assumed grace or arrogant carriage of himself; but knowing
within himself that that had happened down at Cheltenham which had all
but divested him of humanity, and made a star of him. To no one else had
it been given to have such feelings, such an assurance of heavenly
bliss, together with the certainty that, under any circumstances, it
must be altogether his own, for ever and ever. It was thus he thought of
himself and what had happened to him. He had succeeded in getting
himself kissed by a young woman.

Harry Annesley was in truth very proud of Florence, and altogether
believed in her. He thought the better of himself because Florence loved
him,--not with the vulgar self-applause of a man who fancies himself to
be a lady-killer and therefore a grand sort of fellow, but in conceiving
himself to be something better than he had hitherto believed, simply
because he had won the heart of this one special girl. During that
half-hour at Cheltenham she had so talked to him, and managed in her own
pretty way so to express herself, as to make him understand that of all
that there was of her he was the only lord and master. "May God do so to
me, and more also, if to the end I do not treat her not only with all
affection, but also with all delicacy of observance." It was thus that
he spoke to himself of her, as he walked away from the door of Mrs.
Mountjoy's house in Cheltenham.

From thence he went back to Buston, and entered his father's house with
all that halo of happiness shining round his heart. He did not say much
about it, but his mother and his sisters felt that he was altered; and
he understood their feelings when his mother said to him, after a day or
two, that "it was a great shame" that they none of them knew his
Florence.

"But you will have to know her--well."

"That's of course; but it's a thousand pities that we should not be able
to talk of her to you as one whom we know already." Then he felt that
they had, among them all, acknowledged her to be such as she was.

There came to the rectory some tidings of the meeting which had taken
place at the Hall between his uncle and Miss Thoroughbung. It was Joe
who brought to them the first account; and then farther particulars
leaked out among the servants of the two houses. Matthew was very
discreet; but even Matthew must have spoken a word or two. In the first
place there came the news that Mr. Prosper's anger against his nephew
was hotter than ever. "Mr. Harry mu