laughter fell sadly upon Betty's ears in
front, and her father and Mr. Arden turned to ask what made them so
merry. Aurelia blushed in embarrassment, but Harriet was ready.

"You will think us very rude, Sir, but my little brother has been
reading the life of Friar Bacon, and he thinks you an equally great
philosopher."

"Indeed, my little master, you do me too much honour. You will soon be a
philosopher yourself. I did not expect so much attention in so young an
auditor," said mr. Arden, thinking this the effect of his sermon on the
solar system.

Whereupon Eugene begged to inspect the grave he was digging with his own
nails.

They were at home by this time, and Betty was aware that they had been
followed at a respectful distance by Palmer and the coachman. Anxious as
she was, she could not bear that her father's dinner should be spoilt,
or that he, in his open-hearted way, should broach the matter with Mr.
Arden; so she repaired to the garden gate, and on being told that Mr.
Dove had a packet from my Lady for the Major, she politely invited him
to dinner with the servants, and promised that her father should see him
afterwards.

This gave a long respite, since the servants had the reversion of the
beef, so the Mr. Arden had taken leave, and gone to see a bedridden
pauper, and the Major had time for his forty winks, while Betty, though
her heart throbbed hard beneath her tightly-laced boddice, composed
herself to hear Eugene's catechism, and the two sisters, each with a
good book, slipped out to the honeysuckle arbour in the garden behind
the house. Harriet had _Sherlock in Death_, her regular Sunday study,
though she never got any further than the apparition of Mrs. Veal, over
which she gloated in a dreamy state; Aurelia's study was a dark-covered,
pale-lettered copy of the _Ikon Basilike_, with the strange attraction
that youth has to pain and sorrow, and sat musing over the resigned
outpourings of the perplexed and persecuted king, with her bright eyes
fixed on the deep blue sky, and the honeysuckle blossoms gently waving
against it, now and then visited by bee or butterfly, while through the
silence came the throbbing notes of the nightingale, followed by its
jubilant burst of glee, and the sweet distant chime of the cathedral
bells rose and fell upon the wind. What peace and repose there was in
all the air, even in the gentle breeze, and the floating motions of the
swallows skimming past.

The stillness w