uld have done is the latest-tried plaster for the
wound of what we cannot do; it would be wise to try it sometimes a
little earlier.

From the orthodox sentimentalist he could claim no compassion. He had
lost not his heart's love but a very comfortable settlement; he was
wounded more in his vanity than in his affections; he had wasted not his
life, only one of his few remaining effective summers. But the more lax,
who base their views on what men generally are, may spare him one of
those less bitter tears which they appropriate to the misfortunes of
others. If the tear as it falls meets a smile,--why not? Such encounters
are hardly unexpected and may well prove agreeable.

There was another disconsolate person in the valley of the Blent--little
Mr Gainsborough, left alone in the big house with a note from his
daughter commanding him to stay there and to say nothing to anybody. He
was lonely, and nervous with the servants; the curios gave him small
pleasure since he had not bought them, and, if he had, they would not
have been cheap. For reasons before indicated, Blentmouth and the
curiosity-shop there had become too dangerous. Besides, he had no money;
Cecily had forgotten that detail in her hurried flight. A man cannot
spend more than a portion of his waking hours in a library or over
pedigrees. Gainsborough found himself regretting London and the little
house. If we divide humanity into those who do things and those who have
to get out of the way while they are being done (just as reasonable a
division as many adopted by statisticians) Gainsborough belonged to the
latter class; like most of us perhaps, but in a particularly
unmistakable degree. And he knew he did--not perhaps like most of us in
that. He never thought even of appealing to posterity.

Meanwhile Janie Iver was behaving as a pattern daughter, cherishing her
mother and father and making home sweet, exercising, in fact, that
prudent economy of wilfulness which preserves it for one great decisive
struggle, and scorns to fritter it away on the details of daily life.
Girls have adopted these tactics from the earliest days (so it is
recorded or may be presumed), and wary are the parents who are not
hoodwinked by them or, even if they perceive, are altogether unsoftened.
Janie was very saintly at Fairholme; the only sins which she could have
found to confess (not that Mr Trumbler favored confession--quite the
contrary) were certain suppressions of truth touchi