meet his father's; and while he was feeling, in spite
of any thing that might be said, that he should like to go off to "the
colonies" to-morrow, it lay in a deep fold of his consciousness that he
ought to feel--if he had been a better fellow he would have felt--more
about his old ties. This is the sort of faith we live by in our soul
sicknesses.

Rex got up from his seat, as if he held the conference to be at an end.
"You assent to my arrangement, then?" said Mr. Gascoigne, with that
distinct resolution of tone which seems to hold one in a vise.

There was a little pause before Rex answered, "I'll try what I can do,
sir. I can't promise." His thought was, that trying would be of no use.

Her father kept Anna, holding her fast, though she wanted to follow
Rex. "Oh, papa," she said, the tears coming with her words when the
door had closed; "it is very hard for him. Doesn't he look ill?"

"Yes, but he will soon be better; it will all blow over. And now, Anna,
be as quiet as a mouse about it all. Never let it be mentioned when he
is gone."

"No, papa. But I would not be like Gwendolen for any thing--to have
people fall in love with me so. It is very dreadful."

Anna dared not say that she was disappointed at not being allowed to go
to the colonies with Rex; but that was her secret feeling, and she
often afterward went inwardly over the whole affair, saying to herself,
"I should have done with going out, and gloves, and crinoline, and
having to talk when I am taken to dinner--and all that!"

I like to mark the time, and connect the course of individual lives
with the historic stream, for all classes of thinkers. This was the
period when the broadening of gauge in crinolines seemed to demand an
agitation for the general enlargement of churches, ball-rooms, and
vehicles. But Anna Gascoigne's figure would only allow the size of
skirt manufactured for young ladies of fourteen.

CHAPTER IX.

I'll tell thee, Berthold, what men's hopes are like:
A silly child that, quivering with joy,
Would cast its little mimic fishing-line
Baited with loadstone for a bowl of toys
In the salt ocean.

Eight months after the arrival of the family at Offendene, that is to
say in the end of the following June, a rumor was spread in the
neighborhood which to many persons was matter of exciting interest. It
had no reference to the results of the American war, but it was one
which touched all classes within a certain circu