have created a new want in his life. He thought
of a hundred things which he should like to discuss with her--things
which did not interest Ursula, and which the people about him did not
understand much. Society at that time, as may be presumed, was in a poor
way in Carlingford. The Wentworths and Wodehouses were gone, and many
other nice people; the houses in Grange Lane were getting deserted, or
falling into inferior hands, as was apparent by the fact that the
Tozers--old Tozer, the butterman--had got one of them. The other people
were mostly relics of a bygone state of things: retired old couples, old
ladies, spinsters, and widows--excellent people, but not lively to talk
to--and the Griffiths, above mentioned, put up with in consideration of
tolerable good looks and "fun," became tiresome when anything better was
to be had. The mere apparition of Phoebe upon the horizon had been enough
to show Reginald that there were other kinds of human beings in the
world. It had not occurred to him that he was in love with her, and the
idea of the social suicide implied in marrying old Tozer's
granddaughter, had not so much as once entered his imagination. Had he
thought of it, he would have pulled that imagination up tight, like an
unruly horse, the thing being too impossible to bear thinking of. But
this had never entered his mind. He wanted to see Phoebe to talk to her,
to be near her, as something very new, captivating and full of
interest--that was all. No one else within his sphere could talk so
well. The Rector was very great indeed on the reredos question, and the
necessity of reviving the disused "Church" customs; but Reginald could
not go so far as he did as to the importance of the reredos, and was
quite in doubt whether it was not as well for most people to "direct"
themselves by their own consciences as to be directed by the spiritual
head of the parish, who was not over wise in his own concerns. His
father, Reginald knew, could be very agreeable among strangers, but he
seldom chose to be so in his own house. All this made the advent of
Phoebe appear to him like a sudden revelation out of a different world.
He was an Oxford man, with the best of education, but he was a simpleton
all the same. He thought he saw in her an evidence of what life was like
in those intellectual professional circles which a man may hope to get
into only in London. It was not the world of fashion he was aware, but
he thought in his simplicit