Now at length, in
reply to some remark of Marcella's, he said with significant accent:

'Janet was very friendly to me.'

'She has studied science for ten years,' was his sister's comment.

'Yes, and can forgive a boy's absurdities.'

'Easier to forgive, certainly, than those of a man,' said Marcella,
with a curl of the lip.

Christian became silent, and went thoughtfully away.

A week later, he was again in Mrs. Palmer's drawing-room, where again
he met an assemblage of people such as seemed to profane this
sanctuary. To be sure--he said to himself--Constance could not at once
get rid of the acquaintances forced upon her by her husband; little by
little she would free herself. It was a pity that her sister and her
niece--persons anything but intelligent and refined--should be
permanent members of her household; for their sake, no doubt, she felt
constrained to welcome men and women for whose society she herself had
little taste. But when the year of her widowhood was past----Petrarch's
Laura was the mother of eleven children; Constance had had only three,
and one of these was dead. The remaining two, Christian now learnt,
lived with a governess in a little house at Bournemouth, which Mrs.
Palmer had taken for that purpose.

'I'm going down to see them to-morrow,' she informed Christian, 'and I
shall stay there over the next day. It's so quiet and restful.'

These words kept repeating themselves to Christian's ear, as he went
home, and all through the evening. Were they not an invitation? Down
there at Bournemouth, Constance would be alone the day after to-morrow.
'It is so quiet and restful;' that was to say, no idle callers would
break upon her retirement; she would be able to welcome a friend, and
talk reposefully with him. Surely she must have meant that; for she
spoke with a peculiar intonation--a look----

By the second morning he had worked himself up to a persuasion that
yonder by the seaside Constance was expecting him. To miss the
opportunity would be to prove himself dull of apprehension, a laggard
in love. With trembling hands, he hurried through his toilet and made
haste downstairs to examine a railway time-table. He found it was
possible to reach Bournemouth by about two o'clock, a very convenient
hour; it would allow him to take refreshment, and walk to the house
shortly after three.

His conviction strong as ever, he came to the journey's end, and in due
course discovered the pleasant little