ey to spend, felt as near hating him as it was in his
nature to do. Thus Mr. May was released from duty in the drawing-room,
where Ursula, palpitating with many thoughts which were altogether new
to her, sat doing her darning, and eluding as well as she could Janey's
questions. Janey was determinedly conversational that night. She drove
Ursula nearly out of her senses, and kept Johnnie--who had crept into
the drawing-room in high delight at finding it for once free to
him--from learning his lessons.

"Oh, how nice it is to be by ourselves," said Janey, "instead of all
those new people. I don't mind Phoebe; but strange men in the house, what
a nuisance they are, always getting in one's way--don't you think so,
Ursula?"

Ursula made no reply, and after awhile even Janey sank into silence, and
the drawing-room, usually so gay, got a cold and deserted look. The new
life which had come in had left its mark, and to go back to what had
once been so pleasant in the past was no longer possible. Johnnie and
Janey might like it, having regained their former places, but to Ursula
the solitude was horrible. She asked herself, with a great blush and
quiver, what she would do if that temporary filling up of new interests
and relationships was to fall away, as was likely, and leave her to the
old life unbroken, to Janey's childish society and questions, and papa's
imperious and unmodified sway. She grew pale and chill at the very
thought.

But Mr. May, as we have said, was off duty. He forgot all about Cotsdean
and the note in his pocket, and set to work with the most boyish
simplicity of delight to arrange his books in his new shelves. How well
they looked! never before had their setting done them justice. There
were books in gorgeous bindings, college prizes which had never shown at
all, and which now gleamed out in crimson and gold from behind the
glass, and made their owner's heart beat with pleasure. Alas! to think
how much innocent pleasure is denied us by the want of that small sum of
money! and worse still, how an innocent pleasure becomes the reverse of
innocent when it is purchased by the appropriation of something which
should have been employed elsewhere. Perhaps, however, the sense of
guilt which he kept under, added zest in Mr. May's mind to the pleasure
of his acquisition; he was snatching a fearful joy, Heaven knows how
soon the penalty might overwhelm him. In the mean time he was determined
to take the good of it, a