voured more of pride than of vanity.

As for Stockdale, he clearly perceived that he possessed unlimited
capacity for backsliding, and wished that tutelary saints were not denied
to Dissenters. He set a watch upon his tongue and eyes for the space of
one hour and a half, after which he found it was useless to struggle
further, and gave himself up to the situation. 'The other minister will
be here in a month,' he said to himself when sitting over the fire. 'Then
I shall be off, and she will distract my mind no more! . . . And then,
shall I go on living by myself for ever? No; when my two years of
probation are finished, I shall have a furnished house to live in, with a
varnished door and a brass knocker; and I'll march straight back to her,
and ask her flat, as soon as the last plate is on the dresser!

Thus a titillating fortnight was passed by young Stockdale, during which
time things proceeded much as such matters have done ever since the
beginning of history. He saw the object of attachment several times one
day, did not see her at all the next, met her when he least expected to
do so, missed her when hints and signs as to where she should be at a
given hour almost amounted to an appointment. This mild coquetry was
perhaps fair enough under the circumstances of their being so closely
lodged, and Stockdale put up with it as philosophically as he was able.
Being in her own house, she could, after vexing him or disappointing him
of her presence, easily win him back by suddenly surrounding him with
those little attentions which her position as his landlady put it in her
power to bestow. When he had waited indoors half the day to see her, and
on finding that she would not be seen, had gone off in a huff to the
dreariest and dampest walk he could discover, she would restore
equilibrium in the evening with 'Mr. Stockdale, I have fancied you must
feel draught o' nights from your bedroom window, and so I have been
putting up thicker curtains this afternoon while you were out;' or, 'I
noticed that you sneezed twice again this morning, Mr. Stockdale. Depend
upon it that cold is hanging about you yet; I am sure it is--I have
thought of it continually; and you must let me make a posset for you.'

Sometimes in coming home he found his sitting-room rearranged, chairs
placed where the table had stood, and the table ornamented with the few
fresh flowers and leaves that could be obtained at this season, so as to
add a novelty