harming romance, with Newhaven on
his sweet devotedness, with the rest of us in our obvious
desolation--and, after a confidential chat with Dora, she sympathized
most strongly with poor Mr. Ives on his unfortunate attachment. Nothing
would satisfy her, so Dora told me, except the opportunity of plying
Mr. Ives with her soothing balm; and Dora was about to sit down and
write him a note, when he strolled in through the drawing room window,
and announced that his cook's mother was ill, and that he should be
very much obliged if Mrs. Polton would give him some dinner that
evening. Trix and Newhaven happened to enter by the door at the same
moment, and Jack darted up to them, and shook hands with the greatest
effusion. He had evidently buried all unkindness--and with it, we
hoped, his mistaken folly. However that might be, he made no effort to
engross Trix, but took his seat most docilely by his hostess--and she,
of course, introduced him to Mrs. Wentworth. His behavior was, in fact,
so exemplary that even Lady Queenborough relaxed her severity, and
condescended to cross-examine him on the morals and manners of the old
women of the parish. "Oh, the vicar looks after them," said Jack; and
he turned to Mrs. Wentworth again.

There can be no doubt that Mrs. Wentworth had a remarkable power of
sympathy. I took her in to dinner, and she was deep in the subject of
my "noble and inspiring art" before the soup was off the table.
Indeed, I'm sure that my life's ambitions would have been an open book
to her by the time that the joint arrived, had not Jack Ives, who was
sitting on the lady's other side, cut into the conversation just as
Mrs. Wentworth was comparing my early struggles with those of Mr.
Carlyle. After this intervention of Jack's I had not a chance. I ate
my dinner without the sauce of sympathy, substituting for it a certain
amusement which I derived from studying the face of Miss Trix
Queenborough, who was placed on the opposite side of the table. And if
Trix did look now and again at Mrs. Wentworth and Jack Ives, I cannot
say that her conduct was unnatural. To tell the truth, Jack was so
obviously delighted with his new friend that it was quite
pleasant--and, as I say, under the circumstances, rather amusing--to
watch them. We felt that the squire was justified in having a hit at
Jack when Jack said, in the smoking room, that he found himself rather
at a loss for a subject for his next sermon.

"What do you