ch more than half his memory--he belonged,
the comfort of this spiritual esoteric relation became but a meagre
evasive thing. It was too unsubstantial. Doubts and fears encircled it.
She grew heart-sick for some fresh testimony, some clear immediate
assurance that time and absence had not staled or undermined the romance.

If only she could speak of it! But that was forbidden by every obligation
of filial piety. Never had her relation to her father been more tender,
more happy; yet only through sudden pressure of outward circumstance
could she speak to him of Faircloth. To do so, without serious necessity,
would be, as she saw it, a wanton endangering of his peace.--If only the
dear man with the blue eyes hadn't removed himself! She had counted upon
his permanent support and counsel, on his smoothing away difficulties
from the path of her dealings with Faircloth; but he appeared to have
given her altogether the go-by, to have passed altogether out of her
orbit. And meditating, in the softly bright May weather beneath those
high forget-me-not blue skies, upon his defection, our maiden felt quite
desperately experienced and grown up, thrown back upon her own resources,
thrown in upon her rather solitary life.

Throughout the summer visitors came and went; but never those two desired
figures, Faircloth or Carteret. Dr. McCabe, vociferous in welcome,
affectionate, whimsical and choleric, trundled over from Stourmouth on a
bicycle of phenomenal height.

"On the horse without wheels I'm proficient enough," he declared. "Know
the anatomy of the darlin' beast as well as I do my own, inside and out.
But, be dashed, if the wheels without the horse aren't beyond me quite.
Lord love you, but the skittish animal's given me some ugly knocks, cast
me away, it has, in the wayside ditch, covering me soul with burning
shame, and me jacket with malodorous mud."

At intervals Aunt Harriet Cowden and Uncle Augustus drove over in state
the twelve miles from Paulton Lacy--the lady faithful to garments dyed,
according to young Tom Verity, in the horrid hues of violet ink. She
expressed her opinions with ruthless frankness, criticized, domineered,
put all and sundry in--what she deemed--"their place"; and departed for
the big house on the confines of Arnewood Forest again, to, had she but
known it, a chorus of sighings of relief from those she left behind her
and on whose emotional and intellectual tastes and toes she so
mercilessly trod.