lves
changing 'not yet' changed into the inexorable _now_.

It was thus with Bryda when she had pleaded for delay from Mr Bayfield.
The hour for decision looked far away, and she had tried to put off
thinking about it, and, trust with the hopefulness of youth, that all
would be well.

Her life at Mrs Lambert's was not uncongenial to her, and she rose daily
in the old lady's favour. Her hunger for books was in a measure
satisfied, and she found good pasturage in the standard works of those
times, with which Mr Lambert's library was well furnished.

Though the lace mending and lace cleaning for Mrs Lambert's caps and
whimples and neckerchiefs and aprons went on, and though the preparation
of dainty dishes to please the lawyer's appetite when he came home after
hours spent in his office gave more and more satisfaction, Bryda found,
and made time for her favourite pursuit. She was now allowed to take the
books from the shelves and study them at leisure, and an old edition of
Shakespeare's plays filled her with a strange thrill of delight. They
were to Bryda, as to many another novice, like an introduction into a
new world.

For all her aspirations and longings, and for all her secret misgivings
and fears for the future, for all her dreams of beauty and love of the
good and true, she found the right expression and the right word.

'How wonderful,' she thought, 'that he should know everything I feel.'

The master's hand was recognised, and the recognition quickened her
sympathy for poor Chatterton, who at this time--this Eastertide of
1770--was so greatly in need of it.

The storm that had long been in the air now broke over the head of Mr
Lambert's apprentice.

Bryda heard angry voices in Mr Lambert's study before he went to his
office one morning, and presently Madam Lambert came out bridling with
rage, and declaring she would not sleep another night under the same
roof with 'the young rascal.'

'No, no, I will not run the risk. What are you standing there for, Miss
Palmer?' she said as, trembling with suppressed indignation, she put out
her hand to Bryda to support her into her own parlour.

'Take care of my mother, Miss Palmer,' the lawyer said. 'Give her a
glass of wine. She is too old to work herself into a frenzy like this.'

Bryda, frightened at the old lady's pale face and trembling lips,
hastened to get something to revive her, and placing her in her chair in
the parlour, held a glass of port wine to he