ing for such a young man to do!
They were just going to take lunch. Of course he would stop and
lunch with them. He declared that he would like nothing better.
Mrs. Brownlow rang the bell, and gave her little orders. Clarissa's
thoughts referred quickly to various matters,--to the scene on the
lawn, to a certain evening on which she had walked home with him from
this very house, to the confessions which she had made to her sister,
to her confidence with her cousin;--and then to the offer that had
been made to Mary, now only a few weeks since. She looked at him,
though she did not seem to be looking at him, and told herself that
the man was nothing to her. He had caused her unutterable sorrow,
with which her heart was still sore;--but he was nothing to her. She
would eat her lunch with him, and endeavour to talk to him; but the
less she might see of him henceforth the better. He was selfish,
heartless, weak, and unworthy.

The lunch was eaten, and within three minutes afterwards, Mrs.
Brownlow was away. As they were returning to the little parlour in
which they had been sitting during the morning, she contrived to
escape, and Ralph found himself alone with his "dear, darling little
Clary." In spite of his graceful ease, the task before him was not
without difficulty. Clarissa, of course, knew that he had proposed to
Mary, and probably knew that he had proposed to Polly. But Mary had
told him that Clarissa was devoted to him,--had told him at least
that which amounted to almost as much. And then it was incumbent on
him to do something that might put an end to the Neefit abomination.
Clarissa would be contented to look back upon that episode with
Mary Bonner, as a dream that meant nothing;--just as he himself was
already learning to look at it. "Clary," he said, "I have hardly seen
you to speak to you since the night we walked home together from this
house."

"No, indeed, Mr. Newton," she said. Hitherto she had always called
him Ralph. He did not observe the change, having too many things of
his own to think of at the moment.

"How much has happened since that!"

"Very much, indeed, Mr. Newton."

"And yet it seems to be such a short time ago,--almost yesterday. My
poor uncle was alive then."

"Yes, he was."

He did not seem to be getting any nearer to his object by these
references to past events. "Clary," he said, "there are many things
which I wish to have forgotten, and some perhaps which I would have
forgive