had herself to blame for the matter, but
turned upon her poor niece with 'Sly creature!' and so forth. And while
owing to this inattention, Gertrude had lost the benefit of her sage
Aunt Rebecca's counsels altogether, her venerable but frisky old
grandmother--Madam Nature--it was to be feared, might have profited by
the occasion to giggle and whistle her own advice in her ear, and been
indifferently well obeyed. I really don't pretend to say--maybe there
was nothing, or next to nothing in it; or if there was, Miss Gertrude
herself might not quite know. And if she did suspect she liked him, ever
so little, she had no one but Lilias Walsingham to tell; and I don't
know that young ladies are always quite candid upon these points. Some,
at least, I believe, don't make confidences until their secrets become
insupportable. However, Aunt Rebecca was now wide awake, and had
trumpeted a pretty shrill reveiller. And Gertrude had started up, her
elbow on the pillow, and her large eyes open; and the dream, I suppose,
was shivered and flown, and something rather ghastly at her side.

Coming out of church, Dr. Walsingham asked Mervyn to take a turn with
him in the park--and so they did--and the doctor talked with him
seriously and kindly on that broad plateau. The young man walked darkly
beside him, and they often stopped outright. When, on their return, they
came near the Chapelizod gate, and Parson's lodge, and the duck-pond,
the doctor was telling him that marriage is an affair of the heart--also
a spiritual union--and, moreover, a mercantile partnership--and he
insisted much upon this latter view--and told him what and how strict
was the practice of the ancient Jews, the people of God, upon this
particular point. Dr. Walsingham had made a love-match, was the most
imprudent and open-handed of men, and always preaching to others against
his own besetting sin. To hear him talk, indeed, you would have supposed
he was a usurer. Then Mr. Mervyn, who looked a little pale and excited,
turned the doctor about, and they made another little circuit, while he
entered somewhat into his affairs and prospects, and told him something
about an appointment in connexion with the Embassy at Paris, and said he
would ask him to read some letters about it; and the doctor seemed a
little shaken; and so they parted in a very friendly but grave way.

When Mervyn had turned his back upon Belmont, on the occasion of the
unpleasant little visit I mentioned