aid. "He does not disapprove, does he?"

"Never mind; and do leave me now. I never can make you understand
that one is not always in a humour for joking." And so saying, he put
her aside, and passed on.

Joking! That was indeed hard upon poor Emmeline, seeing that her
thoughts were so full of him, that her heart beat so warmly for his
promised bride. But she said nothing, shrinking back abashed, and
vanishing out of the way. Could it be possible that her father should
have refused to receive Lady Clara Desmond as his daughter-in-law?

He then betook himself to a private territory of his own, where he
might be sure that he would remain undisturbed for some half-hour or
so. He would go to his mother, of course, but not quite immediately.
He would think over the matter, endeavouring to ascertain what it was
that had made his father's manner and words so painful to him.

But he could not get his thoughts to work rightly;--which getting of
the thoughts to work rightly is, by-the-by, as I take it, the hardest
work which a man is called upon to do. Not that the subject to be
thought about need in itself be difficult. Were one to say that
thoughts about hydrostatics and pneumatics are difficult to the
multitude, or that mental efforts in regions of political economy
or ethical philosophy are beyond ordinary reach, one would only
pronounce an evident truism, an absurd platitude. But let any man
take any subject fully within his own mind's scope, and strive to
think about it steadily, with some attempt at calculation as to
results. The chances are his mind will fly off, will-he-nill-he,
to some utterly different matter. When he wishes to debate within
himself that question of his wife's temper, he will find himself
considering whether he may not judiciously give away half a dozen
pairs of those old boots; or when it behoves him to decide whether it
shall be manure and a green crop, or a fallow season and then grass
seeds, he cannot keep himself from inward inquiry as to the meaning
of that peculiar smile on Mrs. Walker's face when he shook hands with
her last night.

Lord Brougham and Professor Faraday can, no doubt, command their
thoughts. If many men could do so, there would be many Lord Broughams
and many Professor Faradays.

At the present moment Herbert Fitzgerald had no right to consider
himself as following in the steps of either one or other of these
great men. He wished to think about his father's circumstances, b