the higher order like himself, who proposed to get at the people in a loftier way, to convince them by reason and argument of their foolish ways of living, and to inaugurate some large movement among them which would have little to do with the petty methods of feminine supervision. Florence Plowden, by universal consent, was made to be a clergyman’s wife, which was almost as strong an argument against her as if she had been an acknowledged beauty. But, as a matter of fact, there is no rule which tells in those mysterious ways of mutual attraction which draw the most unlikely or, which is worse, the most likely people together. And it had grown a certainty with Mr. Osborne that he had never met any one like Florence before her attention had been directed to him at all, and before even it had occurred to himself as possible that he could ever get over the dreadful obstacle of all that there was in her favour, and think of her as in possible relationship to himself. He represented it to himself as a thing that could affect him in no possible way, but yet a certain thing--that Florence Plowden was as a swan among the ducklings about her, that there was no one at all equal to her far and near, and that it was one of the mysteries of humanity how such a creature could spring and blossom from such a root, and among such surroundings. But I will not attempt to follow the matter from that first germ--obstinately held against all the force of the general idea that Florence was a nice girl and a very good girl (praises both calculated to drive an idealist mad), but nothing very particular--just like other girls, in fact, and a little like her mother. ‘When she is Mrs. Plowden’s age, Florence, indeed, will, I think, be very much like her mother,’ the General had once said, without the slightest idea that the curate, who was an athletic young person, would have liked to knock him down for saying it. And why shouldn’t Florence Plowden resemble her mother? But it was blasphemy to Mr. Osborne’s ears.