rike him as unfavourable to her pursuit of him. Who could fathom
the motives of a woman? His mother was wise, and knew the world, and
understood what such creatures meant. No doubt it was entirely the
case--a dreadful certainty--and what was he to do?

At the bottom of all this fright and perplexity must it be owned that
the Rector had a guilty consciousness within himself, that if Lucy drove
the matter to extremities, he was not so sure of his own powers of
resistance as he ought to be? She might marry him before he knew what
he was about; and in such a case the Rector could not have taken his
oath at his own private confessional that he would have been so deeply
miserable as the circumstances might infer. No wonder he was alarmed at
the position in which he found himself; nobody could predict how it
might end.

When Mr Proctor saw his mother again at dinner, she was evidently full
of some subject which would not bear talking of before the servants. The
old lady looked at her son's troubled apprehensive face with smiles and
nods and gay hints, which he was much too preoccupied to understand, and
which only increased his bewilderment. When the good man was left alone
over his glass of wine, he drank it slowly, in funereal silence, with
profoundly serious looks; and what between eagerness to understand what
the old lady meant, and reluctance to show the extent of his curiosity,
had a very heavy half-hour of it in that grave solitary dining-room. He
roused himself with an effort from this dismal state into which he was
falling. He recalled with a sigh the classic board of All-Souls. Woe for
the day when he was seduced to forsake that dear retirement! Really, to
suffer himself to fall into a condition so melancholy, was far from
being right. He must rouse himself--he must find some other society
than parishioners; and with a glimpse of a series of snug little
dinner-parties, undisturbed by the presence of women, Mr Proctor rose
and hurried after his mother, to hear what new thing she might have to
say.

Nor was he disappointed. The old lady was snugly posted, ready for a
conference. She made lively gestures to hasten him when he appeared at
the door, and could scarcely delay the utterance of her news till he had
taken his seat beside her. She had taken off her spectacles, and laid
aside her paper, and cleared off her work into her work-basket. All was
ready for the talk in which she delighted.

"My dear, they've been h