her own heart good in its worst distress, and she
desired to apply the same medicine to her
beloved, who needed it: that was one thing: and
then another was, that she found her own anger
rising when her mother left the room at that
beloved knock: and to be angry with her poor
widowed mother was a sin. " She is as
unfortunate as I am happy," thought Julia; " I have
got mine back."

Alfred assented to this arrangement with rather
an ill grace. He misunderstood Julia, and
thought she was sacrificing him to what he
called her mother's injustice. This indeed was
the interpretation any man would have been
pretty sure to put on it. His soreness, however,
did not go very far; because she was so kind
and good to him when they were together. He
used to escort her back to the door of 66: and
look imploringly; but she never asked him in.
He thought her hard for this. He did not see
the tears that flowed for that mute look of his
the moment the door was closed; tears she
innocently restrained for fear the sight of them
should make him as unhappy as his imploring
look made her. Mauvais calcul! She should
have cried right out. When we men are
unhappy, we like our sweethearts to be unhappier;
that consoles us.

But when this had gone on nearly a month,
and no change, Alfred lost patience: so he
lingered one day at the door to make a request.
He asked Julia to marry him; and so put an end
to this state of things.

"Marry you, child?" cried Julia, blushing like
a rose with surprise and pleasure. "Oh, for
shame!"

After the first thrill, she appealed to his
candour whether that would not be miserably selfish
of her to leave her poor mother in her present
distressed condition. " Oh, Alfred, so pale, so
spiritless, and inconsolable! My poor, poor
mother!"

"You will have to decide between us two one
day."

"Heaven forbid!" said Julia, turning pale at
the very idea. But he repeated doggedly that it
must come to that, sooner or later. Then he
reminded her of their solemn engagement, and put
it to her whether it was a moral proceeding in her
to go back from her plighted troth? What had
he done to justify her in drawing back from her
word? "I admit," said he, " that I have suffered
plenty for your sake: but what have I done?"

Undeterred by the fear of immorality, the
monotonous girl had but one reply to his multiform
reasons: "This is no time for me to abandon
my mother."

"Ah, it is her you love: you don't care for
me," snapped Alfred.

"Don't I, dear Alfred?" murmured Julia.

"Forgive me! I'm a ruffian, a wretch."

"You are my Alfred. But oh, have a little
patience, dear!"

"A little patience? I have the patience of
Job. But even his went at last."

[I ought to have said they were in the passage
now. The encroaching youth had gained an
entrance by agitating her so at the door that she
had to ask him in to hide her own blushes from,
the public.] She now gently reminded him how
much happier they were than they had been for
months. "Dear me," said she, "I am almost
happy, happier than I ought to be; could be
quite so, but that I see you discontented."

"Ah, you have so many about you that you
love: I have only you."

"And that is true, my poor Alfred."

This softened him a little; and then she interwove
her fingers together, and so put both palms
softly on his shoulder (you never saw a male do
that, and never will), and implored him to be
patient, to be generous. "Oh," said she, "if
you knew the distress it gives me to refuse to
you anything on earth, you would be generous,
and not press me when my heart says ' Yes' but
my lips must say 'No.'"

This melted him altogether, and he said he
would not torment her any more.

But he went away discontented with himself
for having yielded: my lord did not call it
"yielding," but "being defeated." And as he
was not only very deep in love, but by nature
combative, he took a lodging nearly opposite
No. 66, and made hot love to her, as hot as if
the attachment was just forming. Her mother
could not go out, but he was at the door directly:
she could not go out but he was at her heels.
This pleased her at first, and thrilled her with
the sense of sweet and hot pursuit: but by-and-by,
situated as she was between him and her
mother, it worried her a little at times, and made
her nervous. She spoke a little sharply to him
now and then. And that was new. It came
from the nerves not the heart. At last she
advised him to go back to Oxford. " I shall be the
ruin of your mind if we go on like this," said she
sadly.

"What, leave the field to my rivals? No,
thank you."

"What rivals, sir?" asked Julia, drawing up.

"Your mother, your brother, your curates
that would come buzzing the moment I left;
your sick people, who bask on your smiles and
your sweet voice till I envy them; Sarah, whom
you permit to brush your lovely hair, the piano
you play on, the air you deign to breathe and
brighten, everybody and everything that is near
you; they are all my rivals; and shall I resign
you to them, and leave myself desolate? I'm
not such a fool."

She smiled, and could not help feeling it was
sweet to be pestered. So she said with matronly
dignity, and the old Julian consistency, "You
are a foolish, impetuous boy. You are the
plague of my life: and the sun of my existence."
That passed off charmingly. But presently his
evil genius prompted Alfred to endeavour to
soften Mrs. Dodd by letter, and induce her to
consent to his marriage with her daughter.

He received her answer at breakfast-time. It