ind which is engendered
when a tragedy has happened close at hand, and has not happened to the
philosophers themselves. But it had its bearing upon their relations.

'And will you stay on now at the Vicarage, just the same?' asked he.

She had hardly thought of that. 'Oh, yes--I suppose!' she said.
'Everything will be just as usual, I imagine?'

He walked beside her towards her mother's. Presently his arm stole round
her waist. She gently removed it; but he placed it there again, and she
yielded the point. 'You see, dear Sophy, you don't know that you'll stay
on; you may want a home; and I shall be ready to offer one some day,
though I may not be ready just yet.

'Why, Sam, how can you be so fast! I've never even said I liked 'ee; and
it is all your own doing, coming after me!'

'Still, it is nonsense to say I am not to have a try at you like the
rest.' He stooped to kiss her a farewell, for they had reached her
mother's door.

'No, Sam; you sha'n't!' she cried, putting her hand over his mouth. 'You
ought to be more serious on such a night as this.' And she bade him
adieu without allowing him to kiss her or to come indoors.

The vicar just left a widower was at this time a man about forty years of
age, of good family, and childless. He had led a secluded existence in
this college living, partly because there were no resident landowners;
and his loss now intensified his habit of withdrawal from outward
observation. He was still less seen than heretofore, kept himself still
less in time with the rhythm and racket of the movements called progress
in the world without. For many months after his wife's decease the
economy of his household remained as before; the cook, the housemaid, the
parlour-maid, and the man out-of-doors performed their duties or left
them undone, just as Nature prompted them--the vicar knew not which. It
was then represented to him that his servants seemed to have nothing to
do in his small family of one. He was struck with the truth of this
representation, and decided to cut down his establishment. But he was
forestalled by Sophy, the parlour-maid, who said one evening that she
wished to leave him.

'And why?' said the parson.

'Sam Hobson has asked me to marry him, sir.'

'Well--do you want to marry?'

'Not much. But it would be a home for me. And we have heard that one of
us will have to leave.'

A day or two after she said: 'I don't want to leave just yet, sir, if you