The regaining of esteem and self-respect was lessening Clarence’s bashfulness, and bringing out his powers of conversation, so that he began to be appreciated as a pleasant companion, answering Griff’s raillery in like fashion, and holding his own in good-natured repartee. Mr. Fordyce got on excellently with him in their tête-à-têtes (who would not with Parson Frank?), and held him in higher estimation than did Ellen. To her, honesty was common, tame, and uninteresting in comparison with heroism; and Griff’s vague statement that Clarence was the best brother in the world did not go for much. Emily and I longed to get the two better acquainted, but it did not become possible while Griff absorbed the maiden as his exclusive property. The engagement was treated as an avowed and settled thing, though I do not know that there had been a formal ratification by the parents; but in truth Mrs. Fordyce must have tacitly yielded her consent when she permitted her daughter to make the journey under the guardianship of Parson Frank. After a walk in the ravine of Lynton, we became aware of a ring upon Ellen’s finger; and Emily was allowed at night to hear how and when it had been put on. Ellen only slightly deepened her lovely carnation tints when her father indulged in a little tender teasing and lamentation over himself. She was thoroughly happy and proud of her hero, and not ashamed of owning it. There was one evening when she and I were sitting with our sketchbooks in the shade on the beech at Ilfracombe, while the rest had gone, some to bathe, the others to make purchases in the town. We had been condoling with one another over the impossibility of finding anything among our water-colours that would express the wondrous tints before our eyes. ‘No, nothing can do it,’ I said at last; ‘we can only make a sort of blot to assist our memories.’ ‘Sunshine outside and in!’ said Ellen. ‘The memory of such days as these can never fade away,—no, nor thankfulness for them, I hope.’ Something then passed about the fact that it was quite possible to go on in complete content in a quiet monotonous life, in an oyster-like way, till suddenly there was an unveiling and opening of unimagined capacities of enjoyment—as by a scene like this before us, by a great poem, an oratorio, or, as I supposed, by Niagara or the Alps. Ellen put it—‘Oh! and by feelings for the great and good!’ Dear girl, her colour deepened, and I am sure she meant her bliss in her connection with her hero. Presently, however, she passed on to saying how such revelations of unsuspected powers of enjoyment helped one to enter into what was meant by ‘Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive, the things that God hath prepared for them that love him.’ Then there was a silence, and an inevitable quoting of the _Christian Year_, the guide to all our best thoughts— ‘But patience, there may come a time.’