had no part, and they seemed to jar on her. She might sometimes seem half fretted by his impetuous southern love, but she could not bear a particle of his attention to be bestowed on aught save herself; and when Geraldine would have utilised his fine straight profile as an artistic study, the monopoly was so unpleasing that the portrait had to be dropped. The odd thing was that Alda should have a lover whose most congenial spirit was Clement. He was a great frequenter of St. Matthew's, and had no interest save in kindred subjects. Felix always found them alike difficult to converse with, from a want of any breadth of sympathy with subjects past or present, such as would have occupied him even without the exigencies of his profession. They seemed to talk, not church, but shop, as if they did not look beyond proximate ecclesiastical details, which they discussed in technical terms startling to the uninitiated; and yet Felix trusted that Clement's soul was a good deal deeper and wider than his tongue, and that Ferdinand's, if narrow, was thoroughly resolute, finding in his enthusiasm for these details a counterpoise for the temptations of his position.
His seemed to be a nature that would alternate between apathetic indolence and strong craving for excitement. He could go on for days with a patient, almost silent, round of mechanical occupations performed well, nigh in his sleep, and then, when once stirred up became possessed with a vehement restlessness, as if there were still a little about him of the panther of the wilderness.
At first he awaited his letter from his uncle much more philosophically than did Alda, but when it tarried still, he became so eager that he made two journeys to London to meet the mail, and pestered every one with calculations as to time and space.
The letter came, and was all that every one else had expected. Alfred Travis had always detested the family into which his nephew had been thrown by his accident, and the tidings that the heiress had been rejected for the sake of one of these designing girls could not be welcome. So he gave notice that nothing more could be expected from him if his nephew stooped thus low. This, however, did not much concern Ferdinand. He curled his black moustache, and quietly said his uncle would not find that game answer. The affairs of the brothers had always been mixed together, and Ferdinand had been content to leave the whole in his uncle's hands, only drawing for his own handsome allowance; but the foundation had been his mother's fortune, and he had only to claim his own share of the capital, and disentangle it from the rest, either to bring his uncle to terms at once, or to be able to dispense with his consent. The delay was vexatious, but it could be but brief; and in the meantime Bexley was felicity. Yes, in spite of the warning he received at the Rectory, which my Lady followed up by a remonstrance to Felix-over the counter, for in vain he tried to get her into the office. He could only tell her that he much regretted Edgar's conduct, but as to Alda, there was no disobedience, and the young man's character was high. He was just as impracticably courteous as his father and Lady Price shrugged her shoulders and hoped. 'For, Felix Underwood,' she said, 'I am convinced that after all you are a very well-meaning young man.'
This was her farewell, for Mr. Bevan had been more ailing than usual, and had obtained permission to leave his parish for a year, to be spent partly in the south of France, partly at the German baths.
Well was it for those who could get away! Never had the spring been sourer; Easter came so early as itself to seem untimely, and the Wednesday of its week was bleakness itself, as Lance and Robina stood on the top of the viaduct over the railway, looking over the parapet at the long perspective of rails and electric wires their faces screwed up, and reddened in unnatural places by the bitter blast. Felix had asked at breakfast if any one would be the bearer of a note to Marshlands; Lance had not very willingly volunteered, because no one else would; then Robina joined him, and they had proceeded through the town without a syllable from either of the usually lively tongues, till as they stood from force of habit watching for a train, the following colloquy took place, Robina being the first speaker.
'What is it?'
'What is what?'
'What is the matter?'
'What is the matter with what?'
'With it all?'
There came a laugh, but Robina returned to the charge. 'Well, but what is it? Is it east wind?'
'Something detestable-whatever it is,' grunted Lance.
'You've found it so too,' said Robina; for Lance had only come home after evening cathedral the day before.
'Haven't I, though!'
He said no more, being a boy of much reserve as to his private troubles; and Robina presently said,-
'I say, Lance, did Alda use to be nice, or is it love?'
'Never nice, like Wilmet or Cherry.'
'I am sure,' proceeded the girl, 'I thought love was the most beautiful and romantic thing-too nice to be talked about, for fear it should turn one's head, but here it seems to be really nothing but plague and bother and crossness.'
'Poor Bob!' said Lance, 'you got the worst of it up at Brompton.'
'I got it every way,' said Robina. 'There was Edgar treating me like a little contemptible baby, and Alice sometimes coaxing me and sometimes spiting me, and Angel poisoned against me; and when I thought I must be acting for the best in telling Felix, somehow that turned out altogether horrid.'
'I suppose a girl must be telling some one,' said Lance; 'and if it was to be done, Felix was the right one.'
'So I made sure,' said poor Robin; 'but Miss Fulmort and Miss Fennimore seemed to think it no better than if I had told you. They say I am forgiven, but I hate their forgiveness. I've done nothing wrong, and yet they don't like or trust me; and they seem to grudge me all my marks and prizes. 'For proficiency, not for conduct,' they say, in that hard cold voice. And then the girls nod and whisper. Angel and all, think me a nasty spiteful marplot. Alice set half of them against me before she went!'
'Poor Bob. And you can't have a good set to, and punch their heads all round! That's the way to have it out, and get comfortable and friendly.'
'For choir boys? O Lance!'
'Choir boys ain't girls, I thank my stars.'
'Well,' continued Robina, glad to pour out her troubles, even for such counsel as this, 'when I came home last week, I did think it would be made up.'
'Well,' said Lance, as Robin grew rather choky, and drew the back of a woolly glove across her eyes, not much to their benefit.
'Clem looks black, because he says his sisters were meant to raise the tone of the school.'
'Confound the tone of the school! I know what that is! But who cares for Tina?'
'Then Wilmet says I ought to have asked leave to write to her, and she could have managed it quietly, and kept everybody out of a scrape.'
'Whew-w-w-' whistled Lance; but at the melancholy tone, he absolutely took his red hand out of its comfortable nest in his pocket, to draw his sister's arm into his. It was well, for her voice was far more trembling now. 'I could bear it all if it were not for Felix himself. I know he is angry with me, but he won't talk, nor tell me how; he only said, 'We both meant to act for the best; but it is a painful affair, and we had better not discuss it,' and then he began to whistle to Theodore. If any one did know how I hate being told I meant to act for the best!'
'Something is come over Felix,' said Lance. 'I never knew him give such a jaw as he has to me. To be sure, he was set on to it.'
'Set on?'
'Yes, by Wilmet for one! You should have seen the way she was in-as if I hadn't a right to do what I please with my own money.'
'What?'
'My violin! Ferdinand Travis tipped me when he rode over to the Cathedral, and by good luck it was the day before the auction at old Spicer's. Bill and I went in to see the fun, and by all that is lucky, there was a violin routed out of an old cupboard. Nobody bid against me but Godwin, the broker, and it was knocked down to me for twenty- two and six. Bill lent me the half-crown; and Poulter, our lay vicar, who is at a music-shop, says 'tis a real bargain, he's mad to have missed it himself, but he showed me how to put my fingers on it, and I can play Mendelssohn's 'Hirtenlied.' You shall hear by and by, Robin. Well; Wilmet comes on it when she was unpacking my shirts. I'm sure I wish she'd let me unpack them myself, instead of poking her nose there; and if she wasn't in a way! Wasting my money, when I ought to be saving it up to buy a watch; and wasting my time and all the rest of it-till one would
