himself would have given
her a high price for these things, but in six months she never in the
most distant manner suggested that she wished to part with them. The idea
then naturally suggested itself to Mr. Juxon's mind that she was still
mourning for her husband, and that she would probably continue to mourn
for him until some one, himself for instance, succeeded in consoling her
for so great a loss.

The conclusion startled the squire. That was not precisely the part he
contemplated playing, nor the species of consolation he proposed to
offer. Mrs. Goddard was indeed a charming woman, and the squire liked
charming women and delighted in their society. But Mr. Juxon was a
bachelor of more than forty years standing, and he had never regarded
marriage as a thing of itself, for himself, desirable. He immediately
thrust the idea from his mind with a mental "_vade retro Satanas_!" and
determined that things were very agreeable in their present state, and
might go on for ever; that if Mrs. Goddard was unhappy that did not
prevent her from talking very pleasantly whenever he saw her, which was
nearly every day, and that her griefs were emphatically none of his
business. Before very long however Mr. Juxon discovered that though it
was a very simple thing to make such a determination it was a very
different thing to keep it. Mrs. Goddard interested him too much. When he
was with her he was perpetually longing to talk about herself instead of
about the weather and the garden and the books, and once or twice he was
very nearly betrayed into talking about himself, a circumstance so
extraordinary that Mr. Juxon imagined he must be either ill or going mad,
and thought seriously of sending for the doctor. He controlled the
impulse, however, and temporarily recovered; but strange to say from that
time forward the conversation languished when he found himself alone with
Mrs. Goddard, and it seemed very hard to maintain their joint interest in
the weather, the garden and the books at the proper standard of
intensity. They had grown intimate, and familiarity had begun to breed a
contempt of those petty subjects upon which their intimacy had been
founded. It is not clear why this should be so, but it is true,
nevertheless, and many a couple before Charles Juxon and Mary Goddard had
found it out. As the interest of two people in each other increases their
interest in things, as things, diminishes in like ratio, and they are
very certain