it was always as a young person might with all modesty converse with her superior. He struggled hard to overcome her reticence, and did at last succeed. But still there was that respect, verging almost into veneration, which seemed to crush him when he thought that he might begin to play the lover.

He had got a pony carriage for her, which he insisted that she should drive herself. "But I never have driven," she had said, taking her place, and doubtfully assuming the reins, while he sat beside her. She had at this time been six months at Croker's Hall.

"There must be a beginning for everything, and you shall begin to drive now." Then he took great trouble with her, teaching her how to hold the reins, and how to use the whip, till at last something of familiarity was engendered. And he went out with her, day after day, showing her all those pretty haunts among the downs which are to be found in the neighbourhood of Alresford.

This did well for a time, and Mr Whittlestaff thought that he was progressing. But he had not as yet quite made up his mind that the attempt should be made at all. If he can be imagined to have talked to a friend as he talked to himself, that friend would have averred that he spoke more frequently against marriage,—or rather against the young lady's marriage,—than in favour of it. "After all it will never do," he would have said to this friend; "I am an old man, and an old man shouldn't ask a young girl to sacrifice herself. Mrs Baggett looks on it only as a question of butchers and bakers. There are, no doubt, circumstances in which butchers and bakers do come uppermost. But here the butchers and bakers are provided. I wouldn't have her marry me for that sake. Love, I fear, is out of the question. But for gratitude I would not have her do it." It was thus that he would commonly have been found speaking to his friend. There were moments in which he roused himself to better hopes,—when he had drank his glass of whisky and water, and was somewhat elate with the consequences. "I'll do it," he would then have said to his friend; "only I cannot exactly say when." And so it went on, till at last he became afraid to speak out and tell her what he wanted.

Mr Whittlestaff was a tall, thin man, not quite six feet, with a face which a judge of male beauty would hardly call handsome, but which all would say was impressive and interesting. We seldom think how much is told to us of the owner's character by the first or second glance of a man or woman's face. Is he a fool, or is he clever; is he reticent or outspoken; is he passionate or 

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