rse. With this matter to
settle, and with the consciousness that it was still only five
o'clock, and that he was at least one hour beforehand with the world,
it is easy to understand why Mr Wentworth mused and loitered over his
work, and how, when it was nearly six o'clock, and Sarah and the cook
were beginning to stir from their sleep, there still remained only the
text written upon the sermon-paper, which was so nicely arranged
before him on the table. "When the wicked man turneth away from the
evil of his ways, and doeth that which is lawful and right."--This was
the text; but sitting at the open window, looking out into the garden,
where the birds, exempt, as they seemed to think, for once from the
vulgar scrutiny of man, were singing at the pitch of all their voices
as they prepared for breakfast; and where the sweet air of the morning
breathed into his mind a freshness and hopefulness which youth can
never resist, and seduced his thoughts away from all the harder
problems of his life to dwell upon the sweeter trouble of that doubt
about Lucy,--was not the best means of getting on with his work. He
sat thus leaning back--sometimes dipping his pen in the ink, and
hovering over the paper for two or three seconds at a time, sometimes
reading over the words, and making a faint effort to recall his own
attention to them; for, on the whole, perhaps, it is not of much use
getting up very early in the morning when the chief consequence of it
is, that a man feels he has an hour to spare, and a little time to
play before he begins.

Mr Wentworth was still lingering in this peaceful pause, when he
heard, in the stillness, hasty steps coming down Grange Lane. No doubt
it was some workmen going to their work, and he felt it must be nearly
six o'clock, and dipped his pen once more in the ink; but, the next
moment, paused again to listen, feeling in his heart a strange
conviction that the steps would stop at his door, and that something
was going to happen. He was sure of it, and yet somehow the sound
tingled upon his heart when he heard the bell ring, waking up echoes
in the silent house. Cook and Sarah had not yet given any signs of
coming down-stairs, and nobody stirred even at the sound of the bell.
Mr Wentworth put down his pen altogether, and listened with an anxiety
which he could scarcely account for--knowing, as he said to himself,
that it must be the milk, or the baker, or somebody. But neither the
milk nor the baker w