was here on false pretences--that I had no right to be
here. But this painful feeling was all quenched and extinguished, and
turned into gratitude by the goodness of your father and brother. I did
not even know that you had not been told. I thought you were aware from
the beginning. You were colder than they were, and I thought it was
natural, quite natural, for it is easier to forgive for one's self than
for those one loves; and then I thought you melted and grew kinder to
me, that you saw how all my ideas were changed, all my feelings--my mind
itself; changed by the great charity, the wonderful goodness I have
found here!"

"Mr. Northcote!" Ursula had been struggling to break in all the time;
but while he spoke her words dispersed, her feelings softened, and at
the end she found nothing but that startled repetition of his name with
which to answer him. No doubt if he had given her time the eloquence
would have come back; but he was too much in earnest to be guilty of
such a mistake.

"What can I say about it?" cried the young man. "It has filled me with
shame and with happiness. I have been taken in my own trap--those whom I
attacked as you say--went out of my way to attack, and abused like a
fool because I knew nothing about them--have shown me what the Bible
means. Your father and brother knew what I had done, they met me
separately, quite independent of each other, and both of them held out
their hands to me; why, except that I had offended them, I cannot tell.
A stranger, belonging to an obscure class, I had no claim upon them
except that I had done what ought to have closed their house against
me. And you know how they have interpreted that. They have shown me what
the Bible means."

The two girls sat listening, both with their heads bent towards him, and
their eyes fixed upon his face. When he stopped, Janey got up with her
work in her lap, and coming a little nearer to Ursula, addressed her in
a wondering voice.

"Is it _papa_ he is talking of like that?" she said, under her breath.

"Yes," he said, fervently, turning to her. "It is your father. He has
made charity and kindness real things to me."

"Poor papa!" said Ursula, whose tears were arrested in her eyes by the
same surprised sensation, half-pleasure, half-pain, which hushed even
Janey's voice. They were "struck," as Mrs. Hurst had said, but by such a
strange mingling of feelings that neither knew what to make of them.
Northcote did not understand