ook or housemaid, there might be reasonable objections. As it is, it
would hardly involve a change even in your tone to her, seeing that you
are in the habit of treating her as a lady, and with a certain degree of
familiar kindness. I confess I had anticipated no difficulties. We are
not a household of bigoted Conservatives; it is hard for me to imagine
you taking any line but that of an enlightened man who judges all things
from the standpoint of liberal reflection. I suppose my own scorn of
prejudices is largely due to your influence. It is not easy to realise
our being in conflict on any matter involving calm reasonableness.'

In another this would have been a shrewd speech. Wilfrid was incapable
of conscious artifice of this kind; this appeal, the very strongest he
could have made to his father, was urged in all sincerity, and derived
its force from that very fact. He possessed not a little of the
persuasive genius which goes to make an orator--hereafter to serve him
in fields as yet undreamed of--and natural endowment guided his feeling
in the way of most impressive utterance. Mr. Athel smiled in spite of
himself.

'And what about your aunt?' he asked. 'Pray remember that it is only by
chance that Miss Hood lives under my roof. Do you imagine your aunt
equally unprejudiced?'

Mr. Athel was, characteristically, rather fond of side-glancings at
feminine weaknesses. An opportunity of the kind was wont to mellow his
mood.

'To be quite open in the matter,' Wilfrid replied, 'I will own that my
first idea was to take you alone into my confidence; to ask you to say
nothing to Aunt Edith. Miss Hood felt that that would be impossible, and
I see that she was right. It would involve deceit which it is not in her
nature to practise.'

'You and Miss Hood have discussed us freely,' observed the father, with
a return to his irony.

'I don't reply to that,' said Wilfrid, quietly. 'I think you must give
me credit for the usual measure of self-respect; and Miss Hood does not
fall short of it.'

The look which Mr. Athel cast at his son had in it something of pride.
He would not trust himself to speak immediately.

'I don't say,' he began presently, with balancing of phrase, 'that your
plan is not on the face of it consistent and reasonable. Putting aside
for the moment the wretchedly unsatisfactory circumstances which
originate it, I suppose it is the plan which naturally suggests itself.
But, of course, in practice it is o