world; it was the one subject on which he dared not
consider, for fear that both conscience and judgment should decide
against him, and that he should be convinced against his will that
she was an unfit mate for him, that she never would be his, and that
it was waste of time and life to keep her shrined in the dearest
sanctuary of his being, to the exclusion of all the serious and
religious aims which, in any other case, he would have been the
first to acknowledge as the object he ought to pursue. For he had
been brought up among the Quakers, and shared in their austere
distrust of a self-seeking spirit; yet what else but self-seeking
was his passionate prayer, 'Give me Sylvia, or else, I die?' No
other vision had ever crossed his masculine fancy for a moment; his
was a rare and constant love that deserved a better fate than it met
with. At this time his hopes were high, as I have said, not merely
as to the growth of Sylvia's feelings towards him, but as to the
probability of his soon being in a position to place her in such
comfort, as his wife, as she had never enjoyed before.

For the brothers Foster were thinking of retiring from business, and
relinquishing the shop to their two shopmen, Philip Hepburn and
William Coulson. To be sure, it was only by looking back for a few
months, and noticing chance expressions and small indications, that
this intention of theirs could be discovered. But every step they
took tended this way, and Philip knew their usual practice of
deliberation too well to feel in the least impatient for the quicker
progress of the end which he saw steadily approaching. The whole
atmosphere of life among the Friends at this date partook of this
character of self-repression, and both Coulson and Hepburn shared in
it. Coulson was just as much aware of the prospect opening before
him as Hepburn; but they never spoke together on the subject,
although their mutual knowledge might be occasionally implied in
their conversation on their future lives. Meanwhile the Fosters were
imparting more of the background of their business to their
successors. For the present, at least, the brothers meant to retain
an interest in the shop, even after they had given up the active
management; and they sometimes thought of setting up a separate
establishment as bankers. The separation of the business,--the
introduction of their shopmen to the distant manufacturers who
furnished their goods (in those days the system of 'tr