ing his Fellowship he had shown more honesty
than prudence. His position excited the sympathy of influential
persons. Crabb Robinson, though an entire stranger to him, wrote a
public protest against Froude's treatment. Other men, not less
distinguished, went farther. Chevalier Bunsen, the Prussian
Minister, Monckton Milnes, afterwards Lord Houghton, and others
whose names he never knew, subscribed a considerable sum of money
for maintaining the unpopular writer at a German university while he
made a serious study of theological science. But he had had enough
of theology, and the munificent offer was declined, though Bunsen
harangued him enthusiastically for five hours in Carlton Gardens on
the exquisite adaptation of Evangelical doctrines to the human soul,
until Froude began to suspect that they must have originated in the
soul itself.

At this time a greater change than the loss of his Fellowship came
upon Froude. While staying with the Kingsleys at Ilfracombe, he met
Mrs. Kingsley's sister, Charlotte Grenfell, the Argemone of Yeast, a
lady of somewhat wilful, yet most brilliant spirit, with a small
fortune of her own. Miss Grenfell had joined the Church of Rome two
years before, and at that time thought of entering a convent. This
idea was extremely distasteful to her sister and her sister's
husband. Their favourite remedy for feminine caprice was marriage,
and they soon had the satisfaction of seeing Miss Grenfell become
Mrs. Froude. There were some difficulties in the way, for Froude's
prospects were by no means assured, and Mrs. Kingsley felt
occasional scruples. But Froude had confidence in himself, and when
his mind was made up he would not look back.

"You remember," he wrote to Mrs. Kingsley, in 1849, "I warned you
that I intended to take my own way in life, doing (as I always have
done) in all important matters just what I should think good, at
whatever risk of consequences, and taking no other person's opinion
when it crossed with my own. Now in this matter I feel certain that
the way to save Charlotte most pain is to shorten the struggle, and
that will be best done by being short, peremptory, and decided in
allowing no dictation and no interference .... Charlotte herself is
really magnificent. Every letter shows me larger nobleness of heart.
You cannot go back now, Mrs. Kingsley."

Mrs. Kingsley did not go back, and Froude had his way. Before the
wedding, however, another and a novel experience awaited