eir
intercourse became, the more determined the younger man seemed to be to
maintain it. Catherine imagined that he often scourged himself in secret
for the fact that the gratitude which had once flowed so readily had now
become a matter of reflection and resolution.

'Why should we always expect to get pleasure from our friends?' he had
said to her once with vehemence. 'It should be pleasure enough to love
them.' And she knew very well of whom he was thinking.

How late he was this afternoon. He must have been a long round. She had
news for him of great interest. The lodge-keeper from the Hall had just
looked in to tell the rector that the squire and his widowed sister were
expected home in four days.

But, interesting as the news was, Catherine's looks as she pondered it
were certainly not looks of pleased expectation. Neither of them,
indeed, had much cause to rejoice in the squire's advent. Since their
arrival in the parish the splendid Jacobean Hall had been untenanted.
The squire, who was abroad with his sister at the time of their coming,
had sent a civil note to the new rector on his settlement in the parish,
naming some common Oxford acquaintances, and desiring him to make what
use of the famous Murewell Library he pleased. 'I hear of you as a
friend to letters,' he wrote; 'do my books a service by using them.' The
words were graceful enough. Robert had answered them warmly. He had also
availed himself largely of the permission they had conveyed. We shall
see presently that the squire, though absent, had already made a deep
impression on the young man's imagination.

But unfortunately he came across the squire in two capacities. Mr.
Wendover was not only the owner of Murewell, he was also the owner of
the whole land of the parish, where, however, by a curious accident of
inheritance, dating some generations back, and implying some very remote
connection between the Wendover and Elsmere families, he was not the
patron of the living. Now the more Elsmere studied him under this
aspect, the deeper became his dismay. The estate was entirely in the
hands of an agent who had managed it for some fifteen years, and of
whose character the rector, before he had been two months in the parish,
had formed the very poorest opinion. Robert, entering upon his duties
with the ardour of the modern reformer, armed not only with charity but
with science, found himself confronted by the opposition of a man who
combined the shrew