."

"I shall not forget it even in the way that you mean. But still I think
you need not fear me, because you know that I love you. I think I can
promise that you need not withdraw yourself from me, because of what has
passed. But you will tell your father and your mother, and of course
will be guided by them. And now, good-night." Then he went, and she was
astonished at finding that he had had much the best of it in his manner
of speaking and conducting himself. She had refused him very curtly, and
he had borne it well. He had not been abashed, nor had he become sulky,
nor had he tried to melt her by mention of his own misery. In truth, he
had done it very well--only that he should have known better than to
make any such attempt at all.

Mr. Saul had been right in one thing. Of course she told her mother, and
of course her mother told her father. Before dinner that evening the
whole affair was being debated in the family conclave. They all agreed
that Fanny had had no alternative but to reject the proposition at once.
That, indeed was so thoroughly taken for granted, that the point was not
discussed. But there came to be a difference between the Rector and
Fanny on one side, and Mrs. Clavering and Mary on the other. "Upon my
word," said the Rector, "I think it was very impertinent." Fanny would
not have liked to use that word herself but she loved her father for
using it.

"I do not see that," said Mrs. Clavering. "He could not know what
Fanny's views in life might be. Curates very often marry out of the
houses of the clergymen with whom they are placed, and I do not see why
Mr. Saul should be debarred from the privilege of trying."

"If he had got to like Fanny what else was he to do?" said Mary.

"Oh, Mary, don't talk such nonsense," said Fanny. "Got to like! People
shouldn't get to like people unless there's some reason for it."

"What on earth did he intend to live on?" demanded the Rector.

"Edward had nothing to live on, when you first allowed him to come
here," said Mary.

"But Edward had prospects, and Saul, as far as I know, has none. He had
given no one the slightest notice. If the man in the moon had come to
Fanny I don't suppose she would have been more surprised."

"Not half so much, papa."

Then it was that Mrs. Clavering had declared that she was not
surprised--that she had suspected it, and had almost made Fanny angry by
saying so. When Harry came hack two days afterward, the family news was