resistible--our Guy, "whom to look on was to love." Some harsh folk
might say this might be a good lesson for the lad--nay, for most lads;
but I deny it.--I doubt if any young man, meeting at the outset of life
a rejection like this, which either ignorance or heedlessness on the
woman's part had made totally unexpected, ever is the better for it:
perhaps, for many years, cruelly the worse. For, most women being
quick-sighted about love, and most men--especially young men--blind
enough in its betrayal,--any woman who wilfully allows an offer only to
refuse it, lowers not only herself but her whole sex, for a long, long
time after, in the lover's eyes. At least, I think so;--as I was
thinking, in the way old bachelors are prone to moralize over such
things, when, coming out of Guy's room, I met Mrs. Halifax.

She crossed the passage, hastily but noiselessly, to a small ante-room
which Miss Silver had for her own private study--out of which
half-a-dozen stairs led to the chamber where she and her pupil slept.
The ante-room was open, the bed-chamber door closed.

"She is in there?"

"I believe she is."

Guy's mother stood irresolute. Her knit brow and nervous manner
betrayed some determination she had come to, which had cost her hard:
suddenly she turned to me.

"Keep the children out of the way, will you, Phineas? Don't let them
know--don't let anybody know--about Guy."

"Of course not."

"There is some mistake--there MUST be some mistake. Perhaps she is not
sure of our consent--his father's and mine; very right of her--very
right! I honour her for her indecision. But she must be assured to
the contrary--my boy's peace must not be sacrificed. You understand,
Phineas?"

Ay, perhaps better than she did herself, poor mother!

Yet, when in answer to the hasty knock, I caught a glimpse of Miss
Silver opening the door--Miss Silver, with hair all falling down
dishevelled, and features swollen with crying,--I went away completely
at fault, as the standers-by seemed doomed to be in all love affairs.
I began to hope that this would settle itself somehow--in all parties
understanding one another after the good old romantic fashion, and
"living very happy to the end of their lives."

I saw nothing more of any one until tea-time; when Mrs. Halifax and the
governess came in together. Something in their manner struck me--one
being subdued and gentle, the other tender and kind. Both, however,
were exceedingly grave