t she belonged to Jack. That thorough manliness and integrity, that
earnest, unflinching soul, the rich, generous temperament that could be
so tender to weakness, so forgiving to wrong, was the soul of her ideal
hero. And he had dared to offer her his poor, paltry affectation of
love! Blinded by his own arrogant self-esteem, he had spurned the pure
pearl, and taken the empty, glittering shell to her as the kind of
treasure he was satisfied to deal in.

How thoroughly he despised himself! It was such a keen, bitter
humiliation! Not only that he had aspired to her, but that he should
have misrepresented and traduced Jack, not from an overwhelming passion
of jealousy,--that might be pardoned,--but a shallow, overweening vanity
of wealth and position.

"She shall see that I have learned to respect and honor him!" he said to
himself with an intensity of regret that was very honest and real. "If I
can never regain her esteem, I shall at least try for my old place in
his regard."

They found a pretty, convenient cottage, quite on the opposite side of
Yerbury, suiting Fred much better than to be near his old friends. The
furniture was brought over from the great house; and, though it had
seemed but odds and ends there, it was amply sufficient. Irene's piano
and some of the old family silver had been saved out of the wreck, a few
of the less expensive pictures, and sufficient books to form quite a
library. Fred really enjoyed arranging and planning. It was quite a
matter of astonishment to him, that rules of art and harmony were needed
at every step: if he could not make them remunerative in a written
article, he could put them in practice here.

He kept much to himself, being busy in the office during the day, and at
home in the evening. He was sick of society, of the world in general. He
had met Maverick a few times, but he shrank from strangers. Mrs. Darcy's
tender, unobtrusive motherliness, he enjoyed, but he did not dare to
accept much of it. The duties of his life were marked out plainly before
him, and he must not swerve from the path. It was to be a kind of
neutral tint, twilight rather than sunshine; and the joys he might come
to long for, he must put away with a firm hand.

The first of December every thing was in readiness for his small
household, even to the tidy housekeeper Mrs. Darcy had found for him
among her poor. Mrs. Lawrence and Irene came in the promised train; and
he met them with a carriage and a mult