ife always
meant self-restraint, self-repression, self-deadening, if need be. The
Puritan distrust of personal joy as something dangerous and ensnaring
was deep ingrained in her. It had no natural hold on him.

They stood a moment hand in hand fronting the corn-field and the
sun-filled West, while the afternoon breeze blew back the man's curly
reddish hair, long since restored to all its natural abundance.

Presently Robert broke into a broad smile.

'What do you suppose Langham has been entertaining Rose with on the
way, Catherine? I wouldn't miss her remarks to-night on the escort we
provided her for a good deal.'

Catherine said nothing, but her delicate eyebrows went up a little.
Robert stooped and lightly kissed her.

'You never performed a greater art of virtue even in _your_ life Mrs.
Elsmere, than when you wrote Langham that nice letter of invitation.'

And then the young Rector sighed, as many a boyish memory came crowding
upon him.

A sound of wheels! Robert's long legs took him to the gate in a
twinkling, and he flung it open just as Rose drove up in fine style, a
thin dark man beside her.

Rose lent her bright cheek to Catherine's kiss, and the two sisters
walked up to the door together, while Robert and Langham loitered after
them talking.

'Oh, Catherine!' said Rose under her breath, as they got into the
drawing-room, with a little theatrical gesture, 'why on earth did you
inflict that man and me on each other for two mortal hours?'

'Sh-sh!' said Catherine's lips, while her face gleamed with laughter.

Rose sank flushed upon a chair, her eyes glancing up with a little
furtive anger in them as the two gentlemen entered the room.

'You found each other easily at Waterloo?' asked Robert.

'Mr. Langham would never have found me,' said Rose, dryly, 'but I
pounced on him at last, just, I believe, as he was beginning to
cherish the hope of an empty carriage and the solitary enjoyment of his
"Saturday Review."'

Langham smiled nervously. 'Miss Leyburn is too hard on a blind man,' he
said, holding up his eye-glass apologetically; 'it was my eyes, not my
will, that were fault.'

Rose's lip curled a little. 'And Robert,' she cried, bending forward as
though something had just occurred to her, 'do tell, me--I vowed I would
ask--_is_ Mr. Langham a Liberal or a conservative? _He_ doesn't know!'

Robert laughed, so did Langham.

'Your sister,' he said, flushing, 'will have one so very precise in all