rcumstance
that he did not pretend to regret. He relinquished his post and stood
aside with the air of a disciplined soldier. This was at the expiration
of seven months and two weeks of service. Only after he had gone, upon
her receiving his first letter from the Continent, did Jane distinguish
in herself the warmth of friendliness she felt for him, and know that
of all around her she, reproaching every one who had hinted a doubt, had
been the most suspicious of his pure simplicity. It was the vice of her
condition to be suspicious of the honesty of men. She thought of her
looks as less attractive than they were; of her wealth she had reason
to think that the scent transformed our sad sex into dogs under various
disguises. Remembering her chill once on hearing Patrick in a green lane
where they botanised among spring flowers call himself her Irish cousin,
as if he had advanced a step and betrayed the hoof, she called him
her Irish cousin now in good earnest. Her nation was retrospectively
enthusiastic. The cordiality of her letter of reply to the wandering
Patrick astonished him on the part of so cool a young lady; and Captain
Con, when he heard Miss Mattock speak of Patrick to his wife, came to
the conclusion that the leery lad had gone a far way toward doing the
trick for himself, though Jane said his correspondence was full of the
deeds of his brother in India. She quite sparkled in speaking of this
boy.

She and the captain had an interchange of sparklings over absent
Patrick, at a discovery made by Miss Colesworth, the lady replacing
him, in a nook of the amateur secretary's official desk, under heaps of
pamphlets and slips, French and English and Irish journals, not at all
bearing upon the business of the Laundry. It was a blotting-pad stuffed
with Patrick's jottings. Jane brought it to Con as to the proper keeper
of the reliquary. He persuaded her to join him in examining it, and
together they bent their heads, turning leaf by leaf, facing, laughing,
pursuing the search for more, sometimes freely shouting.

Her inspection of the contents had previously been shy; she had just
enough to tell her they were funny. Dozens of scraps, insides of torn
envelopes, invitation-cards, ends of bills received from home, whatever
was handy to him at the moment, had done service for the overflow of Mr.
Secretary's private notes and reflections; the blotting-paper as well;
though that was devoted chiefly to sketches of the human