iss Brabazon."

"You mean to be impertinent, sir; but I will not take it so. This is to
be our last meeting in private, and I won't acknowledge that I am
insulted. But it must be over now, Harry; and here I have been pacing
round and round the garden with you, in spite of my refusal just now. It
must not be repeated, or things will be said which I do not mean to have
ever said of me. Good-by, Harry."

"Good-by, Julia."

"Well, for that once let it pass. And remember this: I have told you all
my hopes, and my one trouble. I have been thus open with you because I
thought it might serve to make you look at things in a right light. I
trust to your honor as a gentleman to repeat nothing that I have said to
you."

I am not given to repeat such things as those."

"I'm sure you are not. And I hope you will not misunderstand the spirit
in which they have been spoken. I shall never regret what I have told
you now, if it tends to make you perceive that we must both regard our
past acquaintance as a romance, which must, from the stern necessity of
things, be treated as a dream which we have dreamt, or a poem which we
have read."

"You can treat it as you please."

"God bless you, Harry; and I will always hope for your welfare, and hear
of your success with joy. Will you come up and shoot with them on
Thursday?"

"What, with Hugh? No; Hugh and I do not hit it off together. If I shot
at Clavering I should have to do it as a sort of head-keeper. It's a
higher position, I know, than that of an usher, but it doesn't suit me."

"Oh, Harry! that is so cruel! But you will come up to the house. Lord
Ongar will be there on the thirty-first; the day after to-morrow, you
know."

"I must decline even that temptation. I never go into the house when
Hugh is there, except about twice a year on solemn invitation--just to
prevent there being a family quarrel."

"Good-by, then," and she offered him her hand.

"Good-by, if it must be so."

"I don't know whether you mean to grace my marriage?"

"Certainly not. I shall be away from Clavering, so that the marriage
bells may not wound my ears. For the matter of that, I shall be at the
school."

"I suppose we shall meet some day in town."

"Most probably not. My ways and Lord Ongar's will be altogether
different, even if I should succeed in getting up to London. If you ever
come to see Hermione here, I may chance to meet you in the house. But
you will not do that often, the place is s