od.

"Yes," said the rector with his martial air--"good enough, I admit,
but confoundedly slow."

To Edgar, Adelaide expressed herself with delightful enthusiasm.
She was not often stirred to such a display of feeling. "It is _the_
marriage of the county," she said with her prettiest smile--"the very
thing for every one."

"Think so?" was his reply, made by no means enthusiastically. "If
Joseph likes it, that is all that need be said; but it is a marvel
to me how she can--such an unmanly creature as he is! such a muff all
through!"

"Well, I own he would not have been my choice exactly," said Adelaide
with a nice little look. "I like something stronger and more decided
in a man; but it is just as well that we all do not like the same
person; and then, you see, there are Leam and the child to be
considered. Lean is such an utterly unfit person to bring up Fina:
she is ruining her, indeed, as it is, with her capricious temper and
variable moods; and dear Josephine's quiet amiability and good sense
will be so valuable among them. I think we ought to be glad, as
Christians, that such a chance is offered them."

"Whatever else you may be, at least you are no hypocrite," said Edgar
with a forced smile that did not look much like approbation.

She chose to accept it simply. "No," she answered quite tranquilly, "I
am not a hypocrite."

"At all events, you do not disguise your dislike to Leam Dundas," he
said.

"No: why should I? I confess it honestly, I do not like her. The
daughter of such a woman as her mother was; up to fifteen years of age
a perfect savage; a heathen with a temper that makes me shudder when I
think of it; capable of any crime. No, don't look shocked, Edgar: I am
sure of it. That girl could commit murder; and I verily believe that
she did push Fina into the water, as the child says, and that if
Josephine had not got there in time she would have let her drown. And
if I think all this, how can I like her?"

"No, if you think all this, as you say, you cannot like her," replied
Edgar coldly. "I don't happen to agree with you, however, and I think
your assumptions monstrous."

"You are not the first man blinded by a pair of dark eyes, Edgar,"
said Adelaide with becoming mournfulness. "It makes me sorry to see
such a mind as yours dazzled out of its better sense, but you will
perhaps come right in time. At all events, Josephine's marriage with
Mr. Dundas will give you a kind of fatherly relation with