t have treated him in so friendly a manner, or
have insisted so urgently on his coming down among them.

And then, how should he carry himself in her presence? If he were to
say nothing to her, his saying nothing would be remarked; and yet
he felt that all his powers of self-control would not enable him to
speak to her in the same manner that he would speak to her sister. He
had to ask himself, moreover, what line of conduct he did intend to
follow. If he was still resolved to marry Mary Snow, would it not be
better that he should take this bull by the horns and upset it at
once? In such case, Madeline Staveley must be no more to him than her
sister. But then he had two intentions. In accordance with one he
would make Mary Snow his wife; and in following the other he would
marry Miss Staveley. It must be admitted that the two brides which he
proposed to himself were very different. The one that he had moulded
for his own purposes was not, as he admitted, quite equal to her of
whom nature, education, and birth had had the handling.

Again he dined alone; but on this occasion Mrs. Baker was able to
elicit from him no enthusiasm as to his dinner. And yet she had done
her best, and placed before him a sweetbread and dish of sea-kale
that ought to have made him enthusiastic. "I had to fight with the
gardener for that like anything," she said, singing her own praises
when he declined to sing them.

"Dear me! They'll think that I am a dreadful person to have in the
house."

"Not a bit. Only they sha'n't think as how I'm going to be said 'no'
to in that way when I've set my mind on a thing. I know what's going
and I know what's proper. Why, laws, Mr. Graham, there's heaps of
things there and yet there's no getting of 'em;--unless there's a
party or the like of that. What's the use of a garden I say,--or of
a gardener neither, if you don't have garden stuff? It's not to look
at. Do finish it now;--after all the trouble I had, standing over him
in the cold while he cut it."

"Oh dear, oh dear, Mrs. Baker, why did you do that?"

"He thought to perish me, making believe it took him so long to get
at it; but I'm not so easy perished; I can tell him that! I'd have
stood there till now but what I had it. Miss Madeline see'd me as I
was coming in, and asked me what I'd been doing."

"I hope you didn't tell her that I couldn't live without sea-kale?"

"I told her that I meant to give you your dinner comfortable as long
as you