out Lady Ongar. It was so
altogether with Cecilia and Florence, and even Mr. Burton was allowing
himself to be brought round to a charitable view of Harry's character.
Harry on this day had gone to the chambers in the Adelphi for an hour,
and, walking away with Theodore Burton, had declared his intention of
working like a horse. "If you were to say like a man, it would perhaps
be better," said Burton. "I must leave you to say that," answered Harry;
"for the present I will content myself with the horse." Burton was
willing to hope, and allowed himself once more to fill into his old
pleasant way of talking about the business, as though there were no
other subject under the sun so full of manifold interest. He was very
keen at the present moment about Metropolitan railways, and was
ridiculing the folly of those who feared that the railway projectors
were going too fast. "But we shall never get any thanks," he said. "When
the thing has been done, and thanks are over due, people will look upon
all our work so much as a matter of course that it will never occur to
them to think that they owe us anything. They will have forgotten all
their cautions, and will take what they get as though it were simply
their due. Nothing astonishes me so much as the fear people feel before
a thing is done when I join it with their want of surprise or admiration
afterward." In this way even Theodore Burton had resumed his terms of
intimacy with Harry Clavering.

Harry had told both Cecilia and Florence of his intended visit to Bolton
Street, and they had all become very confidential on the subject. In
most such cases, we may suppose that a man does not say much to one
woman of the love which another woman has acknowledged for himself. Nor
was Harry Clavering at all disposed to make any such boast. But in this
case, Lady Ongar herself had told everything to Mrs. Burton. She had
declared her passion, and had declared also her intention of making
Harry her husband if he would take her. Everything was known, and there
was no possibility of sparing Lady Ongar's name.

"If I had been her, I would not have asked for such a meeting," Cecilia
said. The three were at this time sitting together, for Mr. Burton
rarely joined them in their conversation.

"I don't know," said Florence. "I do not see why she and Harry should
not remain as friends."

"They might be friends without meeting now," said Cecilia.

"Hardly. If the awkwardness were not got over a