ent, and take his sister Susan with me.'

'You went.'

'Yes, Susan had been staying with her uncle at Sutton, and met me at
Oxford. I am glad we were able to go. There was nothing that I more
wished to have seen.'

Irrepressible curiosity could not but cause Phoebe to ask how lately Miss
Raymond had been at Sutton, and as Miss Charlecote answered the question
she looked inquisitively at her young friend, and each felt that the
other was initiated. Whether the cousin ought to have confided to Miss
Charlecote what she had witnessed at Sutton was an open question, but at
least Honor knew what Phoebe burnt to learn, and was ready to detail it.

It was the old story of the parish priest taking pupils, and by dire
necessity only half fulfilling conflicting duties, to the sacrifice of
the good of all. Overworked between pupils and flock, while his wife was
fully engrossed by children and household cares, the moment had not been
perceived when their daughter became a woman, and the pupil's sport grew
to earnest. Not till Mervyn Fulmort had left Sutton for the University
were they aware that he had treated Cecily as the object of his
affection, and had promised to seek her as soon as he should be his own
master. How much was in his power they knew not, but his way of life
soon proved him careless of deserving her, and it was then that she
became staid and careworn, and her youth had lost its bloom, while forced
in conscience to condemn the companion of her girlhood, yet unable to
take back the heart once bestowed, though so long neglected.

But when Mervyn, declaring himself only set at liberty by his father's
death, appeared at Sutton, Cecily did not waver, and her parents upheld
her decision, that it would be a sin to unite herself to an irreligious
man, and that the absence of principle which he had shown made it
impossible for her to accept him.

Susan described her as going about the next morning looking as though
some one had been killing her, but going through her duties as calmly and
gently as ever, though preyed on by the misery of the parting in anger,
and the threat that if he were not good enough for her, he would give her
reason to think so! Honor had pity on the sister, and spared her those
words, but Phoebe had well-nigh guessed them, and though she might esteem
Cecily Raymond, could not but say mournfully that it was a last chance
flung away.

'Not so, my dear. What is right comes right. A regular