the poor
woman's misfortune. She attributed it to Ellen's having had "all sorts
of ideas in her head!"

"I admit that if _not_ having all sorts of ideas in one's head is a
safeguard, the unimpeachable virtue of a district is amply accounted
for."

Professor Theobald chuckled. He enquired if Lady Engleton knew Mrs.
Temperley's motive in adopting the child.

"Oh, partly real kindness; but I think, between ourselves, that Mrs.
Temperley likes to be a little eccentric. Most people have the instinct
to go with the crowd. Hadria Temperley has the opposite fault. She loves
to run counter to it, even when it is pursuing a harmless course."

Some weeks had now passed since the arrival of the two Professors. The
meetings in the Priory garden had been frequent. They had affected for
the better Professor Theobald's manner. Valeria's laws had curbed the
worst side of him, or prevented it from shewing itself so freely. He
felt the atmosphere of the little society, and acknowledged that it was
"taming the savage beast." As for his intellect it took to blazing, as
if, he said, without false modesty, a torch had been placed in pure
oxygen.

"My brain takes fire here and flames. I should make a very creditable
beacon if the burning of brains and the burning of faggots were only of
equal value."

The little feud between him and Mrs. Temperley had been patched up. She
felt that she had been rude to him, on one occasion at any rate, and
desired to make amends. He had become more cautious in his conduct
towards her.

During this period of the Renaissance, as Hadria afterwards called the
short-lived epoch, little Martha was visited frequently. Her protectress
had expected to have to do battle with hereditary weakness on account of
her mother's sufferings, but the child shewed no signs of this. Either
the common belief that mental trouble in the mother is reflected in the
child, was unfounded, or the evil could be overcome by the simple
beneficence of pure air, good food, and warm clothing.

Hadria had begun to feel a more personal interest in her charge. She had
taken it under her care of her own choice, without the pressure of any
social law or sentiment, and in these circumstances of freedom, its
helplessness appealed to her protective instincts. She felt the
relationship to be a true one, in contradistinction to the more usual
form of protectorate of woman to child.

"There is nothing in it that gives offence to one's dignity