g by the wall, and arranged her simple supper there,
uttering aloud as she did so fragments of her lesson, or dramatic
sentences which had caught her fancy in reading or in speech. Finally,
as she was dipping her cream toast, she caught herself saying, over and
over, "My soul!" in the tremulous tone her aunt had used at that moment
of warm emotion. She could not make it quite her own, and she tried
again and again, like a faithful parrot. Then of a sudden the human
power and pity of it flashed upon her, and she reddened,
conscience-smitten, though no one was by to hear. She set her dish upon
the table with indignant emphasis.

"I'm ashamed of myself!" said Isabel, and she sat down to her delicate
repast, and forced herself, while she ate with a cordial relish, to fix
her mind on what seemed to her things common as compared with her
beloved ambition. Isabel often felt that she was too much absorbed in
reading, and that, somehow or other, God would come to that conclusion
also, and take away her wicked facility.

The dark seemed to drift quickly down, that night, because her supper
had been delayed, and she washed her dishes by lamplight. When she had
quite finished, and taken off her apron, she stood a moment over the
chest, before sitting down to her task of memorizing verse. She was
wondering whether she might not burn a few of the smaller things
to-night; yet somehow, although she was quite free from aunt Luceba's
awe of them, she did feel that the act must be undertaken with a certain
degree of solemnity. It ought not to be accomplished over the remnants
of a fire built for cooking; it should, moreover, be to the
accompaniment of a serious mood in herself. She turned away, but at that
instant there came a jingle of bells. It stopped at the gate. Isabel
went into the dark entry, and pressed her face against the side-light.
It was the parson. She knew him at once; no one in Tiverton could ever
mistake that stooping figure, draped in a shawl. Isabel always hated him
the more when she thought of his shawl. It flashed upon her then, as it
often did when revulsion came over her, how much she had loved him until
he had conceived this altogether horrible attachment for her. It was
like a cherished friend who had begun to cut undignified capers. More
than that, there lurked a certain cruelty in it, because he seemed to
be trading on her inherited reverence for his office. If he should ask
her to marry him, he was the ministe