and Francis George always made him
discourse about his father and mother, his
sisters and brothers, when he came back,
until Willie was tired of the subject.

"Come down, and see them yourself. I'm
sure you will be welcome," Willie suggested,
one day; and without any more formal
invitation, Francis George went.

VI.

WILLINGHAM PARSONAGE was a pretty spot,
quite rural, though almost within sight of
London smoke, and the young Probys
flourished there quite as well as they had ever
done in the wilds of Yorkshire—almost
better. Katie happened to be in the garden
cutting flowers for the drawing-room vases,
when her brother and Francis George arrived.
She coloured up as beautifully as the roses
in her hand when her former lover bowed
low before her, and immediately proposed to
go and seek her mother; as no one gainsaid
her, away she flew. Mrs. Proby was sitting
in her work-room when her daughter ran in,
laughing but confused, with mischievous
eyes and flushed cheeks.

"Mamma, guess whom Willie has brought
home. I was never so startled in my life,"
she cried, out of breath; "and I never saw
anybody so changed in a couple of years
before!"

Mamma lowered her spectacles and looked
out of the window, where she saw her son
and his companion walking.

"Is it Francis George Percival Monke,
Katie?" she asked, puzzled.

"Yes, mamma, and so altered. Don't you
remember how foolish he was, and how we
used to laugh at him?"

"Hush, my dear, the window is open, and
he may hear you. I must go down and
receive him: but Willie should have let us
know. The best room must be got ready
for him, I suppose;" and Mrs. Proby laid
aside spectacles and thimble, and went
downstairs to welcome her son's friend.

When Katie followed her, about ten
minutes after, it was in as sedate and
composed a manner as she was capable of
assuming on short notice; but she could not
prevent a bright and rosy maidenly consciousness
flickering in eye and cheek as she faced
Francis George. He blushed, too, and
stammered a little when he began to speak,
exactly in his old way; which put her at her
ease more than anything else could have
done. He was very anxious to appear to
his best advantage before her, and to impress
her with a worthier opinion of his sense than
she used to have. He began to epitomise a
very solid lecture that he had heard a few
evenings before. He ought to have understood
the smile that curled about her pretty
mouth better than he did. Sharp-witted
Katie understood him well enough, and kind-
hearted Katie did not fail to encourage him
to shine to the utmost; but she thought his
subject rather of the gravest to introduce
five minutes after they met.

"You are becoming quite a scientific
character, Francis George," was Papa Proby's
observation at dinner, when the young
gentleman had made what he thought a very
impressive display of his new learning. "It
is really creditable to you to have acquired
so much solid information."

Francis George felt so pleased, and glanced
at Katie to see if he had elicited her
approbation also. Katie smiled to conceal her
temptation to laugh, and he was delighted.
Most fluent did he become on every subject
of interest in which he was sufficiently well
up to speak correctly. Pictures, books of
travels and biography, of poetry and romance,
took their turn, until, if there was a doubt
about what he knew, it was a doubt whether
he did not know too much. Katie would
have been glad to hear him discourse on
everyday matters, but Francis George, with
an old reputation to destroy and a new one
to create, was not to be beguiled into trivialities.
When he left Willingham early on Monday
morning with Willie Proby, he left it in the
pleasing consciousness that he had inspired
everybody with respect for his learning.

"A well-informed young man," Mrs. Proby
gravely admitted him to be.

"Not so dull as he was, either," said Katie.

"Out of evil good has come," observed the
clergyman. "His banishment from Hardington
turns out to be very beneficial."

"But it. is a great shame, papa!" cried
Mistress Katie, firing up and looking very
pretty; "a great shame that his mother
should have quarrelled with him because he
would not marry Flora Monke: it would
have been strange if he had liked her, I
think, such a sarcastic girl as she was, and a
flirt besides!"

Papa Proby lifted his eyebrows, a little
amazed, at his daughter's decision of speech;
and Katie, conscious that she had spoken
rather harshly, blushed and became silent.

Francis George became a constant visitor
at Willingham after this, and strove
laboriously to win golden opinions from all
the family. If his heavy talk bored them a
little sometimes, they tried to forgive it; and
by-and-by, Katie could have offered evidence
that he was capable of more interesting
discourse when he had her ear alone. In
the garden, for instance, up and down the
pear-tree-walk, does anybody think that while
Francis George was speaking with so much
whispered earnestness to Katie's curls, that
he was holding forth on interesting geological
speculations? Would anybody credit that
while Katie contemplated her shoe toe so
steadily, when they paused under the old yews,
that she was meditating on the revolutions of
heavenly bodies? Or does anybody imagine
for a moment that when they sat so long in
the little summer-house, they were trying to