anything to
cause him to be struck off the rolls; but is it not with him what his
client wants, and not what honor demands? And in the daily intercourse
of life would he satisfy what you call my fastidiousness?"

"Nothing on earth will ever do that."

"You do. I agree with you that nothing else on earth ever will. The man
who might, won't come. Not that I can imagine such a man, because I know
that I am spoiled. Of course there are gentlemen, though not a great
many. But he mustn't be ugly and he mustn't be good-looking. He mustn't
seem to be old, and certainly he mustn't seem to be young. I should not
like a man to wear old clothes, but he mustn't wear new. He must be well
read, but never show it. He must work hard, but he must come home to
dinner at the proper time." Here she laughed, and gently shook her head.
"He must never talk about his business at night. Though, dear, darling
old father, he shall do that if he will talk like you. And then, which
is the hardest thing of all, I must have known him intimately for at any
rate, ten years. As for Mr. Barry, I never should know him intimately,
though I were married to him for ten years."

"And it has all been my doing?"

"Just so. You have made the bed and you must lie on it. It hasn't been a
bad bed."

"Not for me. Heaven knows it has not been bad for me."

"Nor for me, as things go; only that there will come an arousing before
we shall be ready to get up together. Your time will probably be the
first. I can better afford to lose you than you to lose me."

"God send that it shall be so!"

"It is nature," she said. "It is to be expected, and will on that
account be the less grievous because it has been expected. I shall have
to devote myself to those Carroll children. I sometimes think that the
work of the world should not be made pleasant to us. What profit will it
be to me to have done my duty by you? I think there will be some profit
if I am good to my cousins."

"At any rate, you won't have Mr. Barry?" said the father.

"Not if I know it," said the daughter; "and you, I think, are a wicked
old man to suggest it." Then she bade him good-night and went to bed,
for they had been talking now till near twelve.

But Mr. Barry, when he had gone home, told himself that he had
progressed in his love-suit quite as far as he had expected on the first
opportunity. He went over the bridge and looked at the genteel house,
and resolved as to certain little changes whi