All that he said toward the end she scarcely | this matter so deeply to heart," he said, with a knew, for there was a dizziness in her brain that confused her, and her chiefest fear was that she should drop fainting at his feet; but the last words of all struck upon her ear with a cruel distinctness, and were never forgotten.

"I am the merest fool and school-boy to take

Even

scornful laugh, "when the reason of my rejec-
tion is so self-evident. What I saw at Halc
Castle might have taught me wisdom.
with my improved prospects I am little better
than a pauper compared to Daniel Granger.
And I have heard you say that you would give

"PERHAPS WE MAY MEET AGAIN SOME DAY."

all the world to win back Arden Court. I will stand aside, and make way for a wealthier suitor. Perhaps we may meet again some day, and I may not be so unfortunate as my father.

He was gone. Clarissa stood like a statue, with her hands clasped before her face. She heard the gate shut by a violent hand. He was gone in supreme anger, with scorn and insult upon his lips, believing her the basest of the base, the meanest of the mean, she told herself. The full significance of his last words she was unable to understand, but it seemed to her that they veiled a threat.

She was going back to the house slowly, tearless, but with something like despair in her heart, when she heard the orchard gate open again. He had come back, perhaps-returned to forgive and pity her. No, that was not his footstep; it was Mr. Granger, looking unspeakably ponderous and commonplace in the moonlight as he came across the shadowy grass toward her.

"I thought I saw a white dress among the trees," he said, holding out his hand to her for the usual greeting. "How deadly cold your hand is, Miss Lovel! Is it quite prudent of you to be out so late on such a chilly evening, and in that thin dress? I think I must ask your papa to lecture you."

"Pray don't, Mr. Granger, I am not in the habit of catching cold, and I am used to being in the gardens at all times and seasons. You are late."

"Yes; I have been at Holborough all day, and dined an hour later than usual. Your papa is quite well, I hope?"

He is always

"He is just the same as ever. more or less of an invalid, you know."

They came in sight of the broad bay-window of the parlor at this moment, and the fire-light within revealed Mr. Lovel in a very comfortable aspect, fast asleep, with his pale aristocraticlooking face relieved by the crimson cushions of his capacious easy-chair, and the brown setter's head on his knee. There were some books on the table close to his chair, but it was evident that his studies since dinner had not been profound.

The rosy-faced parlor-maid brought in the lamp and the tea-things, and Clarissa sat quietly down to perform her nightly duties. She took her seat in the full light of the lamp, with no evidence of emotion on her face, and poured out the tea, and listened and replied to Mr. Granger's commonplace remarks just the same as usual, though the sound of another voice was in her ear-the bitter, passionate sound of words that had been almost curses.

CHAPTER XXIV.

"IT MEANS ARDEN COURT." THE time went by, and Daniel Granger pursued his wooing, his tacit undemonstrative courtship, with the quiet persistence of a man who meant to win. He came to Mill Cottage almost every evening throughout the late autumn and early winter months, and Clarissa was fain to endure his presence and to be civil to him. She had no ground for complaint, no opportunity for rebellion. His visits were not made ostensibly on her account, though friends, neighbors, and servants knew very well why he came, and had settled the whole business in their gossiping little coteries. Nor did he take upon himself the airs of a lover. He was biding his time, content to rejoice in the daily presence of the woman he loved, content to wait till custom should have created a tie between them, and till he could claim her for his wife by right of much patience and fidelity. He had an idea that no woman, pure and true as he believed this woman to be, could shut her heart against an honest man's love, if he were only patient and faithful, singleminded and unselfish, in his wooing.

George Fairfax kept his word. From the hour of that bitter parting he made no sign of his existence to Clarissa Lovel. The Armstrongs were still in Germany when December came, and people who had any claim upon Lady Laura's hospitality lamented loudly that there were to be no gayeties at the Castle this year. It was the second Christmas that the family had been absent. Mr. Fairfax was with them at Baden most likely, Clarissa thought; and she tried to hope that it was so.

Clarissa and her companion went in at a halfglass door that opened into a small lobby next the parlor. She knew that to open the window at such an hour in the month of October was an Christmas came, and Miss Lovel had to assist unpardonable crime in her father's eyes. They at Miss Granger's triumphs. That young lady went into the room very softly, but Mr. Lovel, was in full force at this time of year, dealing who was a light sleeper, started up at their en-out blankets of the shaggiest and most uncomtrance, and declared with some show of surprise that he must have been indulging in a nap. "I was reading a German critic on the Orestea," he said. "Those Germans are clever, but too much given to paradoxes. Ring the bell for tea, Clary. I didn't think we should see you tonight, Granger, you said you were going to a dinner at Sir Archer Taverham's."

"I was engaged to dine with Sir Archer; but I wrote him a note this morning excusing myself upon the plea of gout. I really had a few twinges last night, and I hate dinner-parties."

"I am glad you have so much wisdom. I don't think any man under a Talleyrand or an Alvanley can make a masculine dinner worth going to, and as for your mixed herds of men and women, every man past thirty knows that kind of thing to be an abomination."

promising textures-such coverings as might have suited the requirements of a sturdy Highlander or a stalwart bush-ranger sleeping in the open air, but seemed scarcely the pleasantest gifts for poor, feeble old women or asthmatic old men-and tickets representative of small donations in kind, such as a quart of split pease or a packet of prepared groats, with here and there the relief of a couple of ounces of tea. Against plums and currants and candied peel Miss Granger set her face, as verging on frivolity. The poor, who are always given to extravagance, would be sure to buy these for themselves: witness the mountain of currants embellished with little barrows of citron and orange-peel, and the moorland of plums adorned with arabesques of Jamaica ginger in the little holly-hung chandler's shop at Arden. Split pease and groats were

real benefits, which would last when the indigestible delights of plum-pudding were over. Happily for the model villagers, Mr. Granger ordered a bullock and half a dozen tons of coals to be distributed among them, in a large, liberal way that was peculiar to him, without consulting his daughter as to the propriety of the proceeding. She was very busy with the beneficent work of providing her special protégées with the ugliest imaginable winter gowns and frocks. Clarissa, who was eager to contribute something to this good work, had wounded her fingers desperately in the manufacture of these implacable fabrics, which set her teeth on edge every time she touched them. Mr. Lovel would not even allow them to be in the room where he sat. "If you must work at those unspeakably odi-ing, and conjured up the vision of some brutal ous garments, Clarissa," he said, "for pity's sake do it out of my presence. Great Heavens! what cultivator of the Ugly could have invented those loathsome olive greens, or that revolting mud-color? evidently a study from the Thames at low water just above Battersea Bridge. And to think that the poor-to whom nature seems to have given a copyright in warts and wens and boils-should be made still more unattractive by such clothing as that! If you are ever rich, Clarissa, and take to benevolence, think of your landscape before you dress your poor. Give your old women and children scarlet cloaks and soft gray woolen petticoats, and gratify your men with an orange neckerchief now and then, to make a patch of color against your russet winter background."

There were dinner-parties at Arden Court that winter, to which Mr. Lovel consented to take his daughter, obnoxious as he had declared all such festivities to be to him. He went always as a concession to his host's desires, and took care to let Daniel Granger know that his going was an act of self-sacrifice; but he did go, and he gave his daughter a ten-pound note, as a freewill offering, for the purchase of a couple of new dresses.

end of January Marmaduke Lovel's health broke down all of a sudden. He was really ill, and very fretful in his illness. Those creditors of his became desperately pressing in their demands; almost every morning's post brought him a lawyer's letter; and, however prostrate he might feel, he was obliged to sit up for an hour or so in the day, resting his feverish head upon his hand, while he wrote diplomatic letters for the temporary pacification of impatient attorneys. Poor Clarissa had a hard time of it in these days. Her father was a difficult patient, and that ever-present terror of insolvency, and all the pains and perils attendant thereupon, tormented her by day and kept her awake at night. Every ring at the cottage gate set her heart beatsheriff's officer, such as she had read of in modern romance. She nursed her father with extreme tenderness. He was not confined to his room for any length of time, but was weak and ill throughout the bleak wintry months, with a racking cough and a touch of low fever, lying prostrate for the greater part of the day on a sofa by the fire, and only brightening a little in the evening when Mr. Granger paid his accustomed visit. Clarissa tended him all through these melancholy days, when the rain beat against the windows, and the dull gray sky looked as if it would never more be illuminated by a gleam of sunshine-tended him with supreme patience, and made heroic efforts to cheer and sustain his spirits, though her own heart was very heavy. And so it came to pass that in these most trying days Daniel Granger repeated the avowal of his love, not urging his suit with any hazardous impatience, but offering to wait as long as Clarissa pleased for his sentence. And then, in the midst of the girl's distress at the renewal of this embarrassing declaration, her father spoke to her, and told her plainly that she was in all honor bound to become Mr. Granger's wife. She had suffered him to devote himself to her with a devotion rare in a man of his age and character. She had allowed the outer world to take the business for granted. It would be a cruel wrong done to this man if she were to draw back now and leave him in the lurch.

Clarissa wondered not a little at the distinction with which her father and herself were treated by every one who met them at Mr. Granger's house. She did not know that a good deal of this attention was given to the future mistress of Arden Court, and that, in the eyes of county people and Holborough gentry alike, she stood in that position. She did not know that her destiny was a settled business in every one's mind except her own; that her aunt Oliver and the rector, quite as much as her father, looked upon her marriage with Daniel Granger as inevitable. Mr. Lovel had been careful not to alarm his daughter by any hint of his convictions. was very well satisfied with the progress of af-like any other acquaintance." fairs. Daniel Granger was too securely caught for there to be any room for fear of change on his part, and Daniel Granger's mode of carrying on the siege seemed to Mr. Lovel an excellent one. Whatever Clarissa's feelings might have been in the beginning, she must needs succumb before such admirable patience, such almost sublime devotion.

"Draw back, papa!" she cried, with unmitigated surprise and alarm; "but what have I ever done to give you or Mr. Granger or any one else the slightest justification for supposing I ever thought of him except as the most commonplace acquaintance?"

"That pretense of unconsciousness is the merest affectation, Clarissa. You must have known why Mr. Granger came here." He "I thought he came to see you, papa, just

Christmas passed, and the new year and all festivities belonging to the season, and a dreary stretch of winter remained, bleak and ungenial, enlivened only by Christmas bills, the chill prelude of another year of struggle. Toward the

"Nonsense, child; one man does not dance attendance upon another like that-crying off from important dinner-parties in order to drink tea with his neighbor, and that kind of thing. The case has been clear enough from the beginning, and you must have known how it wasespecially as Granger made some declaration to you the first time you went to the Court. told me what he had done in a most honorable manner. It is preposterous to pretend, after that, you could mistake his intentions. I have never worried you about the business; it seemed to me wisest and best to let matters take

He

their natural course, and I am the last of men |
to play the domestic tyrant in order to force a
rich husband upon my daughter; but I never for
a moment doubted that you understood Mr.
Granger's feelings, and were prepared to reward
his patience."

round his daughter's neck, and kissed her as he
had never kissed her before; and then burst
into tears, with his face hidden upon her
shoulder.
"I

"It was time, Clarissa," he said at last. could not have kept the brokers out another "It can never be, papa," Clarissa said, de- week. Granger has been offering to lend me cisively; "I would not commit such a sin as to money ever since he began to suspect my embarmarry a man I could not love. I am grateful rassments, but I could not put myself under an to Mr. Granger, of course, and very sorry that obligation to him while I was uncertain of your he should think so much more of me than I deserve, but-"

intentions: it will be easy to accept his help now ; and he has made most liberal proposals with regard to your marriage-settlements. Bear witness, Clary, that I never mentioned that till now. I have urged no sordid consideration upon you to bring about this match; although, God knows, it is the thing I desire most in this world."

"No, no, papa, I know that," sobbed ClarisAnd then the image of George Fairfax rose before her, and the memory of those bitter words, "It means Arden Court."

"For God's sake don't preach," cried her father, fretfully. "You won't have him; that's enough. The only road there was to extrication from my difficulties is shut up. The sheriff's officers can come to-morrow. I'll write no more humbugging letters to those attorneys, trying to stave off the crisis. The sooner the crash comes the better; I can drag out the rest of my exist-sa. ence somehow in Bruges or Louvain. It is only a question of a year or two, I dare say." The dreary sigh with which Mr. Lovel concluded this speech went to Clarissa's heart. It can scarcely be said that she loved him very dearly, but she pitied him very much. To his mind, no doubt, it seemed a hard thing that she should set her face against a change of fortune that would have insured ease and comfort for his declining years. She knew him weighed down by embarrassments which were very real-which had been known to her before Daniel Granger's appearance as a wooer. There was no pretense about the ruin that menaced them; and it was not strange that her father, who had been loath to move beyond the very outskirts of his lost domain, should shrink with a shuddering dread from exile in a dismal Belgian town.

What would he think of her when he should come to hear that she was to be Daniel Granger's wife? It would seem a full confirmation of his basest suspicions. He would never know of her unavailing struggles to escape this doom-never guess her motives for making this sacrifice. would think of her, in all the days to come, only as a woman who sold herself for the sake of a goodly heritage.

He

Once having given her promise, there was no such thing as drawing back for Clarissa, even had she been so minded. Mr. Lovel told the anxious lover that his fate was favorably decided, warning him at the same time that it would be well to refrain from any hazardous haste, and to maintain as far as possible that laudable patience and reserve which had distinguished his conduct up to this point.

"Clarissa is very young," said her father; "and I do not pretend to tell you that she is able to reciprocate, as fully as I might wish, the ardor of your attachment. One could hardly expect that all at once.

"No, one could hardly expect that," Mr. Granger echoed, with a faint sigh.

After that one bitter speech and that one dreary sigh Mr. Lovel made no overt attempt to influence his daughter's decision. He had a more scientific style of game to play, and he knew how to play it. Peevish remonstrances might have availed nothing; threats or angry speeches might have only provoked a spirit of defiance. Mr. Lovel neither complained nor threatened; he simply collapsed. An air of settled misery fell upon him; an utter hopeless- "As a man of the world, you would not, I ness, that was almost resignation, took posses-am sure, my dear Granger, overlook the fact of sion of him. There was an unwonted gentleness in his manner to his daughter; he endured the miseries of weakness and prostration with unaccustomed patience; meekness pervaded all his words and actions, but it was the meekness of despair. And so and so-this was how the familiar domestic drama came to be acted once more-the old, old story to be repeated. It was Robin Gray over again. If the cow was not stolen, the sheriff's officers were at the door, and, for lack of a broken arm, Marmaduke Lovel did not want piteous silent arguments. He was weak and ill and despairing, and, where threats or jesuitical pleadings would have availed little, his silence did much; until at last, after several long, weary weeks of indecision, during which Mr. Granger had come and gone every evening without making any allusion to his suit, there came one night when Clarissa fell on her knees by her father's sofa and told him that she could not endure the sight of his misery any longer, and that she was willing to be Daniel Granger's wife. Marmaduke Lovel put his feeble arms

the very wide difference in your ages, or expect more than is reasonable. Clarissa admires and esteems you, I am sure, and is deeply grateful for a devotion of which she declares herself undeserving. She is not a vain, frivolous girl, who thinks a man's best affection only a tribute due to her attractions. And there is a kind of love which grows up in a girl's heart for a sensible man who loves her, and which I believe with all my soul to be better worth having than the romantic nonsense young people take for the grand passion. I make no profession, you see, my dear Granger, on my daughter's part; but I have no fear but that Clarissa will learn to love you, in good time, as truly as you can desire to be loved."

"Unless I thought that she had some affection for me, I would never ask her to be my wife," said Mr. Granger.

"Wouldn't you?" thought Mr. Lovel. "My poor Granger, you are farther gone than you suppose!"

66

You can give me your solemn assurance

upon one point, eh, Lovel?" said the master of Arden Court, anxiously: "there is no one else in the case? Your daughter's heart is quite free? It is only a question as to whether I can win it ?"

"Her heart is entirely free, and as pure as a child's. She is full of affection, poor girl, only yearning to find an outlet for it. She ought to make you a good wife, Daniel Granger. There is nothing against her doing so."

"God grant she may!" replied Mr. Granger, solemnly; "God knows how dearly I love her, and what a new thing this love is to me!"

He took heed of his future father-in-law's counsel, and said nothing more about his hopes to Clarissa just yet a while. It was only by an undefinable change in his manner-a deeper, graver tenderness in his tone-that she guessed her father must have told him her decision.

From this day forth all clouds vanished from the domestic sky at Mill Cottage. Mr. Lovel's debts were paid; no more threatening letters made his breakfast-table a terror to him; there were only agreeable-looking stamped documents in receipt of payment, with little apologetic notes, and entreaties for future favors.

Mr. Granger's proposals respecting a settlement were liberal, but, taking into consideration the amount of his wealth, not lavish. He of fered to settle a thousand a year upon his wifefive hundred for her own use as pin-money, five hundred as an annuity for her father. He might as easily have given her three thousand, or six thousand, and it was for no lack of generous inclination that he held his hand; but he did not want to do any thing that might seem like buying his wife. Nor did Marmaduke Lovel give the faintest hint of a desire for larger concessions from his future son-in-law: he conducted the business with the lofty air of a man above the consideration of figures. Five hundred a year was not much to get from a man in Granger's position; but, added to his annuity of three hundred, it would make eight-a very decent income for a man who had only himself to provide for; and then, of course, there would be no possibility of his ever wanting money, with such a son-inlaw to fall back upon.

swallow some hard substance-a knotty little bit of the pine-apple she had just been eating, perhaps before she replied to this speech of her father's. "I am sure, papa, I am quite at a loss to comprehend your meaning," she said at last. "I have no near neighbor whom I can call my friend, unless you mean Mrs. Patterly, the doctor's wife, who has taken such a warm interest in my clothing-club, and has such a beautiful mind altogether. But you would hardly call her a young lady."

"Patterly's wife! no, I should think not!" exclaimed Mr. Granger, impatiently. "I was speaking of Clarissa Lovel."

and

Miss Granger drew herself up suddenly, pinched her lips together as if they were never to unclose again. She did open them, nevertheless, after a pause, to say, in an icy tone, "Miss Lovel my acquaintance, but not my friend."

"Why should she not be your friend? She is a very charming girl."

"Oh yes, I have no doubt of that, papa, from your point of view; that is to say, she is very pretty, and thinks a great deal of dress, and is quite ready to flirt with any one who likes to flirt with her-I am sure you must have seen that at Hale Castle-and fills her scrap-book with portraits of engaged men: witness all those drawings of Mr. Fairfax. I have no doubt she is just the kind of person gentlemen call charming; but she is no friend of mine, and she never will be." "I am sorry to hear that," said her father, sternly; for she is very likely to be your stepmother."

It was a death-blow, but one that Sophia. Granger had anticipated for a long time. "You are going to marry Miss Lovel, papaa girl two years younger than I?"

66

Yes, I am going to marry Miss Lovel, and I am very proud of her youth and beauty; but I do not admit her want of more solid charms than those, Sophia. I have watched her conduct as a daughter, and I have a most perfect faith in the goodness and purity of her heart."

"Oh, very well, papa. Of course you know what is best for your own happiness. It is not for me to presume to offer an opinion; I trust I have too clear a sense of duty for that." And here Miss Granger gave a sigh expressive of resignation under circumstances of profound af

Mr. Granger did not lose any time in making his daughter acquainted with the change that was about to befall her. He was quite prepared to find her adverse to his wishes, and quite pre-fliction. pared to defend his choice; and yet, little subject as he was to any kind of mental weakness, he did feel rather nervous as he cleared his throat from some imaginary huskiness before addressing Miss Granger.

It was after dinner, and the father and daughter were sitting alone in the small Gothic diningroom, sheltered from possible draughts by medieval screens of stamped leather and brazen scrollwork, and in a glowing atmosphere of mingled fire and lamp light, making a pretty cabinet-picture of home life, which might have pleased a Belgian painter.

"I think, Sophia," said Mr. Granger, after that preliminary throat-scraping-"I think, my dear, there is no occasion for me to tell you that there is a certain friend and neighbor of yours who is something more to me than the ordinary young ladies of your acquaintance."

"I believe you have, Sophy," answered her father, kindly. "I believe that, however unwelcome this change may be to you at first-and I suppose it is only natural that it should be unwelcome-you will reconcile your mind to it fully when you discover that it is for my happiness. I am not ashamed to confess to you that I love Clarissa very fondly, and that I look forward to a happy future when she is my wife."

"I hope, papa, that your life has been not unhappy hitherto--that I have not in any manner failed in my duties as a daughter.'

"Oh dear, no, child; of course not. That has nothing to do with the question.'

"Will it the marriage-be very soon, papa?" asked Miss Granger, with another gulp, as if there were still some obstructive substance in her throat.

"I hope so, Sophy. There is no reason, that Miss Granger seemed as if she were trying to I can see, why it should not be very soon.'