“No,” said Mr. Hardcastle. “They have begun to have her up at Ridley more than I care to see her. And there is that young Keppel, you know. Not that he means any thing, I suppose. Indeed, I thought he was devoted to Sara a short time ago. Ah, my dear Brownlow, it is a difficult matter for us, left as we both are with young girls who have never known maternal care--” It was not a moment when Mr. Brownlow could enter upon such a subject. But he instinctively changed his expression, and looked solemn and serious, as the occasion demanded. Poor Bessie!--he had probably been a truer lover to her than the Rector had been to the two Mrs. Hardcastles, though she had not been in his mind just then; but he felt bound to put on the necessary melancholy look. “Yes,” he said; “no doubt it is difficult. My clerk is very late. He ought to have been here at twelve. I have a good many pressing matters of business just now--” “I see, I see; you have no time for private considerations,” said the Rector. “Don’t overdo it, don’t overdo it,--that is all I have got to say. Remember what a condition I was in only two years since--took no pleasure in any thing. Man delighted me not, nor woman either--not even my little Fanny. If ever there was a miserable state on earth, it is that. I see a fine tall young fellow straying about there among the shrubberies. Is that your clerk?” Mr. Brownlow got up hastily and came to the window, and there beyond all question was Powys, who had lost his way, and had got involved in the maze of paths which divided the evergreens. It was a curious way for him to approach the house, and he was not the man to seek a back entrance, however humble his circumstances had been. But anyhow it was he, and he had got confused, and stood under one of the great laurels, looking at the way to the stables, and the way to the kitchen, feeling that neither way was his way, and not knowing where to turn. Mr. Brownlow opened the window and called to him. Many a day after he thought of it, with that vague wonder which such symbolical circumstances naturally excite. It did not seem important enough to be part of the symbolism of Providence at the moment. Yet it was strange to remember that it was thus the young man was brought into the house. Mr. Brownlow set the window open, and watched him as he came forward, undeniably a fine tall young fellow, as Mr. Hardcastle said. Somehow a kind of pride in his good looks, such as a father might have felt, came into John Brownlow’s mind. Sir Charles, with his black respirator, was not to be named in the same day with young Powys, so far as appearance went. He was looking as he did when he first came to the office, fresh, and frank, and open-hearted. Those appearances which had so troubled the mind of Mr. Wrinkell and alarmed Mr. Brownlow himself, were not visible in his open countenance. He came forward with his firm and rapid step, not the step of a dweller in streets. And Mr.