ormed,
she was sorry for the taste of the girls.

"Then you don't admire his looks, Norah?"

"It rather surprises me, because I should have thought he was just the
sort of person to attract and fascinate the other sex--a bachelor too,
without ties, able to take advantage of any success in that line that
came his way. I mean, of course, by offering marriage to the party who
fancied him."

Norah said again that she thought nothing of Mr. Furnival's alleged
handsomeness. She considered him a namby-pamby.

"You are young still. Perhaps I oughtn't to talk like this--putting
nonsense in your head. But it'll come there sure enough of its own
accord. Your turn will come. You'll fall in love one day, Norah."

Norah, putting the big account-books back on the shelf over the desk,
did not answer.

"You've never fallen in love yet, have you?"

Norah would not answer.

"Ah, well." Dale got up from his chair, and stretched himself. "But
you'll have to marry some day, you know."

"Oh, no, I shan't."

"Oh, yes, my dear, you will. That's a thing there's no harm for girls
to think of, because it's what they've got to prepare themselves for."
And Dale delivered a serious little homily on the duties and pleasures
of wedlock, and concluded by telling Norah that when she had chosen
an honest proper sort of young fellow, neither himself nor Mrs. Dale
would stand in the way of her future happiness. "Yes, my dear, you'll
leave us then; and we shall miss you greatly--both of us will miss you
very greatly, but we shan't either of us consider that. And you
mustn't consider it yourself. It's nature--quite proper and correct
that under those circumstances you should leave us."

"Never," said Norah. "Never--unless you send me away;" and stooping
her head on her arms, she began to cry.

"Oh, my dear, don't cry," said Dale bruskly. "What in the name of
reason is there to cry about?"

"Then say you won't send me away," sobbed Norah. "Promise me you won't
do that."

"Of course I won't," said Dale, in the same brusk tone. "That is,
unless I'm morally certain that--"

"No, no--never."

"Oh, don't be silly. Dry your eyes, and be sensible;" and Dale,
plunging his hands in his pockets, hurried out of the office.

He walked as far as the Baptist Chapel, and straight back again; and
before he got home he made a solemn resolution to rouse himself from
the idle lethargic state into which he felt himself slipping deeper
and deeper. Thinking