"She is a girl," he thought, with quick intuition. "She has never loved, and no doubt she believes she never will. I envy the man who forces her to own her mistake. She is no sweet white daisy to whom any man's touch is sunshine. There are depths of expression in that face that have never yet been stirred. Happy man who is the first--perhaps the only one--to see them! He will have a long account to settle with Fortune." And then Dudley pulled himself up short. Thoughts like these would not lead to success in his examination. And even if they would, what right had he to think them? Till his Intermediate was over in July, he must speak to no woman of love; and not until his Final lay behind him had he any right to think of marriage. And any day while he was far away in London the man might come--the man with the golden key---- Dudley turned and bowed to the speaker in considerable confusion. Some graceful reference had evidently been made to his reading, for there was a momentary pause in the vague droning that had accompanied his day-dreams, and every one was looking at him with a cordial smile. "Who would have thought of Dr Dudley being here?" said Rachel, as the cousins walked home. "It is a great pity his being so short-sighted; he looks so much nicer without his spectacles. I wonder if he remembers what good friends we were that day at St Rules?--I declare I believe that's him behind us now." She was right, and he was accompanied by no less a person than the Baptist minister. "I would ask you to walk out and have a bachelor's supper with me, Stuart, by way of getting a little pure air into your lungs," Dudley had said, as he threw on his heavy Inverness cape; "but it is a far cry, and I suppose you have a guest at your house to-night." The minister had accepted with alacrity. He was tired, to be sure, but he would gladly have walked ten miles for the sake of a conversation with one of his "intellectual peers." "I have no guest," he had said eagerly; "it was my man who failed me. I would ask you to come home with me, but there are things we cannot talk of before my wife. 'Leave thou thy sister,'--you know." A faint smile had flitted over Dudley's face at the thought of Mr Stuart's "purer air." So they set out, and in due course they overtook Rachel and Mona. Mr Stuart could scarcely believe his eyes when he saw Dr Dudley actually slackening his pace to walk with them. It was right and Christian to be courteous, no doubt, but this was so utterly uncalled for. Dudley did not seem to think so, however. He exchanged a few pleasant words with Rachel, and then, regardless alike of her delight and of the minister's irritation, he very simply and naturally walked on with Mona in advance of the other two.