nal sacrifice to pass for mere long-headed
prudence.

Aubrey's Saturday and Sunday meetings with his friend were not yielded,
even to Tom, who endeavoured to interfere with them, and would fain
have cut the connection with the entire family, treating Miss Ward with
the most distant and supercilious bows on the unpleasantly numerous
occasions of meeting her in the street, and contriving to be markedly
scornful in his punctilious civility to Henry Ward when they met at the
hospital. His very look appeared a sarcasm, to the fancy of the Wards;
and he had a fashion of kindly inquiring after Leonard, that seemed to
both a deliberate reproach and insult.

Disputes had become less frequent at Bankside since Leonard's
departure, and few occasions of actual dissension arose; but the spirit
of party was not extinguished, and the brother and sister had adopted
lines that perhaps clashed less because they diverged more.

Averil had, in reply to the constant exhortations to economize,
resolved to decline all invitations, and this kept her constantly at
home, or with her harmonium, whereas Henry made such constant
engagements, that their dining together was the exception, not the
rule. After conscientiously teaching her sisters in the morning, she
devoted the rest of her day to their walk, and to usefulness in the
parish. She liked her tasks, and would have been very happy in them,
but for the constant anxiety that hung over her lest her home should
soon cease to be her home.

Henry's devotion to Mrs. Pugh could no longer be mistaken. The
conviction of his intentions grew upon his sister, first from a mere
absurd notion, banished from her mind with derision, then from a
misgiving angrily silenced, to a fixed expectation, confirmed by the
evident opinion of all around her, and calling for decision and
self-command on her own part.

Perhaps her feelings were unnecessarily strong, and in some degree
unjust to Mrs. Pugh; but she had the misfortune to be naturally proud
and sensitive, as well as by breeding too refined in tone for most of
those who surrounded her. She had taken a personal dislike to Mrs.
Pugh from the first; she regarded pretension as insincerity, and
officiousness as deliberate insult, and she took the recoil of her
taste for the judgment of principle. To see such a woman ruling in her
mother's, her own, home would be bad enough; but to be ruled by her,
and resign to her the management of the children, would