and to talk to him as though there need be no cause for dreading
an intimacy. With an engaged man a girl may suffer herself to be
intimate.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE WALK BACK TO HENDON.

"I was here a little early," said Hampstead when his friend came in,
"and I found your mother just going to church,--with a friend."

"Marion Fay."

"Yes, Miss Fay."

"She is the daughter of a Quaker who lives a few doors off. But
though she is a Quaker she goes to church as well. I envy the tone of
mind of those who are able to find a comfort in pouring themselves
out in gratitude to the great Unknown God."

"I pour myself out in gratitude," said Hampstead; "but with me it is
an affair of solitude."

"I doubt whether you ever hold yourself for two hours in commune with
heavenly power and heavenly influence. Something more than gratitude
is necessary. You must conceive that there is a duty,--by the
non-performance of which you would encounter peril. Then comes the
feeling of safety which always follows the performance of a duty.
That I never can achieve. What did you think of Marion Fay?"

"She is a most lovely creature."

"Very pretty, is she not; particularly when speaking?

"I never care for female beauty that does not display itself
in action,--either speaking, moving, laughing, or perhaps only
frowning," said Hampstead enthusiastically. "I was talking the other
day to a sort of cousin of mine who has a reputation of being a
remarkably handsome young woman. She had ever so much to say to me,
and when I was in company with her a page in buttons kept coming into
the room. He was a round-faced, high-cheeked, ugly boy; but I thought
him so much better-looking than my cousin, because he opened his
mouth when he spoke, and showed his eagerness by his eyes."

"Your cousin is complimented."

"She has made her market, so it does not signify. The Greeks seem to
me to have regarded form without expression. I doubt whether Phidias
would have done much with your Miss Fay. To my eyes she is the
perfection of loveliness."

"She is not my Miss Fay. She is my mother's friend."

"Your mother is lucky. A woman without vanity, without jealousy,
without envy--"

"Where will you find one?"

"Your mother. Such a woman as that can, I think, enjoy feminine
loveliness almost as much as a man."

"I have often heard my mother speak of Marion's good qualities, but
not much of her loveliness. To me her great charm is her voice. She
sp