this place within the last few months, and he thought that he should
do better in a fresh place, and that a fresh person would answer better
here, at least for a time. I am very sorry for him, I have a great
regard for him."

"Yes; but he is quite right to make a fresh beginning. Poor man! he has
been quite lifted off his feet, and entranced all this time, and
his recovery will be much easier elsewhere. It was all that unlucky
croquet."

"I believe it was. I think there was at first a reverential sort of
distant admiration, too hopeless to do any one any harm, and that really
might have refined him, and given him a little of the gentleman-like
tone he has always wanted. But then came the croquet, and when it grew
to be a passion it was an excuse for intimacy that it would have taken a
stronger head than his to resist."

"Under the infection of croquet fever."

"It is what my father used to say of amusements--the instant they become
passions they grow unclerical and do mischief. Now he used, though not
getting on with the Curtises, to be most successful with the second-rate
people; but he has managed to offend half of them during this unhappy
mania, which, of course, they all resent as mercenary, and how he is
ever to win them back I don't know. After all, curatocult is a shallow
motive--Rachel Curtis might triumph!"

"The higher style of clergyman does not govern by curatocult. I hope
this one may be of that description, as he comes through Mr. Clare. I
wonder if this poor man will return?"

"Perhaps," said Ermine, with a shade of mimicry in her voice, "when Lady
Temple is married to the Colonel. There now, I have gone and told you! I
did try to resolve I would not."

"And what did you say?"

"I thought it due to Lady Temple to tell him exactly how she regarded
you."

"Yes, Ermine, and it is due to tell others also. I cannot go on on these
terms, either here or at Myrtlewood, unless the true state of the case
is known. If you will not let me be a married man, I must be an engaged
one, either to you or to the little Banksia."

This periphrasis was needful, because Rose was curled up in a corner
with a book, and her accessibility to outward impressions was dubious.
It might be partly for that reason, partly from the tone of fixed
resolve in his voice, that Ermine made answer, "As you please."

It was calmly said, with the sweet, grave, confiding smile that told how
she trusted to his judgment, and accepted