ts on the carpet. At this second
proof of incompetence the bishop started irritably, and looked at her
without a word. That look was sufficient. A professor unexpectedly
roared out upon by his class, a clergyman breaking down in a sermon,
could scarcely have experienced a keener sense of professional failure
and humiliation than the unfortunate girl knew at that moment. To the
bishop's astonishment, she suddenly raised her apron to her eyes and
burst into tears.

"That will do, Lena," Miss Wycliffe said quietly. "We 've had enough
excitement for one evening. You may go; and send Mary in your place."

"What's the matter with the girl?" the bishop asked, when the door had
closed behind her. There was an odd blending of annoyance and
compassion in his tone.

"Lena hasn't been well," his daughter replied, "for some days."

"Then let her rest awhile," he said; "and call the doctor, if it's
necessary." The incident seemed to distract him entirely from his
previous thoughts. "It is just such a scene as this," he continued,
"that reminds one of the hidden tragedies going on all the time in the
lives about us. Lena is usually a very quiet and skilful girl, and it
has been a pleasure to have her about. Perhaps she's going through
some love affair, as big a thing in her existence as the chief events
in ours are to us. Girls of that class so often acquire a certain
gentleness and breeding from association, and then marry some rough
coal-heaver or mechanic. It's a pity--a great pity."

"She's pretty enough to meet a King Cophetua," Cardington remarked
judicially.

The observation was directed at Miss Wycliffe, and was an effort to
make her forget the conversation in which his animus had led him to
transgress even his elastic limits with her. There was something
almost comical in the concerned expression of his light blue eyes, no
longer fierce, as he gazed at her. But she met this dumb appeal coldly.

"If you will excuse me, father," she said presently, "I 'll go up to
Lena's room, and see whether she 's really ill."

The two men, left alone, drank their coffee, and then went into the
bishop's study to smoke. As the door remained open, Cardington seated
himself in a chair that commanded a vista of the drawing-room, and
lingered on in the hope of Felicity's return, until the first lights of
Emmet's triumphal procession began to flash past the windows from the
street beyond.

"Here comes the Imperator up the