and his name aspersed. No, for the present, I prefer the
peace and the dignity of silence."

"What on earth will you find to do, then, if you have no ambition?"

"Nay, I don't want you to think that I'm so virtuous or so phlegmatic as
to have no ambition. I _have_ a passionate ambition, whether known or
unknown, so to live as to lead on the coming golden age, and prepare the
next generation to be truer and wiser than ours. If it be my destiny
never to be called to a wider sphere of work than Elstan, I shall be
content to do it there."

"And how will you occupy your time?" asked Mr Admer, who had long loved
Julian too well even to smile at what were to himself mere
unintelligible enthusiasms.

"Oh, no fear on that score. My profession will give me plenty of work;
besides, what is the use of education, if it be not to render it
_impossible_ for a man to know the meaning of the word ennui? Put me
alone in the waiting-room of some little wayside station to wait three
hours for a train, and I should still be perfectly happy, even if there
were no such thing as a book to be got for miles."

"Well, well, if you must vanish to Elstan, do. At any rate, remember
your old Camford friends, and let us hear of you sometimes? I suppose
you'll keep on your Fellowship at least for a year?"

"Insidious questioner!" said Julian; "no, I hope to be married very
soon. You shall come down and see love in a cottage."

"Aha, I see it all now," said Mr Admer, with a sigh.

"Nay, you mustn't sigh. I expect to be congratulated, not pitied," said
Julian, gaily. "A wife will sweeten all the cares and sorrows of life,
and instead of withering away my prime in selfish isolation, and
spending these still half-youthful years in loneliness, and without a
real home, I shall feel myself complete in the materials of happiness.
After all, ambition such as yours is a loveless bride."

So Julian accepted Elstan, and Lillyston went with him to London to help
him in selecting furniture for the vicarage which was so soon to receive
a bride.

"Are you really going to venture on matrimony with only 200 pounds a
year?" asked Lillyston.

"I have some more of my own, you know, Hugh; Mr Carden's legacy, you
remember; but even if I hadn't, I would still marry even on a hundred a
year if I wished and the lady consented."

"And repent at leisure."

"Not a bit of it. If I were a man to whom lavender-coloured kid gloves
and unlimited eau-de-cologn