Here it was that Angela grew up to womanhood.

Some nine and a half years had passed from the date of the events
described in the foregoing pages, when one evening Mr. Fraser
bethought him that he had been indoors all day, and proposed reading
till late that night, and that therefore he had better take some
exercise.

A tall and somewhat nervous-looking man, with dark eyes, a sensitive
mouth, and that peculiar stoop and pallor of complexion which those
devoted to much study almost invariably acquire, he had "student"
written on his face. His history was a sufficiently common one. He
possessed academical abilities of a very high order, and had in his
youth distinguished himself greatly at college, both as a classical
and a mathematical scholar. When quite young, he was appointed,
through the influence of a relation, to his present living, where the
income was good and the population very small indeed. Freed from all
necessity for exertion, he shut himself up with his books, having his
little round of parish work for relaxation, and never sought to emerge
from the quiet of his aimless studies to struggle for fame and place
in the laborious world. Mr. Fraser was what people call an able man
thrown away. If they had known his shy, sensitive nature a little
better, they would have understood that he was infinitely more suited
for the solitary and peaceful lot in life which he had chosen, than to
become a unit in the turbulent and greedy crowd that is struggling
through all the ages up the slippery slopes of the temple of that
greatest of our gods--Success.

There are many such men, probably you, my reader, know one or two.
With infinite labour they store up honey from the fields of knowledge,
collect endless data from the statistics of science, pile up their
calculations against the very stars; and all to no end. As a rule,
they do not write books; they gather the learning for the learning's
sake, and for the very love of it rejoice to count their labour lost.
And thus they go on from year to year, until the golden bowl is broken
and the pitcher broken at the fountain, and the gathered knowledge
sinks, or appears to sink, back to whence it came. Alas, that one
generation cannot hand on its wisdom and experience--more especially
its experience--to another in its perfect form! If it could, we men
should soon become as gods.

It was a mild evening in the latter end of October when Mr. Fraser
started on his walk. The