d he resided in his parsonage ten months every year. His
wife and daughters went among the poor--and he smoked cigars in his
library. Though not yet fifty, he was becoming fat and idle--unwilling
to walk, and not caring much even for such riding as the bishop had left
to him. And to make matters worse--far worse, he knew all this of
himself, and understood it thoroughly. "I see a better path, and know
how good it is, but I follow ever the worse." He was saying that to
himself daily, and was saying it always without hope.

And his wife had given him up. She had given him up, not with disdainful
rejection, nor with contempt in her eye, or censure in her voice, not
with diminution of love or of outward respect. She had given him up as a
man abandons his attempts to make his favorite dog take the water. He
would fain that the dog he loves should dash into the stream as other
dogs will do. It is, to his thinking, a noble instinct in a dog. But his
dog dreads the water. As, however, he has learned to love the beast, he
puts up with this mischance, and never dreams of banishing poor Ponto
from his hearth because of this failure. And so it was with Mrs.
Clavering and her husband at the rectory. He understood it all. He knew
that he was so far rejected; and he acknowledged to himself the
necessity for such rejection.

"It is a very serious thing to decide upon," he said, when his son had
spoken to him.

"Yes; it is serious--about as serious a thing as a man can think of; but
a man cannot put it off on that account. If I mean to make such a change
in my plans, the sooner I do it the better."

"But yesterday you were in another mind."

"No, father, not in another mind. I did not tell you then, nor can I
tell you all now. I had thought that I should want my money for another
purpose for a year or two; but that I have abandoned."

"Is the purpose a secret, Harry?"

"It is a secret, because it concerns another person."

"You were going to lend your money to some one?"

"I must keep it a secret, though you know I seldom have any secrets from
you. That idea, however, is abandoned, and I mean to go over to Stratton
to-morrow, and tell Mr. Burton that I shall be there after Christmas. I
must be at St. Cuthbert's on Tuesday."

Then they both sat silent for a while, silently blowing out their clouds
of smoke. The son had said all that he cared to say, and would have
wished that there might then be an end of it; but he knew that