Consider what a task this unhappy man Ingram had voluntarily undertaken! Here were two young people presumably in love. One of them was laid under suspicion by several previous love-affairs, though none of these, doubtless, had been so serious as the present. The other scarcely knew her own mind, or perhaps was afraid to question herself too closely, lest all the conflict between duty and inclination, with its fears and anxieties and troubles, should be too suddenly revealed. Moreover, this girl was the only daughter of a solitary and irascible old gentleman living in a remote island; and Ingram had not only undertaken that the love-affairs of the young folks should come all right--thus assuming a responsibility which might have appalled the bravest--but was also expected to inform the King of Borva that his daughter was about to be taken away from him. Of course, if Sheila had been a properly brought-up young lady, nothing of this sort would have been necessary. We all know what the properly brought-up young lady does under such circumstances. She goes straight to her papa and mamma and says, "My dear papa and mamma, I have been taught by my various instructors that I ought to have no secrets from my dear parents; and I therefore hasten to lay aside any little shyness or modesty or doubt of my own wishes I might feel, for the purpose of explaining to you the extent to which I have become a victim to the tender passion, and of soliciting your advice. I also place before you these letters I have received from the gentleman in question: probably they were sent in confidence to me, but I must banish any scruples that do not coincide with my duty to you. I may say that I respect, and even admire, Mr. So-and-So; and I should be unworthy of the care bestowed upon my education by my dear parents if I were altogether insensible to the advantages of his worldly position. But beyond this point I am at a loss to define my sentiments; and so I ask you, my dear papa and mamma, for permission to study the question for some little time longer, when I may be able to furnish you with a more accurate report of my feelings. At the same time, if the interest I have in this young man is likely to conflict with the duty I owe to my dear parents, I ask to be informed of the fact; and I shall then teach myself to guard against the approach of that insidious passion which might make me indifferent to the higher calls and interests of life." Happy the man who marries such a woman! No agonizing quarrels and delirious reconciliations, no piteous entreaties and fits of remorse and impetuous self-sacrifices await him, but a beautiful, methodical, placid life, as calm and accurate and steadily progressive as the multiplication table. His household will be a miracle of perfect arrangement. The relations between the members of it will be as strictly defined as the pattern of the paper on the walls. And how can a quarrel arise when a dissecter of the