ie,
releasing the hand, and laying her own lightly on Miss Jenny's curls.
And then to Bradley: 'From Charley, sir?'

In an irresolute way, and stealing a clumsy look at her, Bradley rose to
place a chair for her, and then returned to his own.

'Strictly speaking,' said he, 'I come from Charley, because I left him
only a little while ago; but I am not commissioned by Charley. I come of
my own spontaneous act.'

With her elbows on her bench, and her chin upon her hands, Miss Jenny
Wren sat looking at him with a watchful sidelong look. Lizzie, in her
different way, sat looking at him too.

'The fact is,' began Bradley, with a mouth so dry that he had some
difficulty in articulating his words: the consciousness of which
rendered his manner still more ungainly and undecided; 'the truth is,
that Charley, having no secrets from me (to the best of my belief), has
confided the whole of this matter to me.'

He came to a stop, and Lizzie asked: 'what matter, sir?'

'I thought,' returned the schoolmaster, stealing another look at her,
and seeming to try in vain to sustain it; for the look dropped as it
lighted on her eyes, 'that it might be so superfluous as to be almost
impertinent, to enter upon a definition of it. My allusion was to this
matter of your having put aside your brother's plans for you, and
given the preference to those of Mr--I believe the name is Mr Eugene
Wrayburn.'

He made this point of not being certain of the name, with another uneasy
look at her, which dropped like the last.

Nothing being said on the other side, he had to begin again, and began
with new embarrassment.

'Your brother's plans were communicated to me when he first had them in
his thoughts. In point of fact he spoke to me about them when I was
last here--when we were walking back together, and when I--when the
impression was fresh upon me of having seen his sister.'

There might have been no meaning in it, but the little dressmaker here
removed one of her supporting hands from her chin, and musingly turned
the Honourable Mrs T. with her face to the company. That done, she fell
into her former attitude.

'I approved of his idea,' said Bradley, with his uneasy look wandering
to the doll, and unconsciously resting there longer than it had
rested on Lizzie, 'both because your brother ought naturally to be the
originator of any such scheme, and because I hoped to be able to promote
it. I should have had inexpressible pleasure, I should