of
law as it were. Nature had been too strong for her, as it often is for
people with deep feelings; she could not do it, no, not to save Honham
from the hammer. When she had promised that she would engage herself
to Edward Cossey she had not been in love with Colonel Quaritch; now
she was, and the difference between the two states is considerable.
Still the fall humiliated her pride, and what is more she felt that
her father was disappointed in her. Of course she could not expect him
at his age to enter into her private feelings, for when looked at
through the mist of years sentiment appears more or less foolish. She
knew very well that age often strips men of those finer sympathies and
sensibilities which clothe them in youth, much as the winter frost and
wind strip the delicate foliage from the trees. And to such the music
of the world is dead. Love has vanished with the summer dews, and in
its place are cutting blasts and snows and sere memories rustling like
fallen leaves about the feet. As we grow old we are too apt to grow
away from beauty and what is high and pure, our hearts harden by
contact with the hard world. We examine love and find, or believe we
find, that it is nought but a variety of passion; friendship, and
think it self-interest; religion, and name it superstition. The facts
of life alone remain clear and desirable. We know that money means
power, and we turn our face to Mammon, and if he smiles upon us we are
content to let our finer visions go where our youth has gone.

"Trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home."

So says the poet, but alas! the clouds soon melt into the grey air of
the world, and some of us, before our course is finished, forget that
they ever were. And yet which is the shadow of the truth--those
dreams, and hopes, and aspirations of our younger life, or the
corruption with which the world cakes our souls?

Ida knew that she could not expect her father to sympathise with her;
she knew that to his judgment, circumstances being the same, and both
suitors being equally sound in wind and limb, the choice of one of
them should, to a large extent, be a matter to be decided by the
exterior considerations of wealth and general convenience.

However, she had made her choice, made it suddenly, but none the less
had made it. It lay between her father's interest and the interest of
the family at large and her own honour as a woman