worked on him a zealous
purpose to dedicate himself totally to a religious life, giving up all
worldly aims, and employing the small capital he could call his own in
preparing for the ministry. Mr. Dutton had insisted that he should
test his own steadfastness and resolution by another year's work in his
present situation before he took any steps.

He had submitted, but still viewed himself as dedicated, and so far as
business hours permitted, gave his services like a clerical pupil to
St. Ambrose's with the greatest energy, and perhaps somewhat less
judgment than if Mr. Dutton had been at hand. Being without natural
taste for intellectual pursuits, unless drawn into them by his
surroundings, he had dropped them entirely, and read nothing but the
ephemeral controversial literature of his party, and not much of that,
for he was teaching, preaching, exhorting, throughout his spare time;
while the vicar was in too great need of help to insist on deepening
the source from which his zealous assistant drew. As Miss Nugent
observed, teetotalism was to him what dissipation was to other young
men.

On this vehemence of purpose descended suddenly Ursula Egremont once
more; and the human heart could not but be quickened with the idea, not
entirely unfounded, that it was to him that she had flown back, and
that her exile proved that she cared for him more than for all the
delights she had enjoyed as heiress of Bridgefield. The good youth was
conscientious to the back-bone, and extremely perplexed between his
self-dedication and the rights that their implied understanding might
give to her. Was she to be the crowning blessing of his life, to be
saved partly through his affection from worldly trials and temptations,
and bestowing on him a brilliant lot in which boundless good could be
effected? Or was she a syren luring him to abandon his higher and
better purposes?

The first few days of her stay, the former belief made him feel like
treading on air, or like the hero of many a magazine story; but as time
went on this flattering supposition began to fail him, when Nuttie
showed her weariness of the subjects which, in his exclusiveness, he
deemed the only ones worthy of a Christian, or rather of a Catholic.
Both of them had outgrown the lively, aimless chatter and little jests
that had succeeded the games of childhood, and the growth had been in
different directions, so that Ursula felt herself untrue to her old
romance when