ur
ambition still? You are still thinking of your book?"

"Ah, my book!" Dan's dark eyes lightened, his rugged face shone. It
was easy to see how deeply that book of the future had entered into his
life's plans. He discussed it eagerly as they strolled across the
fields, pointing out the respects in which it differed from other
treatises of the kind; and Darsie listened, and sympathised, appreciated
to the extent of her abilities, and hated herself because, the more
absorbed and eager Dan grew, the more lonely and dejected became her own
mood. Then they talked of Hannah and her future. With so good a record
she would have little difficulty in obtaining her ambition in a post as
mathematical mistress at a girls' school. It would be hard on Mrs
Vernon to lose the society of both her daughters, but she was wise
enough to realise that Hannah's _metier_ was not for a domestic life,
and unselfish enough to wish her girls to choose the most congenial
_roles_.

"And my mother will still have three at home, three big, incompetent
girls!" sighed Darsie in reply, and her heart swelled with a sudden
spasm of rebellion. "Oh, Dan, after all my dreams! I'm so bitterly
disappointed. Poor little second-class me!"

"_Don't_, Darsie!" cried Dan sharply. He stood still, facing her in the
narrow path, but now the glow had gone from his face; it was twisted
with lines of pain and anxiety. "Darsie! it's the day of my life, but
it's all going to fall to pieces if you are sad! You've done your best,
and you've done well, and if you are a bit disappointed that you've
failed for a first yourself, can't you--can't you take any comfort out
of _mine_? It's more than half your own. I'd never have got there by
myself!"

"Dan, dear, you're talking nonsense! What nonsense you talk! What have
_I_ done? What _could_ I do for a giant like you?"

Dan brushed aside the word with a wave of the hand.

"Do you remember when we were talking last year, beside the fire, in the
old study one afternoon, when all the others were out, talking about
poor Percival, and your answer to a question I asked? `_He needs me,
Dan_!' you said. I argued very loftily about the necessity of a man
standing alone and facing his difficulties by himself, and you said that
was true, but only a part of the truth. I've found that out for myself
since then. If that was true of Percival, it is fifty times truer of
me! _I_ need you, Darsie! I shall always need