"I can understand your feeling that form of trial."

"Oh, if you could, and would help me!"

"As a brother; if I may."

Again she laid a hand on his, saying, "I have longed to talk openly to you ever since we met in the cow-shed; but I could not make any advance to any of you, because," she whispered in haste, "I thought it my duty to hold back from Frank. And now, till we go away, Camilla watches me and occupies me every minute, will not even let me ride out with papa. I wonder she lets me talk to you now."

"We know each other," said Julius, shortly.

It was so. Once, in the plain-spoken days of childhood, Miles and Julius had detected Camilla Vivian in some flagrant cheating at a game, and had roundly expressed their opinion. In the subsequent period of Raymond's courtship, Miles had succumbed to the fascination, but Julius had given one such foil, that she had never again attempted to cajole him.

"I have seen that you did from the first," said Lenore. "And it would make it much easier to talk to you than to any outsider, who would never understand, even if it were possible for me to explain, how hard it is to see which way my duty lies--especially filial."

"Do you mean in general, or in this special matter?"

"Both. You see, in her hands he is so different from what he was before she came home, that I don't feel as if I was obeying him-- only her; and I don't think I am bound to do that. Not in the great matter, I am clear. Nobody can meddle with my real sincere pledge of myself to Frank, nobody!" she spoke as if there was iron in her lips. "But as far as overt acts go, they have a right to forbid me, till I am of age at least, and we must bear it."

"Yes, you are right there."

"But there are thousands of other little cases of right and wrong, and altogether I have come to such a spirit of opposition that I find it easier to resist than to do anything with a good grace."

"You cannot always tell when resistance is principle, and when temper or distaste."

"There's distaste enough always," said poor Lenore.

"To gaieties?" he said, amazed as one habituated to his wife's ravenous appetite for any sort of society or amusement.

"Of course," she answered sadly. "A great deal of trouble just for a little empty babble. Often not one word worth remembering, and a general sense of having been full of bad feelings."

"No enjoyment?" he asked in surprise.

"Only by the merest chance and exception," she answered, surprised at his surprise; "what is there to enjoy?"

The peculiar-looking clergyman might have seemed more likely to ask such a question than the beautiful girl, but he looked at her anxiously and said, "Don't nourish morbid dislike and contempt, my dear Lena, it is not a safeguard. There are such things as perilous reactions. Try to weigh justly, and be grateful for kindness, and to like what is likeable."

At that moment, after what had been an interval of weary famine to all but these two, host and hostess appeared, the lady as usual, picturesque, though in the old black silk, with a Roman sash tied transversely, and holly in her hair; and gaily shaking hands-- "That's right, Lady Rosamond; so you are trusted here! Your husband hasn't sent you to represent him?"

"I'm afraid his confidence in me did not go so far," said Rosamond.

"Ah! I see--Lady Tyrrell, how d'ye do--you've brought Lena? Well, Rector, are you prepared?"

"That depends on what you expect of me."

"Have you the convinceable spot in your mind?"

"We must find it. It is very uncommon, and indurates very soon, so we had better make the most of our opportunity," said the American lady, who had entered as resplendent as before, though in so different a style that Rosamond wondered how such a wardrobe could be carried about the world; and the sporting friend muttered, "Stunning! she has been making kickshaws all day, and looks as if she came out of a bandbox! If all women were like that, it might pay."

It was true. Mrs. Tallboys was one of those women of resource whose practical powers may well inspire the sense of superiority, and with the ease and confidence of her country.

The meal was a real success. That some portion had been procured, ready dressed, at Backsworth, was evident, but all that had been done at home had a certain piquant Transatlantic flavour, in which the American Muse could be detected; and both she and her husband were polished, lively, and very agreeable, in spite of the twang in their voices. Miss Moy, the Captain and his friend, talked horses at one end of the table, and Rosamond faltered her woman's horror for the rights of her sex, increased by this supposed instance.

When the ladies rose at dessert, Mrs. Duncombe summoned him: "Come, Rector!--come, Professor! you're not to sit over your wine."

"We rise so far above the ordinary level of manhood!" said Julius, obediently rising.

"Once for all, Mr. Charnock," said Mrs. Duncombe, turning on him with flashing eyes and her Elizabethan majesty, "if you come prepared to scoff, we can have nothing to do with you."

Rosamond's eyes looked mischievous, and her brow cocked, but Julius answered in earnest, "Really, I assure you I have not come in a spirit of sarcasm; I am honestly desirous of hearing your arguments."

"Shall I stay in your stead?" added Miss Moy. "They'll be much more amusing here!"

"Come, Gussie, you're on your good behaviour," said Mrs. Duncombe.

"Bob kept you to learn the right way of making a sensation."

As they entered the drawing-room two more guests arrived, namely, Joanna Bowater, and Herbert, who walked in with a kind of grim submission, till he saw Lady Tyrrell, when he lighted up, and, on a little gracious gesture with her hand, he sat down on the sofa beside her; and was there solaced by an occasional remark in an undertone; for indeed the boy was always in a trance wherever she was, and she had a fair amount of by-play wherewith to entertain herself and him during the discussion.

"You are just in time, Jenny," said Rosamond; "the great question is going to be started."

"And it is--?"

"The Equality of the Sexes," pronounced Mrs. Duncombe.

"Ex cathedra?" said Julius, as the graceful Muse seated herself in a large red arm-chair. "This scene is not an easy one in which to dispute it."

"You see, Bessie," said Mrs. Tallboys, "that men are so much afraid of the discussion that they try to elude it with empty compliment under which is couched a covert sneer."

"Perhaps," returned Julius, "we might complain that we can't open our lips without compliments and sneers being detected when we were innocent of both."

"Were you?" demanded Mrs. Tallboys.

"Honestly, I was looking round and thinking the specimens before us would tell in your favour."

"What a gallant parson!" cried Miss Moy.

But a perfect clamour broke out from others.

"Julius, that's too bad! when you know--"

"Mr Charnock, you are quite mistaken. Bob is much cleverer than I, in his own line--"

"Quite true, Rector," affirmed Herbert; "Joan has more brains than all the rest of us--for a woman, I mean."

"For a woman!" repeated Mrs. Tallboys. "Let a human being do or be what she will, it is disposed of in a moment by that one verdict, 'Very well for a woman!'"

"How is it with the decision of posterity?" said Jenny. "Can you show any work of woman of equal honour and permanence with that of men?"

"Because her training has been sedulously inferior."

"Not always," said Jenny; "not in Italy in the cinque cento, nor in England under Elizabeth."