s whether she loves or does not love, is inclined
five parts out of six toward the man of whom she is thinking. When a
woman doubts she is lost, the cynics say. I simply assert, being no
cynic, that when a woman doubts she is won. The more Fanny thought of
Mr. Saul, the more she felt that he was not the man for whom she had
first taken him--that he was of larger dimensions as regarded spirit,
manhood and heart, and better entitled to a woman's love. She would not
tell herself that she was attached to him; but in all her arguments with
herself against him, she rested her objection mainly on the fact that he
had but seventy pounds a year. And then the threatened attack, the
attack that was to be final, came upon her before she was prepared for
it!

They had been together as usual during the intervening time. It was,
indeed, impossible that they should not be together. Since she had first
begun to doubt about Mr. Saul, she had been more diligent than
heretofore in visiting the poor and in attending to her school, as
though she were recognizing the duty which would specially be hers if
she were to marry such a one as he. And thus they had been brought
together more than ever. All this her mother had seen, and seeing, had
trembled; but she had not thought it wise to say anything till Fanny
should speak. Fanny was very good and very prudent. It could not be but
that Fanny should know how impossible must be such a marriage. As to the
rector, he had no suspicions on the matter. Saul had made himself an ass
on one occasion, and there had been an end of it. As a curate, Saul was
invaluable, and therefore the fact of his having made himself an ass had
been forgiven him. It was thus that the rector looked at it.

It was hardly more than ten days since the last walk in Cumberly Lane
when Mr. Saul renewed the attack. He did it again on the same spot, and
at the same hour of the day. Twice a week, always on the same days, he
was in the chapel up at this end of the parish, and on these days he
could always find Fanny on her way home. When he put his head in at the
little school door and asked for her, her mind misgave her. He had not
walked home with her since, and though he had been in the school with
her often, had always left her there, going about his own business, as
though he were by no means desirous of her company. Now the time
had come, and Fanny felt that she was not prepared. But she took up her
hat, and went out to him, kn