nger who might prove a greater
nuisance,' had offered a hundred in addition to her present exorbitant
salary, she courteously declined, and repeated that her reply should be
given in the evening.

Mervyn's wrath would have been doubled had he known the cause of her
delay. She sent Maria to beg Robert to spare her half an hour, and on
his entrance, dismissing her pupils, she said, 'Mr. Fulmort, I should be
glad if you would candidly tell me your opinion of the proposed
arrangement. I mean,' seeing his hesitation, 'of that part which relates
to myself.'

'I do not quite understand you,' he said.

'I mean, whether, as the person whose decision has the most worth in this
family, you are satisfied to leave your sisters under my charge? If not,
whatever it may cost me to part with that sweet and admirable Phoebe,'
and her voice showed unwonted emotion, 'I would not think of remaining
with them.'

'You put me in a very strange position, Miss Fennimore; I have no
authority to decide. They could have no friend more sincerely anxious
for their welfare or so welcome to Phoebe's present wishes.'

'Perhaps not; but the question is not of my feelings nor theirs, but
whether you consider my influence pernicious to their religious
principles. If so, I decline their guardian's terms at once.' After a
pause, she added, pleased at his deliberation, 'It may assist you if I
lay before you the state of my own mind.'

She proceeded to explain that her parents had been professed Unitarians,
her mother, loving and devout to the hereditary faith, beyond which she
had never looked--'Mr. Fulmort,' she said, 'nothing will approve itself
to me that condemns my mother!'

He began to say that often where there was no wilful rejection of truth,
saving grace and faith might be vouchsafed.

'You are charitable,' she answered, in a tone like sarcasm, and went on.
Her father, a literary man of high ability, set aside from work by
ill-health, thought himself above creeds. He had given his daughter a
man's education, had read many argumentative books with her, and died,
leaving her liberally and devoutly inclined in the spirit of Pope's
universal prayer--'Jehovah, Jove, or Lord.' It was all aspiration to the
Lord of nature, the forms, adaptations to humanity, kaleidoscope shapes
of half-comprehended fragments, each with its own beauty, and only
becoming worthy of reprobation where they permitted moral vices, among
which she counted intolera