ture as to create
much thought. No doubt an intimacy had sprung up between them. But
yet it was singular that a man apparently so reticent as Mr. Western
should make such a communication. How the intimacy had grown by
degrees need not here be explained, but that it had grown to be very
close will appear from the nature of the story told.

The story was one of Mr. Western's own life and was as follows. He
was a man of good but not of large fortune. He had been to Oxford
and had there distinguished himself. He had been called to the bar
but had not practised. He had gone into Parliament, but had left it,
finding that the benches of the House of Commons were only fitted for
the waste of time. He had joined scientific societies to which he
still belonged, but which he did not find to be sufficient for his
happiness. During these attempts and changes he had taken a house in
London, and having a house had thought it well to look for a wife.
He had become engaged to a certain Miss Mary Tremenhere, and by
her he had been--jilted. Since that, for twelve months he had been
travelling abroad in quest, he said, not of consolation, but of some
mitigation of his woe. Cecilia, when she heard this, whispered to
him one little question, "Do you love her?" "I thought I did," he
answered. And then the subject was dropped.

It was a most singular communication for him to make. Why should he,
an elderly man as she at first took him to be, select her as the
recipient for such a tale? She took him to be an elderly man, till
she found by the accidents of conversation that he was two years
younger than Sir Francis Geraldine. Then she looked into his face and
saw that that appearance of age had come upon him from sorrow. There
was a tinge of grey through his hair, and there were settled lines
about his face, and a look of steadied thought about his mouth, which
robbed him of all youth. But when she observed his upright form, and
perceived that he was a strong stalwart man, in the very pride of
manhood as far as strength was concerned,--then she felt that she
had wronged him. Still he was one who had suffered so much as to be
entitled to be called old. She felt the impossibility of putting
him in the same category among men as that filled by Sir Francis
Geraldine. The strength of manhood was still there, but not the salt
of youth. But why should he have told her,--her who had exactly the
same story to tell back again, if only she could tell it?