t will
be for my happiness."

The vicar looked grave. "If Sir John Kynaston were a poor man, would you
marry him?"

And Vera answered bravely, though with a heightened colour--

"No; but it is not only for the money, Eustace; indeed it is not.
But--but--I should be miserable without it; and I must do something with
my life."

He drew her near to him, and kissed her forehead. He understood her. With
that rare gift of sympathy--the highest, the most God-like of all human
attributes--he felt at once what she meant. It was wonderful that this
man, who was so unworldly, so unselfish, so pure of the stains of earth
himself, should have seen at once her position from her own point of
view; that was neither a very exalted one, nor was it very free from the
dross of worldliness. But it was so. All at once he seemed to know by a
subtle instinct what were the weaknesses, and the temptations, and the
aims of this girl, who, with all her faults, was so dear to him. He
understood her better, perhaps, than she understood herself. Her soul was
untouched by passion; the story of her life was unwritten; there was no
danger for her yet; and perchance it might be that the storms of life
would pass her by unscathed, and that she might remain sheltered for ever
in the safe haven which had opened so unexpectedly to receive her.

"There is a peril in the course you have chosen," he said, gravely; "but
your soul is pure, and you are safe. And I know, Vera, that you will
always do your duty."

And the tears were in her eyes as he left her.

When he had gone she sat down to write her answer to Sir John Kynaston.
She dipped her pen into the ink, and sat with it in her hand, thinking.
Her brother-in-law's words had aroused a fresh train of thought within
her. There seemed to be an amount of solemnity in what she was about to
do that she had not considered before. It was true that she did not love
him; but then, as she had told Eustace just now, she loved no one else;
she did not rightly understand what love meant, indeed. And is a woman to
wait on in patience for years until love comes to her? Would it ever
come? Probably not, thought Vera; not to her, who thought herself to be
cold, and not easily moved. There must be surely many women to whom this
wonderful thing of love never comes. In all her experience of life there
was nothing to contradict this. It was not as if she had been a girl who
had never left her native village, never tasted