ertainly a free agent. You know better than
I can tell you what your duty to your mother and sisters requires.
Circumstances have made them dependent on you, and you certainly are
not the man to disacknowledge the burden."

"Certainly not."

"No, certainly not. But, having made up my mind to that, I would not,
were I you, allow myself to be a slave."

"But what can I do?"

"You mean that you would be a poor man, were you--were you to give up
your fellowship and at the same time take upon yourself other cares
as well. Do as other poor men do."

"I know no other man situated as I am."

"But you know men who are much worse situated as regards their
worldly means. Were you to give your mother the half of your income,
you would still, I presume, be richer than Mr. Young." Mr. Young was
the curate of a neighbouring parish, who had lately married on his
curacy.

It will be said by my critics, especially by my female critics, that
in saying this, Adela went a long way towards teaching Mr. Wilkinson
the way to woo. Indeed, she brought that accusation against herself,
and not lightly. But she was, as she herself had expressed it, driven
in the cause of truth to say what she had said. Nor did she, in her
heart of hearts, believe that Mr. Wilkinson had any thought of her in
saying what she did say. Her mind on that matter had been long made
up. She knew herself to be "the poor sequestered stag, left and
abandoned by his velvet friend." She had no feeling in the matter
which amounted to the slightest hope. He had asked her for her
counsel, and she had given him the only counsel which she honestly
could give.

Therefore, bear lightly on her, oh my critics! Bear lightly on her
especially, my critics feminine. To the worst of your wrath and scorn
I willingly subject the other lovers with whom my tale is burthened.

"Yes, I should be better off than Young," said Wilkinson, as though
he were speaking to himself. "But that is not the point. I do not
know that I have ever looked at it exactly in that light. There is
the house, the parsonage I mean. It is full of women"--'twas thus
irreverently that he spoke of his mother and sisters--"what other
woman would come among them?"

"Oh, that is the treasure for which you have to search"--this she
said laughingly. The bitterness of the day was over with her; or at
least it then seemed so. She was not even thinking of herself when
she said this.

"Would you come to such a house, Ad