before. She thought, "I need not mind having shown so much anxiety about his opinion. He is too clear-sighted to mistake our mutual position ; he is quite above putting a false interpretation on what I have done. Besides, he had not thought of me at all—I saw that plainly enough. Yet he was very kind. There is something greater and better in him than I had imagined. His behaviour to-day -to his mother and me too-I should call it the highest gentlemanliness, only it seems in him to be something deeper. But he has chosen an intolerable life; though I suppose, if I had a mind equal to his, and if he loved me very dearly, I should choose the same life."

Esther felt that she had prefixed an impossible "if" to that result. But now she had known Felix, her conception of what a happy love must be had become like a dissolving view, in which the onceclear images were gradually melting into new forms and new colours. The favourite Byronic heroes were beginning to look something like last night's decorations seen in the sober dawn. So fast does a little leaven spread within us-so incalculable is the effect of one personality on another. Behind all Esther's thoughts, like an unacknowledged yet constraining presence, there was the sense, that if Felix

Holt were to love her, her life would be exalted into something quite new-into a sort of difficult blessedness, such as one may imagine in beings who are conscious of painfully growing into the possession of higher powers.

It was quite true that Felix had not thought the more of Esther because of that Sunday afternoon's interview which had shaken her mind to the very roots. He had avoided intruding on Mr Lyon without special reason, because he believed the minister to be preoccupied with some private care. He had thought a great deal of Esther with a mixture of strong disapproval and strong liking, which both together made a feeling the reverse of indifference; but he was not going to let her have any influence on his life. Even if his determination had not been fixed, he would have believed that she would utterly scorn him in any other light than that of an acquaintance, and the emotion she had shown to-day did not change that belief. But he was deeply touched by this manifestation of her better qualities, and felt that there was a new tie of friendship between them. That was the brief history Felix would have given of his relation to Esther. And he was accustomed to observe himself. But very close and diligent looking at living creatures, even

through the best microscope, will leave room for new and contradictory discoveries.

Felix found Mr Lyon particularly glad to talk to him. The minister had never yet disburthened himself about his letter to Mr Philip Debarry concerning the public conference; and as by this time he had all the heads of his discussion thoroughly in his mind, it was agreeable to recite them, as well as to express his regret that time had been lost by Mr Debarry's absence from the Manor, which had prevented the immediate fulfilment of his pledge.

"I don't see how he can fulfil it if the Rector refuses," said Felix, thinking it well to moderate the little man's confidence.

"The Rector is of a spirit that will not incur earthly impeachment, and he cannot refuse what is necessary to his nephew's honourable discharge of an obligation," said Mr Lyon. "My young friend, it is a case wherein the prearranged conditions tend by such a beautiful fitness to the issue I have sought, that I should have for ever held myself a traitor to my charge had I neglected the indication."

CHAPTER XXIII.

"I will not excuse you; you shall not be excused; excuses shall not be admitted; there's no excuse shall serve; you shall not be excused.”—Henry IV.

WHEN Philip Debarry had come home that morning and read the letters which had not been forwarded to him, he laughed so heartily at Mr Lyon's that he congratulated himself on being in his private room. Otherwise his laughter would have awakened the curiosity of Sir Maximus, and Philip did not wish to tell any one the contents of the letter until he had shown them to his uncle. He determined to ride over to the Rectory to lunch; for as Lady Mary was away, he and his uncle might be tête-à-tête.

The Rectory was on the other side of the river, close to the church of which it was the fitting companion a fine old brick-and-stone house, with a great bow-window opening from the library on to the deep-turfed lawn, one fat dog sleeping on the

door-stone, another fat dog waddling on the gravel, the autumn leaves duly swept away, the lingering chrysanthemums cherished, tall trees stooping or soaring in the most picturesque variety, and a Virginian creeper turning a little rustic hut into a scarlet pavilion. It was one of those rectories which are among the bulwarks of our venerable institutions which arrest disintegrating doubt, serve as a double embankment against Popery and Dissent, and rally feminine instinct and affection to reinforce the decisions of masculine thought.

"What makes you look so merry, Phil?" said the Rector, as his nephew entered the pleasant library.

"Something that concerns you," said Philip, taking out the letter. "A clerical challenge. Here's an opportunity for you to emulate the divines of the sixteenth century and have a theological duel. Read this letter."

"What answer have you sent the crazy little fellow?" said the Rector, keeping the letter in his hand and running over it again and again, with brow knit, but eyes gleaming without any malignity.

"O, I sent no answer. I awaited yours."

"Mine!" said the Rector, throwing down the