on whatever to overstep the boundaries of
friendship. The regularity of his visits and the sameness of the
conversation seemed of themselves a guarantee of his simple goodwill. It
did not strike her as possible that if he were going to fall in love with
her at all, that catastrophe should be postponed beyond six months from
their first acquaintance. Nor did it seem extraordinary to her that she
should actually look forward to those visits, and take pleasure in that
monotonous intercourse. Her life was very quiet; it was natural that she
should take whatever diversion came in her way, and should even be
thankful for it. Mr. Juxon was an honest gentleman, a scholar and a man
who had seen the world. If what he said was not always very original it
was always very true, a merit not always conceded to the highest
originality. He spoke intelligently; he told her the news; he lent her
the newest books and reviews, and offered her his opinions upon them,
with the regularity of a daily paper. In such a place, where
communications with the outer world seemed as difficult as at the
antipodes, and where the remainder of society was limited to the
household of the vicarage, what wonder was it if she found Mr. Juxon an
agreeable companion, and believed the companionship harmless?

But far down in the involutions of her feminine consciousness there was
present a perpetual curiosity in regard to the squire, a curiosity she
never expected to satisfy, but was wholly unable to repress. Under the
influence of this feeling she made remarks from time to time of an
apparently harmless nature, but which in the squire promoted that strange
inclination to talk about himself, which he had lately observed and which
caused him so much alarm. He said to himself that he had nothing to be
concealed, and that if any one had asked him direct questions concerning
his past he would have answered them boldly enough. But he knew himself
to be so singularly averse to dwelling on his own affairs that he
wondered why he should now be impelled to break through so good a rule.
Indeed he had not the insight to perceive that Mrs. Goddard lost no
opportunity of leading him to the subject of his various adventures, and,
if he had suspected it, he would have been very much surprised.

Mr. and Mrs. Ambrose were far from guessing what an intimacy had sprung
up between the two. Both the cottage and the Hall lay at a considerable
distance from the vicarage, and though Mrs