like teaching."

"I don't believe she likes Hastings," says Dorian; yet his heart dies
within him as he remembers how she defended him about his unlimited
affection for the cup that "cheers but not inebriates."

"I believe she does," says Clarissa.

"Can't you do something for _me_, Clarissa?" says Dorian, with a
rather strained laugh: "you are evidently bent on making the entire
country happy, yet you ignore my case. Even when I set my heart upon a
woman, you instantly marry her to the curate. I hate curates! They are
so mild, so inoffensive, so abominably respectable. It is almost
criminal of you to insist on handing over to one of them that gay
little friend of yours with the yellow hair. She will die of Hastings,
in a month. The very next time I have the good fortune to find her
alone, I shall feel it my duty to warn her off him."

"Does anybody ever take advice unless it falls in with their own
wishes?" says Clarissa. "You may warn her as you will."

"I sha'n't warn her at all," says Dorian.

When he has left Clarissa, and is on his homeward way, this thought
still haunts him. Can that pretty child be in love with the lanky
young man in the long-tailed coat? She can't! No; it is impossible!
Yet, how sure Clarissa seemed! and of course women understand each
other, and perhaps Georgie had been pouring confidences of a tender
nature into her ears. This last is a very unpleasant idea, and helps
to decapitate three unoffending primroses.

Certainly she had defended that fellow very warmly (the curate is now
"that fellow"), and had spoken of him a though she felt some keen
interest in him. After all, what is it to him? (This somewhat
savagely, and with the aid of a few more flowers.) If he was in love
with her, it would be another thing; but as it is,--yes, as it _is_.

How often people have advised him to marry and settle down! Well, hang
it all, he is surely as good to look at as the curate, and his
position is better; and only a few hours ago she had expressed a
desire to see something of life. What would Arthur think of----

His thoughts change. Georgie's _riante_ lovely face fades into some
deeper recess of his heart, and a gaunt old figure, and a face stern
and disappointed, rises before him. Ever since that day at Sartoris,
when the handkerchief had been discovered, a coldness, a nameless but
stubborn shadow, had fallen between him and his uncle,--a shadow
impossible to lift until some explanation be vo