e man, if
he were not to be let alone to make up his mind? She would trust to him
to divine what it would be to her to be thus one with her own family, and
to gain him without losing her sisters. The balance must not be weighted
by a woman's hand, when ready enough to incline to her side; and why
should she add to his pain, if he must refuse?

How ardently she wished, however, can be imagined. She could not hide
from herself pictures of herself and Humfrey, sometimes in London,
sometimes at the Underwood, working with Robert, and carrying out the
projects which Mervyn but half acted on, and a quarter understood.

The letter came, and the first line was decisive. In spite of earnest
wishes and great regrets, Humfrey could not reconcile the trade to his
sense of right. He knew that as Mervyn conducted it, it was as
unobjectionable as was possible, and that the works were admirably
regulated; but it was in going over the distillery as a curiosity he had
seen enough to perceive that it was a line in which enterprise and
exertion could only find scope by extending the demoralizing sale of
spirits, and he trusted to Phoebe's agreeing with him, that when he
already had a profession fairly free from temptation, it was his duty not
to put himself into one that might prove more full of danger to him than
to one who had been always used to it. He had not consulted Robert,
feeling clear in his own mind, and thinking that he had probably rather
not interfere.

Kind Humfrey! That bit of consideration filled Phoebe's heart with
grateful relief. It gave her spirits to be comforted by the tender and
cheering words with which the edge of the disappointment was softened,
and herself thanked for her abstinence from persuasion. 'Oh, better to
wait seven years, with such a Humfrey as this in reserve, than to let him
warp aside one inch of his sense of duty! As high-minded as dear Robert,
without his ruggedness and harshness,' she thought as she read the manly,
warm-hearted letter to Mervyn, which he had enclosed, and which she could
not help showing to Bertha.

It was lost on Bertha. She thought it dull and poor-spirited not to
accept, and manage the distillery just as he pleased. Any one could
manage Mervyn, she said, not estimating the difference between a petted
sister and a junior partner, and it was a new light to her that the
trade--involving so much chemistry and mechanic ingenuity--was not good
enough for anybody, unl