re a mother's feelings, he had answered with
the same impassive fanaticism, that 'he was surprised at her putting
a mother's selfish feelings in competition with the sanctity of her
child,' and that 'had his own daughter shown such a desire for a
higher vocation, he should have esteemed it the very highest
honour;' to which Mrs. Lavington answered, naively enough, that 'it
depended very much on what his daughter was like.'--So he was all
but forbidden the house. Nevertheless he contrived, by means of
this same secret correspondence, to keep alive in Argemone's mind
the longing to turn nun, and fancied honestly that he was doing God
service, while he was pampering the poor girl's lust for singularity
and self-glorification.

But, lately, Argemone's letters had become less frequent and less
confiding; and the vicar, who well knew the reason, had resolved to
bring the matter to a crisis.

So he wrote earnestly and peremptorily to his pupil, urging her,
with all his subtle and refined eloquence, to make a final appeal to
her mother, and if that failed, to act 'as her conscience should
direct her;' and enclosed an answer from the superior of the
convent, to a letter which Argemone had in a mad moment asked him to
write. The superior's letter spoke of Argemone's joining her as a
settled matter, and of her room as ready for her, while it lauded to
the skies the peaceful activity and usefulness of the establishment.
This letter troubled Argemone exceedingly. She had never before
been compelled to face her own feelings, either about the nunnery or
about Lancelot. She had taken up the fancy of becoming a Sister of
Charity, not as Honoria might have done, from genuine love of the
poor, but from 'a sense of duty.' Almsgiving and visiting the sick
were one of the methods of earning heaven prescribed by her new
creed. She was ashamed of her own laziness by the side of Honoria's
simple benevolence; and, sad though it may be to have to say it, she
longed to outdo her by some signal act of self-sacrifice. She had
looked to this nunnery, too, as an escape, once and for all, from
her own luxury, just as people who have not strength to be temperate
take refuge in teetotalism; and the thought of menial services
towards the poor, however distasteful to her, came in quite prettily
to fill up the little ideal of a life of romantic asceticisms and
mystic contemplation, which gave the true charm in he