practised. It is almost a comfort to think
how much the good people resemble the wicked ones."

Miss Grainger, who usually smiled at his levities, looked grave at this
one, and no more was said, as they moved on towards the cottage.

CHAPTER VIII. GROWING DARKER

IT was late at night when Calvert left the villa, but, instead of rowing
directly back to the little inn, he left his boat to drift slowly in
the scarce perceptible current of the lake, and wrapping himself in his
cloak, lay down to muse or to sleep.

It was just as day broke that he awoke, and saw that he had drifted
within a few yards of his quarters, and in a moment after he was on
shore.

As he gained his room, he found a letter for him in Loyd's hand. It ran
thus:

"I waited up all night to see you before I started, for I
have been suddenly summoned home by family circumstances. I
was loth to part in an angry spirit, or even in coldness,
with one in whose companionship I have passed so many happy
hours, and for whom I feel, notwithstanding what has passed
between us, a sincere interest. I wanted to speak to you of
much which I cannot write--that is to say, I would have
endeavoured to gain a hearing for what I dare not venture to
set down in the deliberate calm of a letter. When I own that
it was of yourself, your temper, your habits, your nature,
in short, that I wished to have spoken, you will, perhaps,
say that it was as well time was not given me for such
temerity. But bear in mind, Calvert, that though I am free
to admit all your superiority over myself, and never would
presume to compare my faculties or my abilities with yours--
though I know well there is not a single gift or grace in
which you are not my master, there is one point in which I
have an advantage over you--I had a mother! You, you have
often told me, never remember to have seen yours. To that
mother's trainings I owe anything of good, however humble it
be, in my nature, and, though the soil in which the seed has
fallen be poor and barren, so much of fruit has it borne
that I at least respect the good which I do not practise,
and I reverence that virtue to which I am a rebel. The
lesson, above all others, that she instilled into we, was to
avoid the tone of a scoffer, to rescue myself from the cheap
distinction which is open to everyone who