it? I besought him for a fancied joy, and lo! it is a
sorrow for evermore!"

But it may be that sometimes God indeed does so, and to such a possible
complaint has this reply in Himself: "I gave thee what thou wouldst,
because not otherwise could I teach the stiff-necked his folly. Hadst
thou been patient, I would have made the thing a joy ere I gave it thee;
I would have changed the scorpion into a golden beetle, set with rubies
and sapphires. Have thou patience now."

One thing is clear, that poor Juliet, like most women, and more men,
would never have begun to learn any thing worth learning, if she had not
been brought into genuine, downright trouble. Indeed I am not sure but
some of those who seem so good as to require no trouble, are just those
who have already been most severely tried.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

ANOTHER MIND.

But while the two ladies were free of all suspicion of danger, and
indeed were quite safe, they were not alone in the knowledge of their
secret. There was one who, for some time, had been on the track of it,
and had long ago traced it with certainty to its covert: indeed he had
all but seen into it from the first. But, although to his intimate
friends known as a great and indeed wonderful talker, he was generally
regarded as a somewhat silent man, and in truth possessed to perfection
the gift of holding his tongue. Except that his outward insignificance
was so great as to pass the extreme, he was not one to attract
attention; but those who knew Wingfold well, heard him speak of Mr.
Polwarth, the gate-keeper, oftener than of any other; and from what she
heard him say, Dorothy had come to have a great reverence for the man,
although she knew him very little.

In returning from Nestley with Juliet by her side, Helen had taken the
road through Osterfield Park. When they reached Polwarth's gate, she
had, as a matter of course, pulled up, that they might have a talk with
the keeper. He had, on the few occasions on which he caught a passing
glimpse of Miss Meredith, been struck with a something in her that to
him seemed to take from her beauty--that look of strangeness, namely,
which every one felt, and which I imagine to have come of the
consciousness of her secret, holding her back from blending with the
human wave; and now, therefore, while the carriage stood, he glanced
often at her countenance.

From long observation, much silence and gentle pondering; from constant
illness, and frequen