Father Stafford

afford Ke

nctly out of temper, and treated the company in general, and Eugene in particular, with frigidity. Everybody felt that the situation was somewhat strained, and in

id Morewood emphatically, taking up a conversation that had st

buy pictures,

ll old masters, and empty the

ornamental," re

, undoubtedly,

e. I object to titles. They only confuse ranks. A swee

onet yourself, you

igh; "but it happened a long while a

ey don't make

ewer or a lawyer, or anything of that kind. But still, the fear of it has paralyzed

d to weigh in the balance in fa

"Depend upon it, they ke

said Claudia, sudde

up his

pr

ll affe

e way you talk. That is one of the illusions of age, w

the world better than it is because their faculti

tinently, "what can you know about i

because you think better of other people

others by yourself. In youth you have an unduly good opinion of yourself, that unduly depres

age is right, Sir Rode

means,"

are accounting for it as if it existed. My point was

tion of the same kind!" said Kate

Turning to Kate, with a rapid side

ng. How do you me

peculiar, and so on, are the same kind of aff

d Kate was careful to look straight in front

reshness and enthusiasm-gush, in fact-as bad, or worse,

ny such definite meaning,

" continued Ayre cheerfull

ushing into conversations which my mother

was on the point of a new question when Haddington, who had taken no part in th

re, will forgive me, are we

nt to wander from?

except that of which they were thinking. Verily, love affairs do not always conduce to social

isted or confuted; appeals to his own consciousness would have failed for want of experience; he could not affect to disbelieve the verdict of his own countenance. He had in all his life been a man who dealt plainly with himself; it was only in this last matter that the power, more than the will, to understand his own heart had failed him. His intellect now reasserted itself. He did not attempt to blink facts; he did not deny the truth of the revelation or seek to extenuate its force. He did not tell himself that the matter was a trifle, or that its effect would be transien

only to buy the boon of ignorance. Then this mood passed. The long habit of his heart asserted itself, and he fell on his knees, no longer in horror, but in abasement and penitence. Now all his thought was for the sin he had done to Heaven and to his vow; but had he not learnt and taught, and re-learnt in t

ant anything except what his acts, words, and looks had so plainly-yes, to his own eyes now, so plainly declared? He looked back on her graciousness, her delight in his society, her unconcealed admiration for him. What meaning had these but one? What did she know of his vow? Why should she dream of anything save the happy ending of the story that flits before the h

on. Be it good or evil, she was his! Who forbade his joy? Though all the world, aye, and all Heaven, were against him, nothing should stop him. Should he sin for naught? Should he not have th

serve Heaven as well and man better, and, knowing the common joys of man, he would better minister to common pains. Who was he that he should claim to lead a life apart, or arrogate to himself an immunity and an independence other men had not? Man and woman created He them, and did it not make for good? And he sank back in his chair, with the picture of a life before

a glazing over of his crime. Sternly there stood between him and it his profession and his pledge. If he would forsake the one and violate the other, by Heaven, he would do it boldly, and not seek to slink out by such self-cozening. At least he would not deceive himself again. If he sinned, he would sin openly to his own heart. There should be no compact: nothing but defeat or victory! And yet, was he right? It would be pitiful if for pride's sake, if for fear of the sneers of men, he were to kill her joy and defile his own soul with her heart's blood

n window and leant out, bending his tired head upon his hand. As he looked out he saw

, which is the world? I speak in human metaphor, as one must speak. In truth, we are at once a fraction, a tiny fraction-oh! what a tiny fraction-of the picture, and the like little jot of what it exists for. And does what comes to us matter very much-whether we walk a little more or a little less cleanly-aim a little higher or lower, if there is a higher and lower? What matter? Ah,

gently

t it as unattract

ere are none; and if there were, what would they care for me? I am a part of it, I suppose-a part of the Red King's dream, as Ali

I believe it,

ard to believe and imp

strange comfort in it. Why strive and cry, when none watched the effort or heard the agony? Why torture himself? Why torture others? If the world were good, why was he not to have his part? If it were bad, might he not find a quiet nook under the wall, out of the storm? Why must he try to breast it? If Ayre was right, w

ith God, as once he could, shutting out all save the sense of sin and the conviction of forgiveness? He prayed for power to pray. But, like the guilty king, he could not say Amen. He could not bind his wandering thoughts, nor dispel the forward imaginings of his distempered mind. He asked one thing, and in his heart desired another; he prayed, and did not desire