elt some regret that she should leave Clavering without
a word to Fanny on the subject. Mr. Saul had exacted no promise of
secresy from her; he was not a man to exact such promises. But she felt
not the less that she would be betraying confidence to speak, and it
might even be that her speaking on the matter would do more harm than
good. Her sympathies were doubtless with Mr. Saul, but she could not
therefore say that she, thought Fanny ought to accept his love. It would
be best to say nothing of the matter, and to allow Mr. Saul to fight his
own battle.

Then she turned to her own matters, and there she found that everything
was pleasant. How good the world had been to her to give her such a
lover as Harry Clavering! She owned with all her heart the excellence of
being in love when a girl might be allowed to call such a man her own.
She could not but make comparisons between him and Mr. Saul, though she
knew that she was making them on points that were hardly worthy of her
thoughts. Mr. Saul was plain, uncouth, with little that was bright about
him except the brightness of his piety. Harry was like the morning star.
He looked and walked and spoke as though he were something more godlike
than common men. His very voice created joy, and the ring of his
laughter was to Florence as the music of the heavens. What woman would
not have loved Harry Clavering? Even Julia Brabazon--a creature so base
that she had sold herself to such a thing as Lord Ongar for money and a
title, but so grand in her gait and ways, so Florence had been told,
that she seemed to despise the earth on which she trod--even she had
loved him. Then as Florence thought of what Julia Brabazon might have
had and of what she had lost, she wondered that there could be women
born so sadly vicious.

But that woman's vice had given her her success, her joy, her great
triumph! It was surely not for her to deal hardly with the faults of
Julia Brabazon--for her who was enjoying all the blessings of which
those faults had robbed the other! Julia Brabazon had been her very good
friend.

But why had this perfect lover come to her, to one so small, so
trifling, so little in the world's account as she, and given to her all
the treasure of his love? Oh, Harry--dear Harry! what could she do for
him that would be a return good enough for such great goodness? Then she
took out his last letter, that satisfactory letter, that letter that had
been declared to be perfect, and