conviction at the bottom
of the hearts of most of us that it is better to love, however much we
suffer, than not to love at all. Perhaps, after all, those really to
be pitied are the people who are not capable of any such sensation.

But what Mr. Fraser suffered listening that autumn afternoon to
Angela's tale of another's love and of her own deep return of that
love, no man but himself ever knew. Yet still he heard and was not
shaken in his loyal-heartedness, and comforted and consoled her,
giving her the best advice in his power, like the noble Christian
gentleman that he was; showing her too that there was little need of
anxiety and every ground for hope that things would come to a happy
and successful issue. The martyr's abnegation of self is not yet dead
in the world.

At last Angela came to the letter that she had that very morning
received from George. Mr. Fraser read it carefully.

"At any rate," he said, "he is behaving like a gentleman now. On the
whole, that is a nice letter. You will be troubled with him no more."

"Yes," answered Angela, and then flushing up at the memory of George's
arguments in the lane, "but it is certainly time that he did, for he
had no business, oh, he had no business to speak to me as he spoke,
and he a man old enough to be my father."

Mr. Fraser's pale cheeks coloured a little.

"Don't be hard upon him because he is old, Angela--which by the way he
is not, he is nearly ten years my junior--for I fear that old men are
just as liable to be made fools of by a pretty face as young ones."

From that moment, not knowing the man's real character, Mr. Fraser
secretly entertained a certain sympathy for George's sufferings,
arising no doubt from a fellow-feeling. It seemed to him that he could
understand a man going very far indeed when his object was to win
Angela: not that he would have done it himself, but he knew the
temptation and what it cost to struggle against it.

It was nearly dark when at length Angela, rising to go, warmly pressed
his hand, and thanked him in her own sweet way for his goodness and
kind counsel. And then, declining his offer of escort, and saying that
she would come and see him again on the morrow, she departed on her
homeward path.

The first thing that met her gaze on the hall-table at the Abbey House
was a note addressed to herself in a handwriting that she had seen in
many washing bills, but never before on an envelope. She opened it in
vague alarm.