d, I prefer being under an obligation
to everybody for behaving well to me."

"I can't tell what you mean," said Lydgate, "unless it is that I once
spoke of you to Mrs. Casaubon. But I did not think that she would
break her promise not to mention that I had done so," said Lydgate,
leaning his back against the corner of the mantel-piece, and showing no
radiance in his face.

"It was Brooke who let it out, only the other day. He paid me the
compliment of saying that he was very glad I had the living though you
had come across his tactics, and had praised me up as a lien and a
Tillotson, and that sort of thing, till Mrs. Casaubon would hear of no
one else."

"Oh, Brooke is such a leaky-minded fool," said Lydgate, contemptuously.

"Well, I was glad of the leakiness then. I don't see why you shouldn't
like me to know that you wished to do me a service, my dear fellow.
And you certainly have done me one. It's rather a strong check to
one's self-complacency to find how much of one's right doing depends on
not being in want of money. A man will not be tempted to say the
Lord's Prayer backward to please the devil, if he doesn't want the
devil's services. I have no need to hang on the smiles of chance now."

"I don't see that there's any money-getting without chance," said
Lydgate; "if a man gets it in a profession, it's pretty sure to come by
chance."

Mr. Farebrother thought he could account for this speech, in striking
contrast with Lydgate's former way of talking, as the perversity which
will often spring from the moodiness of a man ill at ease in his
affairs. He answered in a tone of good-humored admission--

"Ah, there's enormous patience wanted with the way of the world. But
it is the easier for a man to wait patiently when he has friends who
love him, and ask for nothing better than to help him through, so far
as it lies in their power."

"Oh yes," said Lydgate, in a careless tone, changing his attitude and
looking at his watch. "People make much more of their difficulties
than they need to do."

He knew as distinctly as possible that this was an offer of help to
himself from Mr. Farebrother, and he could not bear it. So strangely
determined are we mortals, that, after having been long gratified with
the sense that he had privately done the Vicar a service, the
suggestion that the Vicar discerned his need of a service in return
made him shrink into unconquerable reticence. Besides, behind all
making