u don't suppose
my husband goes out with me in the morning shopping? I hope he has
something better to do."

"Shouldn't you like to have your mother with you for the shopping,
etc.?"

"Ah, dearly!" then with a little quick change of manner, "another
time--not this season, but next, if I can persuade her to come; for next
year I hope we shall be more settled, perhaps in a house of our own, if
Phil gets the appointment he is after."

"Oh, he is after an appointment?"

"Yes, John; Phil is not so lucky as to have a profession like you."

This was a new way of looking at the matter, and John Tatham found
nothing to say. It seemed to him, who had worked very hard for it, a
little droll to describe his possession of a profession as luck. But he
made no remark. He took Elinor down-stairs and found her brougham for
her, and the kind old coachman on the box, who was well used to taking
care of her, though only hired from the livery stables for the
season--John thought the old man looked suspiciously at him, and would
have stopped him from accompanying her, had he designed any such
proceeding. Poor little Nelly, to be watched over by the paternal
fly-man on the box! she who might have had---- but he stopped himself
there, though his heart felt as heavy as a stone to see her go away
thus, alone from the smart party where she had been doing duty for her
husband. John could not take upon himself to finish his sentence--she
who might have had love and care of a very different kind. No, he had
never offered her that love and care. Had Phil Compton never come in her
way it is possible that John Tatham might never have offered it to
her--not, at least, for a long time. He could never have had any right
to be a dog in the manger, neither would he venture to pretend now that
it was her own fault if she had chosen the wrong man; was it his fault
then, who had never put a better man within her choice? but John, who
was no coxcomb, blushed in the dark to himself as this question flitted
through his mind. He had no reason to suppose that Elinor would have
been willing to change the brotherly tie between them into any other.
Thank heaven for that brotherly tie! He would always be able to befriend
her, to stand by her, to help her as much as any one could help a woman
who was married, and thus outside of all ordinary succour. And as for
that blackguard, that _dis_-Honourable Phil---- But here John, who was a
man of just mind, paused again.