tting more and more shrill and happy.

Lady Shuttleworth put out her hand impulsively. Fritzing took it, bent
over it, and kissed it with much respect.

"A most unusually promising young man," he repeated; "and, madam, I
can tell you it is not my habit to say a thing I do not mean."

"'_The last reflection of God's daily grace_'"--chirped Tussie,
looking on much amused.

"No, that I'm quite certain you don't," said Lady Shuttleworth with
conviction.

"Don't say too many nice things about me," advised Tussie. "My mother
will swallow positively anything."

But nevertheless he was delighted; for here were his mother and the
uncle--the valuable and highly to be cherished uncle--looking as
pleased as possible with each other, and apparently in the fairest way
to becoming fast friends.

IX

The cheerful goddess who had brought Fritzing and his Princess safely
over from Kunitz was certainly standing by them well. She it was who
had driven Priscilla up on to the heath and into the acquaintance of
Augustus Shuttleworth, without whom a cottage in Symford would have
been for ever unattainable. She it was who had sent the Morrisons,
father and son, to drive Priscilla from the churchyard before Fritzing
had joined her, without which driving she would never have met
Augustus. She it was who had used the trifling circumstance of a
mislaid sermon-book to take the vicar and Robin into the church at an
unaccustomed time, without which sermon-book they would never have met
Priscilla in the churchyard and driven her out of it. Thus are all our
doings ruled by Chance; and it is a pleasant pastime for an idle hour
to trace back big events to their original and sometimes absurd
beginnings. For myself I know that the larger lines of my life were
laid down once for all by--but what has this to do with Priscilla?
Thus, I say, are all our doings ruled by Chance, who loves to use
small means for the working of great wonders. And as for the gay
goddess's ugly sister, the lady of the shifty eye and lowering brow
called variously Misfortune and Ill Luck, she uses the same tools
exactly in her hammering out of lives, meanly taking little follies
and little weaknesses, so little and so amiable at first as hardly to
be distinguished from little virtues, and with them building up a
mighty mass that shall at last come down and crush our souls. Of the
crushing of souls, however, my story does not yet treat, and I will
not linger round su