ect
rainbow, bright with promise, gloriously spanning the beclouded welkin
of life. An hour afterwards I look again: half the arch is gone, and the
rest is faded. Still later, the stern sky denies that it ever wore so
benign a symbol of hope."

"Well, Mr. Moore, you should contend against these changeful humours.
They are your besetting sin. One never knows where to have you."

"Miss Keeldar, I had once, for two years, a pupil who grew very dear to
me. Henry is dear, but she was dearer. Henry never gives me trouble;
she--well, she did. I think she vexed me twenty-three hours out of the
twenty-four----"

"She was never with you above three hours, or at the most six at a
time."

"She sometimes spilled the draught from my cup, and stole the food from
my plate; and when she had kept me unfed for a day (and that did not
suit me, for I am a man accustomed to take my meals with reasonable
relish, and to ascribe due importance to the rational enjoyment of
creature comforts)----"

"I know you do. I can tell what sort of dinners you like best--perfectly
well. I know precisely the dishes you prefer----"

"She robbed these dishes of flavour, and made a fool of me besides. I
like to sleep well. In my quiet days, when I was my own man, I never
quarrelled with the night for being long, nor cursed my bed for its
thorns. She changed all this."

"Mr. Moore----"

"And having taken from me peace of mind and ease of life, she took from
me herself--quite coolly, just as if, when she was gone, the world would
be all the same to me. I knew I should see her again at some time. At
the end of two years, it fell out that we encountered again under her
own roof, where she was mistress. How do you think she bore herself
towards me, Miss Keeldar?"

"Like one who had profited well by lessons learned from yourself."

"She received me haughtily. She meted out a wide space between us, and
kept me aloof by the reserved gesture, the rare and alienated glance,
the word calmly civil."

"She was an excellent pupil! Having seen you distant, she at once
learned to withdraw. Pray, sir, admire in her _hauteur_ a careful
improvement on your own coolness."

"Conscience, and honour, and the most despotic necessity dragged me
apart from her, and kept me sundered with ponderous fetters. She was
free: she might have been clement."

"Never free to compromise her self-respect, to seek where she had been
shunned."

"Then she was inconsistent; she tanta