s an invincible objection to be any but the first comer in a woman's
heart. He had discovered within himself the condition that if ever
he did make up his mind to marry, it must be on the certainty that
no cropping out of inconvenient old letters, no bow and blush to
a mysterious stranger casually met, should be a possible source of
discomposure. Knight's sentiments were only the ordinary ones of a man
of his age who loves genuinely, perhaps exaggerated a little by his
pursuits. When men first love as lads, it is with the very centre of
their hearts, nothing else being concerned in the operation. With added
years, more of the faculties attempt a partnership in the passion, till
at Knight's age the understanding is fain to have a hand in it. It may
as well be left out. A man in love setting up his brains as a gauge of
his position is as one determining a ship's longitude from a light at
the mast-head.

Knight argued from Elfride's unwontedness of manner, which was matter
of fact, to an unwontedness in love, which was matter of inference only.
Incredules les plus credules. 'Elfride,' he said, 'had hardly looked
upon a man till she saw me.'

He had never forgotten his severity to her because she preferred
ornament to edification, and had since excused her a hundred times
by thinking how natural to womankind was a love of adornment, and how
necessary became a mild infusion of personal vanity to complete the
delicate and fascinating dye of the feminine mind. So at the end of the
week's absence, which had brought him as far as Dublin, he resolved to
curtail his tour, return to Endelstow, and commit himself by making a
reality of the hypothetical offer of that Sunday evening.

Notwithstanding that he had concocted a great deal of paper theory on
social amenities and modern manners generally, the special ounce of
practice was wanting, and now for his life Knight could not recollect
whether it was considered correct to give a young lady personal
ornaments before a regular engagement to marry had been initiated.
But the day before leaving Dublin he looked around anxiously for a
high-class jewellery establishment, in which he purchased what he
considered would suit her best.

It was with a most awkward and unwonted feeling that after entering and
closing the door of his room he sat down, opened the morocco case, and
held up each of the fragile bits of gold-work before his eyes. Many
things had become old to the solitary man of