him would not make a woman the less helpful mate. That was
the mate he required: and he could be led. A sentimental attachment
would have been serviceless to him. Not so the woman allied by a purely
rational bond: and he wanted guiding. Happily, she had told him too
much of her feeble health and her lovelessness to be reduced to submit
to another attack.

She busied herself in her room, arranging for her departure, so that no
minutes might be lost after her father had breakfasted and dressed.

Clara was her earliest visitor, and each asked the other whether she
had slept, and took the answer from the face presented to her. The
rings of Laetitia's eyes were very dark. Clara was her mirror, and she
said: "A singular object to be persecuted through a night for her hand!
I know these two damp dead leaves I wear on my cheeks to remind me of
midnight vigils. But you have slept well, Clara."

"I have slept well, and yet I could say I have not slept at all,
Laetitia. I was with you, dear, part in dream and part in thought:
hoping to find you sensible before I go."

"Sensible. That is the word for me."

Laetitia briefly sketched the history of the night; and Clara said,
with a manifest sincerity that testified of her gratitude to Sir
Willoughby: "Could you resist him, so earnest as he is?" Laetitia saw
the human nature, without sourness: and replied, "I hope, Clara, you
will not begin with a large stock of sentiment, for there is nothing
like it for making you hard, matter-of-fact, worldly, calculating."

The next visitor was Vernon, exceedingly anxious for news of Mr. Dale.
Laetitia went into her father's room to obtain it for him. Returning,
she found them both with sad visages, and she ventured, in alarm for
them, to ask the cause.

"It's this," Vernon said: "Willoughby will everlastingly tease that boy
to be loved by him. Perhaps, poor fellow, he had an excuse last night.
Anyhow, he went into Crossjay's room this morning, woke him up and
talked to him, and set the lad crying, and what with one thing and
another Crossjay got a berry in his throat, as he calls it, and poured
out everything he knew and all he had done. I needn't tell you the
consequence. He has ruined himself here for good, so I must take him."

Vernon glanced at Clara. "You must indeed," said she. "He is my boy as
well as yours. No chance of pardon?"

"It's not likely."

"Laetitia!"

"What can I do?"

"Oh! what can you not do?"

"I do not know