stand still, and said: "You've been in very bad company, and have allowed yourself to be influenced by unworthy people." Then letting her hands fall to her side she went on sadly: "Oh, Alick, Alick, you are so good and true, how can you let such mean whispers affect your honest judgment?"--Alick was astonished at the zeal with which his wife took up the case, and would willingly have withdrawn what he had said, but he _had_ said it, and he would have despised himself if he had not stuck to his opinion, so he asked: "What is the matter, Frida? It is a fact that my foolish cousin has got his name mixed up with that of the girl. It's the common talk of the neighbourhood."--"If you will change your way of putting it. If you will say that your cousin has fallen in love with the girl, I will believe it. I hardly know him, but I shall like him all the better if it is so."--"What? Do you think that my cousin who is rich and independent ought to marry my bailiff's daughter?"--"The advantage of being rich and independent is that a man is free to choose as he likes, and your cousin has not chosen unworthily."--"Then you think that it would be a pleasant thing for me to be connected by marriage with my farm-bailiff! And let the plotters win the day! No, I'll never consent to bear that silently."--"Why," cried Frida, "don't you see that the lie and calumny are in that part of your story. How can you believe such a wretched piece of scandal? How can you believe--putting aside the lovely innocent face of the girl--such ill of that unsophisticated old man, that loving father whose only joy is in his daughter's happiness; how can you think such wickedness possible in that dignified old clergyman or his true-hearted wife; or even in the good man who has just left us deeply wounded by your harshness to him, and whose uprightness and honesty are easily seen in spite of his mistaken use of long words? Do you really think it possible that these good people would make a mere speculation of their darling's beauty?"--"But," said Alick, "they only want to make her happy."--"Oh," answered Frida gravely and sadly, "then you and I have very different notions of happiness. Nobody can be made happy by such means."--"I'm not talking of my _own_ idea of happiness," said Alick, struck by her reproachful tone. "I only mean what these kind of people think happiness."--"Don't deceive yourself, Alick. For God's sake, don't deceive yourself. A high worldly station may enable one to take a large view of human affairs, but believe me, in a less exalted position love influences the lives of men in a way that it unfortunately can seldom do those of higher rank. In short, we often have to do without it," she said slowly, and wiping a tear from her eyes as she thought of her motherless childhood passed in the society of a father whose life was spent in a hard struggle to keep up his position, and who found an unfailing comfort in every distress--in field-sports.