ing with his namesake almost as much as with the parson. It
was now a month since the heir had been dismissed from Popham Villa,
and he had not since that date renewed his visit. Nor from that day
to the present had he seen Sir Thomas. It cannot be said with exact
truth that he was afraid of Sir Thomas or ashamed to see the girls.
He had no idea that he had behaved badly to anybody; and, if he
had, he was almost disposed to make amends for such sin by marrying
Clarissa; but he felt that should he ultimately make up his mind in
Clarissa's favour, a little time should elapse for the gradual cure
of his former passion. No doubt he placed reliance on his position
as a man of property, feeling that by his strength in that direction
he would be pulled through all his little difficulties; but it was
an unconscious reliance. He believed that he was perfectly free
from what he himself would have called the dirt and littleness of
purse-pride--or acre-pride, and would on some occasions assert that
he really thought nothing of himself because he was Newton of Newton.
And he meant to be true. Nevertheless, in the bottom of his heart,
there was a confidence that he might do this and that because of his
acres, and among the things which might be thus done, but which could
not otherwise have been done, was this return to Clarissa after his
little lapse in regard to Mary Bonner.

He was delighted to welcome Ralph from Norfolk to all the pleasures
of the metropolis. Should he put down Ralph's name at the famous
Carlton, of which he had lately become a member? Ralph already
belonged to an old-fashioned club, of which his father had been long
a member, and declined the new honour. As for balls, evening crushes,
and large dinner-parties, our Norfolk Ralph thought himself to be
unsuited for them just at present, because of his father's death. It
was not for the nephew of the dead man to tell the son that eight
months of mourning for a father was more than the world now required.
He could only take the excuse, and suggest the play, and a little
dinner at Richmond, and a small party to Maidenhead as compromises.
"I don't know that there is any good in a fellow being so heavy in
hand because his father is dead," the Squire said to his brother.

"They were so much to each other," pleaded Gregory in return. The
Squire accepted the excuse, and offered his namesake a horse for the
park. Would he make one of the party for the moors in August? The