worth her while to continue her attacks unless a young man would give way to her at once. George had been asked more than once to drink tea at No. 10, but had been asked in vain. Clara, therefore, had declared quite loudly that Marion had made an absolute prisoner of him,--had bound him hand and foot,--would not let him call his life his own. "She interrupts him constantly as he comes from the office," she said to Mrs. Duffer; "I call that downright unfeminine audacity." Yet she knew that Mrs. Duffer knew that she had intercepted the young man. Mrs. Duffer took it all in good part, knowing very well how necessary it is that a young woman should fight her own battle strenuously. In the mean time Marion Fay and George Roden were good friends. "He is engaged;--I must not say to whom," Mrs. Roden had said to her young friend. "It will, I fear, be a long, long, tedious affair. You must not speak of it." "If she be true to him, I hope he will be true to her," said Marion, with true feminine excitement. "I only fear that he will be too true." "No, no;--that cannot be. Even though he suffer let him be true. You may be sure I will not mention it,--to him, or to any one. I like him so well that I do hope he may not suffer much." From that time she found herself able to regard George Roden as a real friend, and to talk to him as though there need be no cause for dreading an intimacy. With an engaged man a girl may suffer herself to be intimate. CHAPTER XVI. THE WALK BACK TO HENDON. "I was here a little early," said Hampstead when his friend came in, "and I found your mother just going to church,--with a friend." "Marion Fay." "Yes, Miss Fay." "She is the daughter of a Quaker who lives a few doors off. But though she is a Quaker she goes to church as well. I envy the tone of mind of those who are able to find a comfort in pouring themselves out in gratitude to the great Unknown God." "I pour myself out in gratitude," said Hampstead; "but with me it is an affair of solitude." "I doubt whether you ever hold yourself for two hours in commune with heavenly power and heavenly influence. Something more than gratitude is necessary. You must conceive that there is a duty,--by the non-performance of which you would encounter peril. Then comes the feeling of safety which always follows the performance of a duty. That I never can achieve. What did you think of Marion Fay?" "She is a most lovely creature." "Very pretty, is she not; particularly when speaking?