vorable to
his brother's marriage--on the contrary, he ruffled the rector's dignity
(he was always giving offense to Mr. Finch) by suggesting that the
marriage might be hastened. I heard him say the words myself:--"The
church is close by. Why can't you put on your surplice and make Oscar
happy to-morrow, after breakfast?" More even than this, he showed the
most vivid interest--like a woman's interest rather than a man's--in
learning how the love-affair between Oscar and Lucilla had begun. I
referred him, so far as Oscar was concerned, to his brother as the
fountain-head of information. He did not decline to consult his brother.
He did not own to me that he felt any difficulty in doing so. He simply
dropped Oscar in silence; and asked about Lucilla. How had it begun on
her side? I reminded him of his brother's romantic position at Dimchurch
and told him to judge for himself of the effect it would produce on the
excitable imagination of a young girl. He declined to judge for himself;
he persisted in appealing to me. When I told the little love-story of the
two young people, one event in it appeared to make a very strong
impression on him. The effect produced on Lucilla (when she first heard
it) by the sound of his brother's voice, dwelt strangely on his mind. He
failed to understand it; he ridiculed it; he declined to believe it. I
was obliged to remind him that Lucilla was blind, and that love which, in
other cases, first finds its way to the heart through the eyes, could
only, in her case, first find its way through the ears. My explanation,
thus offered, had its effect: it set him thinking. "The sound of his
voice!" he said to himself, still turning the problem over and over in
his mind. "People say my voice is exactly like Oscar's," he added,
suddenly addressing himself to me. "Do you think so too?" I answered that
there could be no doubt of it. He got up from his chair, with a quick
little shudder, like a man who feels a chill--and changed the subject. On
the next occasion when he and Lucilla met--so far from being more
familiar with her, he was more constrained than ever. As it had begun
between these two, so it seemed likely to continue to the end. In my
society, he was always at his ease. In Lucilla's society, never!

What was the obvious conclusion which a person with my experience ought
to have drawn from all this?

I know well enough what it was, now. On my oath as an honest woman, I
failed to see it at the ti