a different tone, "that there isn't a touch of temptation
about it all. I yield in imagination to it quite frankly--I think how jolly
it would be to have a creature like that living in this old house, telling
me all she thought about, making a home beautiful. I could make a very fair
lover if I tried! But I have got myself well in hand, and I know better. It
isn't what she wants, and it isn't really what I want. I have got my work
cut out for me; but I'll give her all I can, and be thankful if she gives
me a bit of her heart; and I shall love to think of her going about the
world, and reminding everyone she meets of the best and purest sort of
beauty. I love Phyllis with all my old heart--is that enough for you?--and
a great deal too well to confiscate her, as I should certainly have tried
to do twenty years ago."

Father Payne stopped, and looked at me with one of his great clear smiles.

"Well, I must say," I began--

"No, you mustn't," said Father Payne. "I know all the excellent arguments
you would advance. Why shouldn't two people be happy and not look ahead,
and all that? I do look ahead, and I'm going to make her happy if I can.
Shall I use my influence in your favour, my boy? How does that strike you?"

I laughed and reddened. Father Payne put his arm in mine, and said: "Now, I
have turned my heart out for your inspection, and you can't convert me. Let
the pretty child go her way! I only wish she was likely to get more fun out
of the Wetheralls. Such excellent people too: but a lack of
inspiration--not propelled from quite the central fount of beauty, I fancy!
But it will do Phyllis good to make the best of them, and I fancy she is
trying pretty hard. Dear me, I wish she were my niece! But I couldn't have
her here--we should all be at daggers drawn in a fortnight: that's the
puzzling thing about these beautiful people, that they light up such
conflagrations, and make such havoc of divine philosophy, old boy!"

XX

OF CERTAINTY

We were returning from a walk, Father Payne and I; as we passed the
churchyard, he said: "Do you remember that story of Lamennais at La
Chenaie? He was sitting behind the chapel under two Scotch firs which grew
there, with some of his young disciples. He took his stick, and marked out
a grave on the turf, and said: 'It is there I would wish to be buried, but
no tombstone! Only a simple mound of grass. Oh, how well I shall be there!'
That is what I call sentiment. If Lamennais