fference when
she was young. She saw it now.

"I trust, Miss West," said the deep voice of Mr. Harvey, revolving
himself and his solitaire slowly towards her, that I have your sympathy
in the great cause to which I have dedicated myself, the emancipation of
woman."

"I thought the new woman had effected her own emancipation," said
Rachel.

Mr. Harvey paid no more attention to her remark than any one with a
theory to propound which must be delivered to the world as a whole.

"I venture to think," he continued, his heavy, lustreless eyes coming to
a stand-still upon her, "that though I accept in all reverence the
position of woman as the equal of man, as promulgated in _The Princess_,
by our lion-hearted Laureate, nevertheless I advance beyond him in that
respect. I hold"--in a voice calculated to impress the whole
table--"that woman is man's superior, and that she degrades herself
when she endeavors to place herself on an equality with him."

There was a momentary silence, like that which travellers tell us
succeeds the roar of the lion in his primeval forest, silencing even the
twitter of the birds.

"How true that is!" said Sybell, awed by the lurid splendor of Mr.
Harvey's genius. "Woman is man's superior, not his equal. I have felt
that all my life, but I never quite saw how until this moment. Don't you
think so, too, Miss Barker?"

"I have never lost an opportunity of asserting it," said the Apostle,
her elbow on Mr. Tristram's bread, looking at Mr. Harvey with some
asperity for poaching on her manor.

"All sensible women have been agreed for years on that point."

CHAPTER XXIII

With aching hands and bleeding feet
We dig and heap, lay stone on stone,
We bear the burden and the heat
Of the long day, and wish 'twere done!
Not till the hours of light return
All we have built do we discern.
--MATTHEW ARNOLD.

It was Sunday morning. The night was sinking out of the sky to lean
faint unto death upon the bosom of the earth. The great forms of the
trees, felt rather than seen, were darkness made visible. Among the
night of high elms round Warpington a single yellow light burned in an
upper window. It had been burning all night. And now, as the night
waned, the little light waned with it. At least, it was suddenly blown
out.

Hester came to the window and looked out. There was light, but there was
no dawn a