ed on at this moment. "We've got Serjeant Burnaby, and little
Mr. Joram down, to make a fight of it," said Mr. Stemm; "but, as
far as I can learn, they might just as well have remained up in town.
It's only sending good money after bad." The young parson hardly
expressed that interest in the matter which Stemm had expected, but
turned away, thinking whether he had not better have his hair cut at
once, and then go home.

But he did go to Popham Villa on the same afternoon, and,--such was
his fortune,--he found Clarissa alone. Since her father had seen her
in bed, and spoken to her of what he had called the folly of her
love, she had not again given herself up to the life of a sick-room.
She dressed herself and came down to breakfast of a morning, and then
would sit with a needle in her hand till she took her book, and then
with a book till she took her needle. She tried to work, and tried to
read, and perhaps she did accomplish a little of each. And then, when
Patience would tell her that exercise was necessary, she would put
on her hat and creep out among the paths. She did make some kind of
effort to get over the evil that had come upon her; but still no
one could watch her and not know that she was a wounded deer. "Miss
Clarissa is at home," said the servant, who well knew that the young
clergyman was one of the rejected suitors. There had been hardly a
secret in the house in reference to Gregory Newton's love. The two
other young ladies, the girl said, had gone to London, but would be
home to dinner. Then, with a beating heart, Gregory was ushered into
the drawing-room. Clarissa was sitting near the window, with a novel
in her lap, having placed herself there with the view of getting what
was left of the light of the early spring evening; but she had not
read a word for the last quarter of an hour. She was thinking of
that word scoundrel, with which her father had spoken of the man she
loved. Could it be that he was in truth so bad as that? And, if it
were true, would she not take him, scoundrel as he was, if he would
come to her? He might be a--scoundrel in that one thing, on that one
occasion, and yet be good to her. He might repent his scoundrelism,
and she certainly would forgive it. Of one thing she was quite
sure;--he had not looked like a scoundrel when he had given her that
assurance on the lawn! And so she thought of young men in general.
It was very easy to call a young man a scoundrel, and yet to forgive