e_--or a philosopher--or a _Saint
Kevin_; and, in fact, has begun to be treated as a premature old bachelor.'

'What a charming person his sister, Lady Mary, is. She has made me promise
to write to her,' I said, I suppose--such hypocrites are we--to prove to
Cousin Knollys that I did not care particularly to hear anything more about
him.

'Yes, and so devoted to him. He came down here, and took The Grange, for
change of scene and solitude--of all things the worst for a man in grief--a
morbid whim, as he is beginning to find out; for he is very glad to stay
here, and confesses that he is much better since he came. His letters are
still addressed to him as Mr. Carysbroke; for he fancied if his rank were
known, that the county people would have been calling upon him, and so he
would have found himself soon involved in a tiresome round of dinners, and
must have gone somewhere else. You saw him, Milly, at Bartram, before Maud
came?'

Yes, she had, when he called there to see her father.

'He thought, as he had accepted the trusteeship, that he could hardly,
residing so near, omit to visit Silas. He was very much struck and
interested by him, and he has a better opinion of him--you are not angry,
Milly--than some ill-natured people I could name; and he says that the
cutting down of the trees will turn out to have been a mere slip. But these
slips don't occur with clever men in other things; and some persons have
a way of always making them in their own favour. And, to talk of other
things, I suspect that you and Milly will probably see Ilbury at Bartram;
for I think he likes you very much.'

_You_; did she mean _both_, or only me?

So our pleasant visit was over. Milly's good little curate had been much
thrown in her way by our deep and dangerous cousin Monica. He was most
laudably steady; and his flirtation advanced upon the field of theology,
where, happily, Milly's little reading had been concentrated. A mild and
earnest interest in poor, pretty Milly's orthodoxy was the leading feature
of his case; and I was highly amused at her references to me, when we had
retired at night, upon the points which she had disputed with him, and
her anxious reports of their low-toned conferences, carried on upon a
sequestered ottoman, where he patted and stroked his crossed leg, as he
smiled tenderly and shook his head at her questionable doctrine. Milly's
reverence for her instructor, and his admiration, grew daily; and he was
known