enough since she's been here. Now he's come, and we hear
a deal about these fine feelings. You take my word, and say nothing
to nobody about the young man. He's gone by this time, or he's
a-going. Let him go, say I; and if Miss Mary takes on to whimper a
bit, don't you see it."

Mrs Baggett took her departure, and Mr Whittlestaff felt that he
had received the comfort, or at any rate the strength, of which he
had been in quest. In all that the woman had said to him, there had
been a re-echo of his own thoughts,--of one side, at any rate, of
his own thoughts. He knew that true affection, and the substantial
comforts of the world, would hold their own against all romance.
And he did not believe,--in his theory of ethics he did not
believe,--that by yielding to what Mrs Baggett called fine feelings,
he would in the long-run do good to those with whom he was concerned
in the world. Were he to marry Mary Lawrie now, Mary Whittlestaff
would, he thought, in ten years' time, be a happier woman than were
he to leave her. That was the solid conviction of his mind, and in
that he had been strengthened by Mrs Baggett's arguments. He had
desired to be so strengthened, and therefore his interview had been
successful.

But as the minutes passed by, as every quarter of an hour added
itself to the quarters that were gone, and as the hours grew on, and
the weakness of evening fell upon him, all his softness came back
again. They had dined at six o'clock, and at seven he declared his
purpose of strolling out by himself. On these summer evenings he
would often take Mary with him; but he now told her, with a sort of
apology, that he would rather go alone. "Do," she said, smiling up
into his face; "don't let me ever be in your way. Of course, a man
does not always want to have to find conversation for a young lady."

"If you are the young lady, I should always want it--only that I have
things to think of."

"Go and think of your things. I will sit in the garden and do my
stitching."

About a mile distant, where the downs began to rise, there was a walk
supposed to be common to all who chose to frequent it, but which was
entered through a gate which gave the place within the appearance of
privacy. There was a little lake inside crowded with water-lilies,
when the time for the water-lilies had come; and above the lake a
path ran up through the woods, very steep, and as it rose higher and
higher, altogether sheltered. It was about a mile