She hopes to goodness he won't be in his ultra-grave mood, that, as a rule, leads up to his finding fault with everything, and picking things to pieces, and generally condemning the sound judgment of others. (As a rule, Clarissa is a little unfair in her secret comments on James Scrope's character.) It will be so much better if she can only come upon him out of doors, in his homeliest mood, with a cigar between his lips, or his pipe. Yes, his pipe will be even better. Men are even more genial with a pipe than with the goodliest habana. Well, of course, if he is the great friend he _professes_ to be,--heavy emphasis on the verb, and a little flick on the whip on "Cakes's" quarters, which the spirited but docile creature resents bitterly,--he must be glad at the thought that she is not going to leave the country,--is, in fact, very likely to spend most of her time still in Pullingham. Not all of it, of course. Horace has duties, and though in her secret soul she detests town life, still there is a joy In the thought that she will be with him, helping him, encouraging him in his work, rejoicing in his successes, sympathyzing with his fai----, but no, of course there will be no failures! How stupid of her to think of that, when he is so clever, so learned, so---- Yet it would be sweet, too, to have him fail once or twice (just a little, insignificant, not-worth-speaking-about sort of a defeat), if only to let him see how she could love him even the more for it. She blushes, and smiles to herself, and, turning suddenly, bestows a most unexpected caress upon "Secretary Bill," who wags his short tail in return--that is, what they left him of it--lovingly, if somewhat anxiously, and glances at her sideways out of his wonderful eyes, as though desirous of assuring himself of her sanity. Oh, yes, of course James will be delighted. And he will tell her so with the gentle smile that so lights up his face, and he will take her hand, and say he is so glad, so pleased, and---- With a sharp pang she remembers how her father was neither pleased nor glad when she confided her secret to him. He had been, indeed, distressed and confounded. He had certainly tried his hardest to conceal from her these facts, but she had seen them all the same. She could not be deceived where her father was concerned. He had felt unmistakable regret----"Be quiet, Bill! You sha'n't come out driving again if you can't sit still! What a bore a dog is sometimes!" Well, after all, he is her father. It is only natural he should dislike the thought of parting from her. She thinks, with an instant softening of her heart, of how necessary she has become to him, ever since her final return home. Before that he had been dull and _distrait_; now he is bright and cheerful, if still rather too devoted to his books to be quite good for him.