do what he liked with my hands. I closed my eyes. I felt
my head, in an ecstasy of spiritual self-forgetfulness, sinking on his
shoulder. In a moment more I should certainly have swooned away in his
arms, but for an interruption from the outer world, which brought me to
myself again. A horrid rattling of knives and forks sounded outside the
door, and the footman came in to lay the table for luncheon.

Mr. Godfrey started up, and looked at the clock on the mantelpiece.

"How time flies with YOU!" he exclaimed. "I shall barely catch the
train."

I ventured on asking why he was in such a hurry to get back to town.
His answer reminded me of family difficulties that were still to be
reconciled, and of family disagreements that were yet to come.

"I have heard from my father," he said. "Business obliges him to leave
Frizinghall for London to-day, and he proposes coming on here, either
this evening or to-morrow. I must tell him what has happened between
Rachel and me. His heart is set on our marriage--there will be great
difficulty, I fear, in reconciling him to the breaking-off of the
engagement. I must stop him, for all our sakes, from coming here till he
IS reconciled. Best and dearest of friends, we shall meet again!"

With those words he hurried out. In equal haste on my side, I ran
upstairs to compose myself in my own room before meeting Aunt Ablewhite
and Rachel at the luncheon-table.

I am well aware--to dwell for a moment yet on the subject of Mr.
Godfrey--that the all-profaning opinion of the world has charged him
with having his own private reasons for releasing Rachel from her
engagement, at the first opportunity she gave him. It has also reached
my ears, that his anxiety to recover his place in my estimation has been
attributed in certain quarters, to a mercenary eagerness to make his
peace (through me) with a venerable committee-woman at the Mothers'
Small-Clothes, abundantly blessed with the goods of this world, and
a beloved and intimate friend of my own. I only notice these odious
slanders for the sake of declaring that they never had a moment's
influence on my mind. In obedience to my instructions, I have exhibited
the fluctuations in my opinion of our Christian Hero, exactly as I find
them recorded in my diary. In justice to myself, let me here add that,
once reinstated in his place in my estimation, my gifted friend never
lost that place again. I write with the tears in my eyes, burning to say
more.