son deducted a stipend of one hundred and fifty pounds for
merely doing the duty--a curate would have only had the half of that
sum, as she sometimes said to herself--and seeing also that he had
his fellowship, she had no scruple in making him pay fairly for
whatever extra accommodation he received at home--exactly as she
would have done had poor dear old Mr. Wilkinson not been out of the
way. Considering all these comfortable circumstances, poor dear
old Mr. Wilkinson was perhaps not regretted quite so much as might
otherwise have been the case.

Mrs. Wilkinson was in the habit of saying many things from day to day
in praise of that good Lord Stapledean, who had so generously thought
of her and her widowhood. When she did so Arthur would look grim
and say nothing, and his mother would know that he was displeased.
"Surely he cannot begrudge us the income," she had once said to her
eldest daughter. "Oh, no; I am sure he does not," said Mary; "but,
somehow, he is not so happy about things as he used to be." "Then he
must be a very ungrateful boy," said the mother. Indeed, what more
could a young full-fledged vicar want than to have a comfortable
house under his mother's apron-string?

"And why don't you marry?" Bertram had asked his cousin. It was odd
that Arthur should not marry, seeing that Adela Gauntlet lived so
near him, and that Adela was so very, very beautiful.

Up to that day, Bertram had heard nothing of the circumstances under
which the living had been given. Then did Wilkinson tell him the
story, and ended by saying--"You now see that my marriage is quite
out of the question."

Then Bertram began to think that he understood why Adela also
remained unmarried, and he began to ask himself whether all the world
were as cold-hearted as his Caroline. Could it be that Adela also
had refused to venture till her future husband should have a good,
comfortable, disposable income of his own? But, if so, she would not
have sympathized so warmly with him; and if so, what reason could
there be why she and Arthur should not meet each other? Could it then
be that Arthur Wilkinson was such a coward?

He said nothing on the matter to either of them, for neither of them
had confided to him their sorrows--if they had sorrows. He had no
wish to penetrate their secrets. What he had said, and what he had
learnt, he had said and learnt by accident. He himself had not their
gift of reticence, so he talked of his love occasionally