The same roof, divided only by a partition, stretched over all those agitated souls, old and young. The only quite light heart it covered was that of Oswald, who came in rather late from a merry party, and lingered still later, smoking his cigar, and thinking what was the next step to be taken in his pursuit of that pretty frightened Agnes, who was no doubt suffering for his sake. It did not hurt Oswald to think that she was suffering for him--rather it brought a smile on his face, and a pleasurable sensation. He had got a hold on her which nothing else could have given him. When they met again he would have a right to inquire into it, to give her his tender sympathy. After all, a scolding from Sister Mary Jane was not very tragical suffering. On the score of that it might be permitted to him to say a great many things that otherwise he could not have said, to suggest conclusions more momentous. And he did not think Agnes would be hard to move. He believed that she would pardon him, and not take away her favour from him--rather perhaps, even in her own despite, look upon him with eyes more kind. Oswald smoked at least two cigars in her honour, wondering if perhaps she was crying over the catastrophe of the evening, and feeling assured that there would be sweetness in her tears. He was apt to be very sure of the favour of all he cared to please, and that everything would go well with him. And as for the troubles that were under the same roof with him, he knew nothing of them, and would not have thought much had he known. He would have laughed--for of course each of these commotions had its ludicrous side, and Oswald would have made fun of them quite successfully. But they were much less important anyhow than his own preoccupations--full of which, with confidence in his heart, and a smile on his lips, he went cheerfully upstairs, past the door within which his mother lay awake in the dark, thinking over all her life, which had not been, in external circumstances, a very bright one; and that which was closed upon Edward’s conflict and confusion. Neither conflict nor confusion was in the mind of Oswald as he went smiling upstairs with his candle. All was likely to turn out well for him at least, whatever might happen to the rest of the world. CHAPTER XXX. A REBELLIOUS HEART.