s almost royal; a young man whom
no girl on earth is justified in refusing. But would the whimsical
creature accept Darrell? Was she not merely making sport of him, and if,
caught by her arts, he, sage and elder, solemnly offered homage and
hand to that _belle dedaigneuse_ who had just doomed to despair a comely
young magnet with five times his fortune, would she not hasten to make
hirer the ridicule of London.

Darrell had perhaps his secret reasons for thinking otherwise, but
he did not confide them even to Alban Morley. This much only will the
narrator, more candid, say to the reader: If out of the three whom his
thoughts fluttered round, Guy Darrell wished to select the one who would
love him best--love him with the whole fresh unreasoning heart of a girl
whose childish forwardness sprang from childlike innocence, let him dare
the hazard of refusal and of ridicule; let him say to Flora Vyvyan, in
the pathos of his sweet deep voice: "Come and be the spoiled darling of
my gladdened age; let my life, ere it sink into night, be rejoiced by
the bloom and fresh breeze of the morning."

But to say it he must wish it; he himself must love--love with all
the lavish indulgence, all the knightly tenderness, all the grateful
sympathising joy in the youth of the beloved, when youth for the lover
is no more, which alone can realise what we sometimes see, though loth
to own it--congenial unions with unequal years. If Darrell feel not that
love, woe to him, woe and thrice shame if he allure to his hearth one
who might indeed be a Hebe to the spouse who gave up to her his whole
heart in return for hers; but to the spouse who had no heart to give,
or gave but the chips of it, the Hebe indignant would be worse than
Erinnys!

All things considered, then, they who wish well to Guy Darrell
must range with Alban Morley in favour of Miss Honoria Vipont. She,
proffering affectionate respect--Darrell responding by rational esteem.
So, perhaps, Darrell himself thought, for whenever Miss Vipont was
named he became more taciturn, more absorbed in reflection, and sighed
heavily, like a man who slowly makes up his mind to a decision, wise,
but not tempting.

CHAPTER VII.

CONTAINING MUCH OF THAT INFORMATION WHICH THE WISEST MEN IN THE
WORLD COULD NOT GIVE, BUT WHICH THE AUTHOR CAN.

"Darrell," said Colonel Morley, "you remember my nephew George as a
boy? He is now the rector of Humberston; married--a very nice sort of
woman--s