son. So much the worse for them, but so much the better for
me in this case. I'm above their silly antiquated prejudices, and shall
be only too glad when the fitting time comes to make Ellinor my wife.
After all, a prosperous attorney's daughter may not be considered an
unsuitable match for me--younger son as I am. Ellinor will make a
glorious woman three or four years hence; just the style my father
admires--such a figure, such limbs. I'll be patient, and bide my time,
and watch my opportunities, and all will come right."

So he bade Ellinor farewell in a most reluctant and affectionate manner,
although his words might have been spoken out in Hamley market-place, and
were little different from what he said to Miss Monro. Mr. Wilkins half
expected a disclosure to himself of the love which he suspected in the
young man; and when that did not come, he prepared himself for a
confidence from Ellinor. But she had nothing to tell him, as he very
well perceived from the child's open unembarrassed manner when they were
left alone together after dinner. He had refused an invitation, and
shaken off Mr. Ness, in order to have this confidential _tete-a-tete_
with his motherless girl; and there was nothing to make confidence of. He
was half inclined to be angry; but then he saw that, although sad, she
was so much at peace with herself and with the world, that he, always an
optimist, began to think the young man had done wisely in not tearing
open the rosebud of her feelings too prematurely.

The next two years passed over in much the same way--or a careless
spectator might have thought so. I have heard people say, that if you
look at a regiment advancing with steady step over a plain on a review-
day, you can hardly tell that they are not merely marking time on one
spot of ground, unless you compare their position with some other object
by which to mark their progress, so even is the repetition of the
movement. And thus the sad events of the future life of this father and
daughter were hardly perceived in their steady advance, and yet over the
monotony and flat uniformity of their days sorrow came marching down upon
them like an armed man. Long before Mr. Wilkins had recognised its
shape, it was approaching him in the distance--as, in fact, it is
approaching all of us at this very time; you, reader, I, writer, have
each our great sorrow bearing down upon us. It may be yet beyond the
dimmest point of our horizon, but in t