ime Aubrey turned his head fully, and looked at his
companion. The face which Mr Marshall saw was not, as he had imagined
it might be, sullen and reluctant to converse. It was only very, very
weary and sad, with heavy eyes as though they had slept little, or were
holding back unshed tears.

"No, never," was all he said.

"My mother," said Mr Marshall, "was an Oxfordshire woman, of Minster
Lovel by her birth, but she wedded a bookseller in Oxford town, where
she was in service to a lady. I think you were not present when I told
this to my Lady Lettice. But do you remember your old friend Mrs
Elizabeth Wolvercot, that she told me you were wont to call Cousin
Bess?"

"Remember Cousin Bess! Of course I do," said Aubrey, a tone of interest
coming into his voice. "What of her?"

"My mother was her sister Ellen."

"Why, Mr Marshall! are you my cousin?"

"If it please you to acknowledge me, Cousin Aubrey."

"That I will, indeed!" said Aubrey, clasping the hand of the ejected
minister. Then, with a sudden and complete change of tone,--"But,
maybe, if you knew all I know, you were not over ready to acknowledge
me."

"You are in trouble, my friend," answered Mr Marshall sympathisingly.
"Can I help you thereout? At least I can feel for you in it, if I may
do no more."

There was another minute of dead silence. The next question came
suddenly and bluntly.

"Mr Marshall, did you ever in your life feel that you had been a grand
fool?"

"Yes," was the short, quiet answer.

"I am glad to hear it, though I should not have thought so. I thought
you had always been a precisely proper person, and I did not suppose you
could feel for me a whit. But I must tell my trouble to somebody, or I
shall grow desperate. Look you, I have lost my place, and I can get
none other, and I have not twenty pounds in the world, and I owe an
hundred pounds, and I can't go home."

"Thank God!" was the strange answer.

"Well, to be sure,--Mr Marshall, what on earth are you thanking God
for?"

"That your husks have lost their flavour, my son. So long as the
prodigal finds the husks sweet, there is little hope of him. But let
him once discover that they are dry husks, and not sweet fruits, and
that his companions are swine, and not princes--then he is coming to
himself, and there is hope of making a man of him again. I say
therefore, Thank God!"

"I shall never make anything better than a fool."

"A man commonly ceases to be