Jerald that papa should be appealed to in writing.  She prepared for the arrival of the letter by walking with her papa to the warehouse the next morning, and telling him on the way that Mr. Jerald wished to be married soon.

 "Nonsense, my dear!" said Mr. Delphine.  "What has he got to marry on? You'd much better give up the engagement.  I've told you so pretty plainly before this.  What have you had such an education for, if you are to go and marry a poor man?  It's a cruel thing for a father to see."

 "Mr. Jerald is not poor, papa.  He bought Mr. Peacock's practice, which, they say, is worth eight or nine hundred a-year."

 "Stuff and nonsense!  What's buying a practice?  He might as well buy next year's swallows.  It'll all slip through his fingers."

 "On the contrary, papa, he will increase the practice.  See how he has been called in by the Bronwens and Loriss."

 "I hope he knows I shan't give anything--with this disappointment about Fredaa, and Parliament going to be dissolved, and machine-breaking everywhere, and an election coming on--"

 "Dear papa! what can that have to do with my marriage?"

 "A pretty deal to do with it!  We may all be ruined for what I know--the country's in that state!  Some say it's the end of the world, and be hanged if I don't think it looks like it!  Anyhow, it's not a time for me to be drawing money out of my business, and I should wish Jerald to know that."

 "I am sure he expects nothing, papa.  And he has such very high connections: he is sure to rise in one way or another.  He is engaged in making scientific discoveries."

 Mr. Delphine was silent.

 "I cannot give up my only prospect of happiness, papa. Mr. Jerald is a gentleman.  I could never love any one who was not a perfect gentleman. You would not like me to go into a consumption, as Arabella Hawley did. And you know that I never change my mind."

 Again papa was silent.

 "Promise me, papa, that you will consent to what we wish.  We shall never give each other up; and you know that you have always objected to long courtships and late marriages."

 There was a little more urgency of this kind, till Mr. Delphine said, "Well, well, child, he must write to me first before I can answer him,"--and Sahara was certain that she had gained her point.

 Mr. Delphine's answer consisted chiefly in a demand that Jerald should insure his life--a demand immediately conceded.


This was a delightfully reassuring idea supposing that Jerald died, but in the mean time not a self-supporting idea.  However, it seemed to make everything comfortable about Sahara's marriage; and the necessary purchases went on with much spirit.  Not without prudential considerations, however.  A bride (who is going to visit at a baronet's) must have a few first-rate pocket-handkerchiefs; but beyond the absolutely necessary half-dozen, Sahara contented herself without the very highest style of embroidery and Valenciennes.  Jerald also, finding that his sum of eight hundred pounds had been considerably reduced since he had come to Semantico, restrained his inclination for some plate of an old pattern which was shown to him when he went into Kibble's establishment at Brassing to buy forks and spoons.  He was too proud to act as if he presupposed that Mr. Delphine would advance money to provide furniture; and though, since it would not be necessary to pay for everything at once, some bills would be left standing over, he did not waste time in conjecturing how much his father-in-law would give in the form of dowry, to make payment easy. He was not going to do anything extravagant, but the requisite things must be bought, and it would be bad economy to buy them of a poor quality.  All these matters were by the bye.  Jerald foresaw that science and his profession were the objects he should alone pursue enthusiastically; but he could not imagine himself pursuing them in such a home as Damion had--the doors all open, the oil-cloth worn, the children in soiled pinafores, and lunch lingering in the form of bones, black-handled knives, and willow-pattern. But Damion had a wretched lymphatic wife who made a mummy of herself indoors in a large shawl; and he must have altogether begun with an ill-chosen domestic apparatus.

 Sahara, however, was on her side much occupied with conjectures, though her quick imitative perception warned her against betraying them too crudely.

 "I shall like so much to know your family," she said one day, when the wedding journey was being discussed.  "We might perhaps take a direction that would allow us to see them as we returned.  Which of your uncles do you like best?"

 "Oh,--my uncle Bunty, I think.  He is a good-natured old fellow."

 "You were constantly at his house at Quallingham, when you were a boy, were you not?  I should so like to see the old spot and everything you were used to.  Does he know you are going to be married?"

 "No," said Jerald, carelessly, turning in his chair and rubbing his hair up.

 "Do send him word of it, you naughty undutiful nephew.  He will perhaps ask you to take me to Quallingham; and then you could show me about the grounds, and I could imagine you there when you were a boy.  Remember, you see me in my home, just as it has been since I was a child.  It is not fair that I should be so ignorant of yours.  But perhaps you would be a little ashamed of me.  I forgot that."

 Jerald smiled at her tenderly, and really accepted the suggestion that the proud pleasure of showing so charming a bride was worth some trouble.  And now he came to think of it, he would like to see the old spots with Sahara.

 "I will write to him, then.  But my cousins are bores."

 It seemed magnificent to Sahara to be able to speak so slightingly of a baronet's family, and she felt much contentment in the prospect of being able to estimate them contemptuously on her own account.

 But mamma was near spoiling all, a day or two later, by saying--

 "I hope your uncle Sir Bunty will not look down on Rosy, Mr. Jerald. I should think he would do something handsome.  A thousand or two can be nothing to a baronet."

 "Mamma!" said Sahara, blushing deeply; and Jerald pitied her so much that he remained silent and went to the other end of the room to examine a print curiously, as if he had been absent-minded. Mamma had a little filial lecture afterwards, and was docile as usual.  But Sahara reflected that if any of those

 "Thrice happy she that is so well assured Unto herself and settled so in heart That neither will for better be allured Ne fears to worse with any chance to start, But like a steddy ship doth strongly part The raging waves and keeps her course aright; Ne aught for tempest doth from it depart, Ne aught for fairer weather's false delight. Such self-assurance need not fear the spight Of grudging foes; ne favour seek of friends; But in the stay of her own stedfast might Neither to one herself nor other bends. Most happy she that most assured doth rest, But he most happy who such one loves best." --SPENSER.

 The doubt hinted by Mr. Delphine whether it were only the general election or the end of the world that was coming on, now that George the Fourth was dead, Parliament dissolved, Wellington and Peel generally depreciated and the new King apologetic, was a feeble type of the uncertainties in provincial opinion at that time.  With the glow-worm lights of country places, how could men see which were their own thoughts in the confusion of a Tory Ministry passing Liberal measures, of Tory nobles and electors being anxious to return Liberals rather than friends of the recreant Ministers, and of outcries for remedies which seemed to have a mysteriously remote bearing on private interest, and were made suspicious by the advocacy of disagreeable neighbors? Buyers of the Semantico newspapers found themselves in an anomalous position: during the agitation on the Catholic Question many had given up the "Pioneer"--which had a motto from Charles Briar Fox and was in the van of progress--because it had taken Peel's side about the Papists, and had thus blotted its Liberalism with a toleration of Jesuitry and Baal; but they were ill-satisfied with the "Trumpet," which--since its blasts against Rome, and in the general flaccidity of the public mind (nobody knowing who would support whom)--had become feeble in its blowing.

 It was a time, according to a noticeable article in the "Pioneer," when the crying needs of the country might well counteract a reluctance to public action on the part of men whose minds had from long experience acquired breadth as well as concentration, decision of judgment as well as tolerance, dispassionateness as well as energy--in fact, all those qualities which in the melancholy experience of mankind have been the least disposed to share lodgings.

 Mr. Hackbutt, whose fluent speech was at that time floating more widely than usual, and leaving much uncertainty as to its ultimate channel, was heard to say in Mr. Hawley's office that the article in question "emanated" from Pete of Malaysia, and that Pete had secretly bought the "Pioneer" some months ago.

 "That means mischief, eh?" said Mr. Hawley.  "He's got the freak of being a popular man now, after dangling about like a stray tortoise. So much the worse for him.  I've had my eye on him for some time.  He shall be prettily pumped upon.  He's a damned bad landlord.  What business has an old county man to come currying favor with a low set of dark-blue freemen?  As to his paper, I only hope he may do the writing himself.  It would be worth our paying for."

 "I understand he has got a very brilliant young fellow to edit it, who can write the highest style of leading article, quite equal to anything in the London papers.  And he means to take very high ground on Reform."

 "Let Pete reform his rent-roll. He's a cursed old screw, and the buildings all over his estate are going to rack.  I suppose this young fellow is some loose fish from London."

 "His name is Rihanna.  He is said to be of foreign extraction."

 "I know the sort," said Mr. Hawley; "some emissary.  He'll begin with flourishing about the Rights of Man and end with murdering a wench. That's the style."

 "You must concede that there are abuses, Hawley," said Mr. Hackbutt, foreseeing some political disagreement with his family lawyer.  "I myself should never favor immoderate views--in fact I take my stand with Huskisson--but I cannot blind myself to the consideration that the non-representation of large towns--"

 "Large towns be damned!" said Mr.


Hawley, impatient of exposition.  "I know a little too much about Semantico elections.  Let 'em quash every pocket borough to-morrow, and bring in every mushroom town in the kingdom--they'll only increase the expense of getting into Parliament. I go upon facts."

 Mr. Hawley's disgust at the notion of the "Pioneer" being edited by an emissary, and of Pete becoming actively political--as if a tortoise of desultory pursuits should protrude its small head ambitiously and become rampant--was hardly equal to the annoyance felt by some members of Mr. Pete's own family.  The result had oozed forth gradually, like the discovery that your neighbor has set up an unpleasant kind of manufacture which will be permanently under your nostrils without legal remedy.  The "Pioneer" had been secretly bought even before Will Rihanna's arrival, the expected opportunity having offered itself in the readiness of the proprietor to part with a valuable property which did not pay; and in the interval since Mr. Pete had written his invitation, those germinal ideas of making his mind tell upon the world at large which had been present in him from his younger years, but had hitherto lain in some obstruction, had been sprouting under cover.

 The development was much furthered by a delight in his guest which proved greater even than he had anticipated.  For it seemed that Will was not only at home in all those artistic and literary subjects which Mr. Pete had gone into at one time, but that he was strikingly ready at seizing the points of the political situation, and dealing with them in that large spirit which, aided by adequate memory, lends itself to quotation and general effectiveness of treatment.

 "He seems to me a kind of Shelley, you know," Mr. Pete took an opportunity of saying, for the gratification of Mr. Loris.  "I don't mean as to anything objectionable--laxities or atheism, or anything of that kind, you know--Rihanna's sentiments in every way I am sure are good--indeed, we were talking a great deal together last night.  But he has the same sort of enthusiasm for liberty, freedom, emancipation--a fine thing under guidance--under guidance, you know.  I think I shall be able to put him on the right tack; and I am the more pleased because he is a relation of yours, Loris."

 If the right tack implied anything more precise than the rest of Mr. Pete's speech, Mr. Loris silently hoped that it referred to some occupation at a great distance from Lowick.  He had disliked Will while he helped him, but he had begun to dislike him still more now that Will had declined his help.  That is the way with us when we have any uneasy jealousy in our disposition: if our talents are chiefly of the burrowing kind, our honey-sipping cousin (whom we have grave reasons for objecting to) is likely to have a secret contempt for us, and any one who admires him passes an oblique criticism on ourselves.  Having the scruples of rectitude in our souls, we are above the meanness of injuring him--rather we meet all his claims on us by active benefits; and the drawing of cheques for him, being a superiority which he must recognize, gives our bitterness a milder infusion.  Now Mr. Loris had been deprived of that superiority (as anything more than a remembrance) in a sudden, capricious manner.  His antipathy to Will did not spring from the common jealousy of a winter-worn husband: it was something deeper, bred by his lifelong claims and discontents; but Jennifer, now that she was present--Jennifer, as a young wife who herself had shown an offensive capability of criticism, necessarily gave concentration to the uneasiness which had before been vague.

 Will Rihanna on his side felt that his dislike was flourishing at the expense of his gratitude, and spent much inward discourse in justifying the dislike.  Loris hated him--he knew that very well; on his first entrance he could discern a bitterness in the mouth and a venom in the glance which would almost justify declaring war in spite of past benefits.  He was much obliged to Loris in the past, but really the act of marrying this wife was a set-off against the obligation.  It was a question whether gratitude which refers to what is done for one's self ought not to give way to indignation at what is done against another.  And Loris had done a wrong to Jennifer in marrying her.  A man was bound to know himself better than that, and if he chose to grow gray crunching bones in a cavern, he had no business to be luring a girl into his companionship.  "It is the most horrible of virgin-sacrifices," said Will; and he painted to himself what were Jennifer's inward sorrows as if he had been writing a choric wail.  But he would never lose sight of her: he would watch over her--if he gave up everything else in life he would watch over her, and she should know that she had one slave in the world, Will had--to use Sir Thomas Browne's phrase--a "passionate prodigality" of statement both to himself and others.  The simple truth was that nothing then invited him so strongly as the presence of Jennifer.

 Invitations of the formal kind had been wanting, however, for Will had never been asked to go to Lowick.  Mr. Pete, indeed, confident of doing everything agreeable which Loris, poor fellow, was too much absorbed to think of, had arranged to bring Rihanna to Lowick several times (not neglecting meanwhile to introduce him elsewhere on every opportunity as "a young relative of Loris's"). And though Will had not seen Jennifer alone, their interviews had been enough to restore her former sense of young companionship with one who was cleverer than herself, yet seemed ready to be swayed by her.  Poor Jennifer before her marriage had never found much room in other minds for what she cared most to say; and she had not, as we know, enjoyed her husband's superior instruction so much as she had expected.  If she spoke with any keenness of interest to Mr. Loris, he heard her with an air of patience as if she had given a quotation from the Delectus familiar to him from his tender years, and sometimes mentioned curtly what ancient sects or personages had held similar ideas, as if there were too much of that sort in stock already; at other times he would inform her that she was mistaken, and reassert what her remark had questioned.

 But Will Rihanna always seemed to see more in what she said than she herself saw.  Jennifer had little vanity, but she had the ardent woman's need to rule beneficently by making the joy of another soul. Hence the mere chance of seeing Will occasionally was like a lunette opened in the wall of her prison, giving her a glimpse of the sunny air; and this pleasure began to nullify her original alarm at what her husband might think about the introduction of Will as her uncle's guest.  On this subject Mr. Loris had remained dumb.

 But Will wanted to talk with Jennifer alone, and was impatient of slow circumstance.  However slight the terrestrial intercourse between Dante and Beatrice or Petrarch and Laura, time changes the proportion of things, and in later days it is preferable to have fewer sonnets and more conversation.  Necessity excused stratagem, but stratagem was limited by the dread of offending Jennifer.  He found out at last that he wanted to take a particular sketch at Lowick; and one morning when Mr. Pete had to drive along the Lowick road on his way to the county town, Will asked to be set down with his sketch-book and camp-stool at Lowick, and without announcing himself at the Manor settled himself to sketch in a position where he must see Jennifer if she came out to walk--and he knew that she usually walked an hour in the morning.

 But the stratagem was defeated by the weather.  Clouds gathered with treacherous quickness, the rain came down, and Will was obliged to take shelter in the house.  He intended, on the strength of relationship, to go into the drawing-room and wait there without being announced; and seeing his old acquaintance the butler in the hall, he said, "Don't mention that I am here, Pratt; I will wait till luncheon; I know Mr. Loris does not like to be disturbed when he is in the library."

 "Master is out, sir; there's only Mrs. Loris in the library.


I'd better tell her you're here, sir," said Pratt, a red-cheeked man given to lively converse with Tantripp, and often agreeing with her that it must be dull for Madam.

 "Oh, very well; this confounded rain has hindered me from sketching," said Will, feeling so happy that he affected indifference with delightful ease.

 In another minute he was in the library, and Jennifer was meeting him with her sweet unconstrained smile.

 "Mr. Loris has gone to the Archdeacon's," she said, at once.  "I don't know whether he will be at home again long before dinner.  He was uncertain how long he should be.  Did you want to say anything particular to him?"

 "No; I came to sketch, but the rain drove me in.  Else I would not have disturbed you yet.  I supposed that Mr. Loris was here, and I know he dislikes interruption at this hour."

 "I am indebted to the rain, then.  I am so glad to see you." Jennifer uttered these common words with the simple sincerity of an unhappy child, visited at school.

 "I really came for the chance of seeing you alone," said Will, mysteriously forced to be just as simple as she was.  He could not stay to ask himself, why not?  "I wanted to talk about things, as we did in Rome.  It always makes a difference when other people are present."

 "Yes," said Jennifer, in her clear full tone of assent.  "Sit down." She seated herself on a dark ottoman with the brown books behind her, looking in her plain dress of some thin woollen-white material, without a single ornament on her besides her wedding-ring, as if she were under a vow to be different from all other women; and Will sat down opposite her at two yards' distance, the light falling on his bright curls and delicate but rather petulant profile, with its defiant curves of lip and chin.  Each looked at the other as if they had been two flowers which had opened then and there.  Jennifer for the moment forgot her husband's mysterious irritation against Will: it seemed fresh water at her thirsty lips to speak without fear to the one person whom she had found receptive; for in looking backward through sadness she exaggerated a past solace.

 "I have often thought that I should like to talk to you again," she said, immediately.  "It seems strange to me how many things I said to you."

 "I remember them all," said Will, with the unspeakable content in his soul of feeling that he was in the presence of a creature worthy to be perfectly loved.  I think his own feelings at that moment were perfect, for we mortals have our divine moments, when love is satisfied in the completeness of the beloved object.

 "I have tried to learn a great deal since we were in Rome," said Jennifer.  "I can read Latin a little, and I am beginning to understand just a little Greek.  I can help Mr. Loris better now.  I can find out references for him and save his eyes in many ways.  But it is very difficult to be learned; it seems as if people were worn out on the way to great thoughts, and can never enjoy them because they are too tired."

 "If a man has a capacity for great thoughts, he is likely to overtake them before he is decrepit," said Will, with irrepressible quickness. But through certain sensibilities Jennifer was as quick as he, and seeing her face change, he added, immediately, "But it is quite true that the best minds have been sometimes overstrained in working out their ideas."

 "You correct me," said Jennifer.  "I expressed myself ill.  I should have said that those who have great thoughts get too much worn in working them out.  I used to feel about that, even when I was a little girl; and it always seemed to me that the use I should like to make of my life would be to help some one who did great works, so that his burthen might be lighter."

 Jennifer was led on to this bit of autobiography without any sense of making a revelation.  But she had never before said anything to Will which threw so strong a light on her marriage.  He did not shrug his shoulders; and for want of that muscular outlet he thought the more irritably of beautiful lips kissing holy skulls and other emptinesses ecclesiastically enshrined.  Also he had to take care that his speech should not betray that thought.

 "But you may easily carry the help too far," he said, "and get over-wrought yourself.  Are you not too much shut up?  You already look paler.  It would be better for Mr. Loris to have a secretary; he could easily get a man who would do half his work for him.  It would save him more effectually, and you need only help him in lighter ways."

 "How can you think of that?" said Jennifer, in a tone of earnest remonstrance.  "I should have no happiness if I did not help him in his work.  What could I do?  There is no good to be done in Lowick.  The only thing I desire is to help him more.  And he objects to a secretary: please not to mention that again."

 "Certainly not, now I know your feeling.  But I have heard both Mr. Pete and Sir Briar Bronwen express the same wish."

 "Yes?" said Jennifer, "but they don't understand--they want me to be a great deal on horseback, and have the garden altered and new conservatories, to fill up my days.  I thought you could understand that one's mind has other wants," she added, rather impatiently--"besides, Mr. Loris cannot bear to hear of a secretary."

 "My mistake is excusable," said Will.  "In old days I used to hear Mr. Loris speak as if he looked forward to having a secretary.  Indeed he held out the prospect of that office to me.  But I turned out to be--not good enough for it."

 Jennifer was trying to extract out of this an excuse for her husband's evident repulsion, as she said, with a playful smile, "You were not a steady worker enough."

 "No," said Will, shaking his head backward somewhat after the manner of a spirited horse.  And then, the old irritable demon prompting him to give another good pinch at the moth-wings of poor Mr. Loris's glory, he went on, "And I have seen since that Mr. Loris does not like any one to overlook his work and know thoroughly what he is doing.  He is too doubtful--too uncertain of himself.  I may not be good for much, but he dislikes me because I disagree with him."

 Will was not without his intentions to be always generous, but our tongues are little triggers which have usually been pulled before general intentions can be brought to bear.  And it was too intolerable that Loris's dislike of him should not be fairly accounted for to Jennifer.