caught a pitying glance.

'Please to put that out of your head!' she exclaimed. 'There's no pity,
no ill-usage in the case. I wilfully did what I was warned that he would
not bear, and there was an end of it.'

'I had hoped not past recall.'

'Well, if you will have the truth, when it was done and not to be helped,
we were both very sorry; I can answer at least for one, but he had bound
himself heart and soul to his work, and does not care any longer for me.
What, you, the preacher of sacrifice, wishing to see your best pupil
throw up your pet work for the sake of a little trumpery crushed
fire-fly?'

'Convict me out of my own mouth,' said Honor, sadly, 'it will not make me
like to see my fire-fly crushed.'

'When the poor fire-fly has lit the lamp of learning for six idle
children, no other cause for dimness need be sought. No, I was well and
wicked in the height of the pain, and long after it wore out--for wear
out it did--and I am glad he is too wise to set it going again. I don't
like emotions. I only want to be let alone. Besides, he has got into
such a region of goodness, that his wife ought to be super-excellent. I
know no one good enough for him unless you would have him!'

As usual, Honor was balked by bestowing sympathy, and could only wonder
whether this were reserve, levity, or resignation, and if she must accept
it as a fact that in the one the attachment had been lost in the duties
of his calling, in the other had died out for want of requital. For the
present, in spite of herself, her feeling towards Robert verged more on
distant rather piqued admiration than on affection, although he nearly
approached the ideal of her own first love, and Owen Sandbrook's teaching
was, through her, bearing good fruit in him, even while recoiling on her
woman's heart through Owen's daughter.

Mervyn was easily reconciled to the decision, not only because his
brother was even more valuable to him in London than in the country, but
because Miss Charlecote's next alternative was Charlecote Raymond, Sir
John's second son, a fine, open-tempered young man of thirty, who had
made proof of vigour and judgment in the curacy that he had just left,
and who had the farther recommendation of bearing the name of the former
squire, his godfather. Anything called Raymond was at present so welcome
to Mervyn that he felt himself under absolute obligations to Robert for
having left the field clear. When no longer prejudiced