the tacit assaults that were made upon him about his _protégé_. She gave up her judgment to him as she never had done before, with a filial self-abandonment that would have been beautiful had there been no _arrière pensée_ in it. “I will do as papa thinks proper. You know best, papa,” she said, in her new-born meekness, and Mr. Brownlow understood perfectly what she meant. “You have turned dreadfully good all of a sudden,” said Jack. “I never knew you so dutiful before.” “The longer one lives, one understands one’s duties the better,” said Sara, sententiously; and she looked at her father with a mingled submission and malice which called forth a smile about the corners of his mouth. “I hope so,” said Mr. Brownlow; “though you have not made the experiment long enough to know much about it yet.” “There are moments which give one experience as much as years,” said Sara, in the same lofty way, which was a speech that tempted the profane Jack to laughter, and made Mr. Brownlow smile once more. But though he smiled, the suggestion did not please him much. He laid his hand caressingly on her head, and smoothed back her pretty hair as he passed her; but he said nothing, and showed no sign of consciousness in respect to those moments which give experience. And the smile died off his lip almost before his hand was withdrawn from her hair. His thought as he went away was that he had been very weak; he had betrayed himself to the child who was still but a child, and knew no better than to play with such rude edge-tools. And the only remedy now was to close his lips and his heart, to tell nobody any thing, never to betray himself, whatever might happen. It was this thought that made him look so stern as he left Brownlows that morning--at least that made Pamela think he looked stern, as the dog-cart came out at the gate. Pamela had come to be very learned in their looks as they flashed past in that rapid moment in the early sunshine. She knew, or she thought she knew, whether Mr. John and his father were quite “friends,” or if there had been a little inevitable family difference between them, as sometimes happened; and it came into her little head that day that Mr. Brownlow was angry with his son, perhaps because-- She would not put the reason into words, but it filled her mind with many reflections. Was it wrong for Mr. John to come home early so often?--to stay at home so often the whole day?--to time his expeditions so fortunately that they should end in stray meetings, quite accidental, almost every day? Perhaps he ought to be in the office helping his father instead of loitering about the avenue and elsewhere, and finding himself continually in Pamela’s way. This she breathed to herself inarticulately with that anxious aim at his improvement which is generally the first sign of awakening tenderness in a girl’s heart. It occurred to her that she would speak to him about it when she saw him