about him.’      

       ‘I remember what he said once,’ returned the brother, ‘when I sat up late with him. He said, “Owen, don’t love too blindly: blindly you will love if you love at all, but a little care is still possible to a well-disciplined heart. May that heart be yours as it was not mine,” father said.       “Cultivate the art of renunciation.” And I am going to, Cytherea.’      

       ‘And once mamma said that an excellent woman was papa’s ruin, because he did not know the way to give her up when he had lost her. I wonder where she is now, Owen? We were told not to try to find out anything about her. Papa never told us her name, did he?’      

       ‘That was by her own request, I believe. But never mind her; she was not our mother.’      

       The love affair which had been Ambrose Graye’s disheartening blow was precisely of that nature which lads take little account of, but girls ponder in their hearts.     

       5. FROM OCTOBER THE NINETEENTH TO JULY THE NINTH     

       Thus Ambrose Graye’s good intentions with regard to the reintegration of his property had scarcely taken tangible form when his sudden death put them for ever out of his power.     

       Heavy bills, showing the extent of his obligations, tumbled in immediately upon the heels of the funeral from quarters previously unheard and unthought of. Thus pressed, a bill was filed in Chancery to have the assets, such as they were, administered by the Court.     

       ‘What will become of us now?’ thought Owen continually.     

       There is in us an unquenchable expectation, which at the gloomiest time persists in inferring that because we are ourselves, there must be a special future in store for us, though our nature and antecedents to the remotest particular have been common to thousands. Thus to Cytherea and Owen Graye the question how their lives would end seemed the deepest of possible enigmas. To others who knew their position equally well with themselves the question was the easiest that could be asked—‘Like those of other people similarly circumstanced.’      

       Then Owen held a consultation with his sister to come to some decision on their 

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