Papa, don't doubt about it," she continued, thinking that his
hesitation arose from his unwillingness to abandon so comfortable
a home; "is it on my account that you would stay here? Do you
think that I cannot be happy without a pony-carriage and a fine
drawing-room? Papa, I never can be happy here, as long as there is a
question as to your honour in staying here; but I could be gay as the
day is long in the smallest tiny little cottage, if I could see you
come in and go out with a light heart. Oh! papa, your face tells so
much; though you won't speak to me with your voice, I know how it is
with you every time I look at you."

How he pressed her to his heart again with almost a spasmodic
pressure! How he kissed her as the tears fell like rain from his old
eyes! How he blessed her, and called her by a hundred soft sweet
names which now came new to his lips! How he chid himself for ever
having been unhappy with such a treasure in his house, such a jewel on
his bosom, with so sweet a flower in the choice garden of his heart!
And then the floodgates of his tongue were loosed, and, at length,
with unsparing detail of circumstances, he told her all that he
wished, and all that he could not do. He repeated those arguments
of the archdeacon, not agreeing in their truth, but explaining his
inability to escape from them;--how it had been declared to him that
he was bound to remain where he was by the interests of his order,
by gratitude to the bishop, by the wishes of his friends, by a sense
of duty, which, though he could not understand it, he was fain to
acknowledge. He told her how he had been accused of cowardice, and
though he was not a man to make much of such a charge before the
world, now in the full candour of his heart he explained to her that
such an accusation was grievous to him; that he did think it would be
unmanly to desert his post, merely to escape his present sufferings,
and that, therefore, he must bear as best he might the misery which
was prepared for him.

And did she find these details tedious? Oh, no; she encouraged him
to dilate on every feeling he expressed, till he laid bare the inmost
corners of his heart to her. They spoke together of the archdeacon,
as two children might of a stern, unpopular, but still respected
schoolmaster, and of the bishop as a parent kind as kind could be, but
powerless against an omnipotent pedagogue.

And then when they had discussed all this, when the father ha