ect it."

CHAPTER XXIII. EUNICE'S DIARY.

Only two days now, before we give our little dinner-party, and Philip
finds his opportunity of speaking to papa. Oh, how I wish that day had
come and gone!

I try not to take gloomy views of things; but I am not quite so happy as
I had expected to be when my dear was in the same town with me. If papa
had encouraged him to call again, we might have had some precious time
to ourselves. As it is, we can only meet in the different show-places
in the town--with Helena on one side, and Miss Jillgall on the other,
to take care of us. I do call it cruel not to let two young people love
each other, without setting third persons to watch them. If I was Queen
of England, I would have pretty private bowers made for lovers, in the
summer, and nice warm little rooms to hold two, in the winter. Why not?
What harm could come of it, I should like to know?

The cathedral is the place of meeting which we find most convenient,
under the circumstances. There are delightful nooks and corners about
this celebrated building in which lovers can lag behind. If we had been
in papa's chapel I should have hesitated to turn it to such a profane
use as this; the cathedral doesn't so much matter.

Shall I own that I felt my inferiority to Helena a little keenly? She
could tell Philip so many things that I should have liked to tell him
first. My clever sister taught him how to pronounce the name of the
bishop who began building the cathedral; she led him over the crypt, and
told him how old it was. He was interested in the crypt; he talked
to Helena (not to me) of his ambition to write a work on cathedral
architecture in England; he made a rough little sketch in his book of
our famous tomb of some king. Helena knew the late royal personage's
name, and Philip showed his sketch to her before he showed it to me. How
can I blame him, when I stood there the picture of stupidity, trying
to recollect something that I might tell him, if it was only the Dean's
name? Helena might have whispered it to me, I think. She remembered it,
not I--and mentioned it to Philip, of course. I kept close by him all
the time, and now and then he gave me a look which raised my spirits. He
might have given me something better than that--I mean a kiss--when we
had left the cathedral, and were by ourselves for a moment in a corner
of the Dean's garden. But he missed the opportunity. Perhaps he was
afraid of the Dean himself coming