domain. But the good
and the bad mix themselves so thoroughly in our thoughts, even in our
aspirations, that we must look for excellence rather in overcoming
evil than in freeing ourselves from its influence. There had been
many moments of regret with Nora;--but none of remorse. At the very
moment in which she had sent Mr. Glascock away from her, and had
felt that he had now been sent away for always, she had been full of
regret. Since that there had been many hours in which she had thought
of her own self-lesson, of that teaching by which she had striven to
convince herself that she could never fitly become a poor man's wife.
But the upshot of it all was a healthy pride in what she had done,
and a strong resolution that she would make shirts and hem towels for
her husband if he required it. It had been given her to choose, and
she had chosen. She had found herself unable to tell a man that she
loved him when she did not love him,--and equally unable to conceal
the love which she did feel. "If he wheeled a barrow of turnips about
the street, I'd marry him to-morrow," she said to her sister one
afternoon as they were sitting together in the room which ought to
have been their uncle's study.

"If he wheeled a big barrow, you'd have to wheel a little one," said
her sister.

"Then I'd do it. I shouldn't mind. There has been this advantage in
St. Diddulph's, that nothing can be triste, nothing dull, nothing
ugly after it."

"It may be so with you, Nora;--that is in imagination."

"What I mean is that living here has taught me much that I never
could have learned in Curzon Street. I used to think myself such a
fine young woman,--but, upon my word, I think myself a finer one
now."

"I don't quite know what you mean."

"I don't quite know myself; but I nearly know. I do know this, that
I've made up my own mind about what I mean to do."

"You'll change it, dear, when mamma is here, and things are
comfortable again. It's my belief that Mr. Glascock would come to you
again to-morrow if you would let him." Mrs. Trevelyan was, naturally,
in complete ignorance of the experience of transatlantic excellence
which Mr. Glascock had encountered in Italy.

"But I certainly should not let him. How would it be possible after
what I wrote to Hugh?"

"All that might pass away," said Mrs. Trevelyan,--slowly, after a
long pause.

"All what might pass away? Have I not given him a distinct promise?
Have I not told him that I loved h