r of unfaithfulness to _her_.

She turned with a sigh from the contemplation of her position to her new
views of London and modern life. The poverty and ignorance of which she
read had seemed hateful to her. But her impulse--always the impulse of
generous souls--was not to shrink away from this newly-discovered
misery, but to go down into the midst of it and help to cure the evil.

Still blindly ignorant of what was already done, or doing, she hardly
knew in which way to begin a work that was so new to her. Indeed, she
hardly estimated its difficulties. All the poor that she had ever seen
were the blue-bloused peasants, or brown-faced crones, and quaint little
maidens with pigtails, who had visited the convent at Fontainebleau. She
was quite sure that English poor people were not like these. Her father
knew a great deal about them, but she could not ask him. The very way in
which he spoke to her--lightly always, and jestingly--made serious
questioning impossible. To whom then should she apply? The answer
presented itself almost immediately, and with extraordinary
readiness--to Mr. Oliver Trent.

This decision was not so remarkable as it at first may seem. Lesley
had run over in her mind a list of the persons whom she could not
or would not ask. Her father and Miss Brooke?--impossible. Mrs.
Romaine?--certainly not. Ethel?--Lesley did not believe that she knew
anything about the poor. Maurice Kenyon?--not for worlds. The
neighboring clergy?--Mr. Brooke had said that he did not want "the
Blacks" about his house. The other men and women whom Lesley had seen
were mere casual acquaintances; not friends of the family, like Oliver
Trent.

At least, she _supposed_ that Oliver was a friend of the family. He was
Mrs. Romaine's brother; and Mrs. Romaine was a good deal at the house.
In her own mind Lesley put him on the same footing as Mr. Kenyon--which
estimate would have made Caspar Brooke exceedingly indignant, could he
have known it. For though he did not exactly dislike Oliver Trent, he
would never have thought of classing him with his friend, Maurice
Kenyon.

But Oliver had already called twice on some pretext or other, since
Lesley had come home: and on the latter of these occasions he had sat
for a full hour with her in the drawing-room, talking chiefly of France
and Italy--in low and softly modulated tones. Lesley was losing all her
horror of interviews with young men. If the nuns had seen her now they
would indeed h