“Garnons is over-lonely for you,” said Mrs. Joyce. “Yet I cannot think that Hilary Unett is well fitted to be its mistress.” Perhaps Mr. Geers agreed with this shrewd remark when he had been introduced to the bishop’s granddaughter. Her reception was so grave, her manner so distant, that, as he confessed afterwards, it would have been easier to woo an iceberg. Fortunately, his cousin’s words had given him the clue to the girl’s manner and bearing, and on the third day of his visit to the Palace he called at Mrs. Unett’s house, and finding Hilary in the garden, resolved to speak out boldly, and make an end of this highly unsatisfactory courtship. “Mistress Unett,” he said, “the Bishop has been very good in allowing me to propose an alliance with you, but I can scarcely flatter myself that the idea is pleasing in your eyes. I am a plain-spoken man and will not try your patience with further compliments or professions of my high esteem and sincere admiration, but will ask you truthfully to tell me whether you think you could honour me with your hand?” “Sir, you have done me great honour by the proposal,” said Hilary, nervously. “But I should only wrong you did I consent to be your wife. You ask me to tell you the truth, and you have been so kindly a suitor that I will do exactly as you bid me. The truth, sir, is that my heart belongs to another.” Mr. Geers bowed. “You honour me by your confidence, madam,” he said, gallantly. “I withdraw at once in favour of the lucky man who has won so great a treasure.” “Alas! he is not lucky at all,” said Hilary, her eyes filling with tears. “They say he is over-young, and will not allow us to meet.” “For that, dear madam, there is a sure remedy. Have patience; we grow old only too fast in these harassing days.” And after that the good-natured suitor, with a pitying remembrance of Gabriel Harford’s unhappy face, tried to do him a good turn with the Bishop, by showing how utterly hopeless it was to woo a maid whose heart had been given to another man since nursery days, and how extremely probable it was that the lady’s health would suffer if she were too severely tried. The words made no apparent impression on the Bishop, but they returned to him uncomfortably one Sunday morning in the cathedral, when his eye happened to rest for a minute on Hilary’s face. It suddenly struck him that she had grown curiously pale and thin during the last fortnight, and glancing across at the place usually occupied by Gabriel Harford, he noticed that in him, also, there was a change; the lad looked much older, his sunburnt face had lost its boyish carelessness, his eyes seemed larger and more sad. Yet there was a curious vigour about him in spite of his trouble, and as he joined in the metrical Psalm something in his expression appealed to the Bishop. The cathedral rang with the sweet voices of the choristers as they sang to the tune of the old 137th, Sternhold and Hopkins’ quaint version of King David’s words: