He was so very earnest in this assurance, that Clarissa could not help feeling that he meant to do her a kindness. She was ashamed of her unworthy prejudice against him, and roused herself with a great effort from her abstraction, in order to talk and listen to Mr. Granger with all due courtesy. Nor had she any farther opportunity of watching those two figures pacing backward and forward upon the terrace; for Mr. Granger contrived to occupy her attention till the dressing-bell rang, and afforded her the usual excuse for hurrying away. She was one of the last to return to the drawing-room, and to her surprise found Mr. Granger by her side, offering his arm in his stately way when the procession began to file off to the dining-room, oblivious of the claims which my lady's matronly guests might have upon him. Throughout that evening Mr. Granger was more or less by Clarissa's side. His daughter, perceiving this with a scarcely concealed astonishment, turned a deaf ear to the designing compliments of Captain Westleigh (who told himself that a fellow might just as well go in for a good thing as not when he had a chance), and came across the room to take part in her parent's conversation. She even tried to lure him away on some pretence or other; but this was vain. He seemed rooted to his chair by Clarissa's side--she listlessly turning over a folio volume of steel plates, he pointing out landscapes and scenes which had been familiar to him in his continental rambles, and remarking upon them in a somewhat disjointed fashion--"Marathon, yes--rather flat, isn't it? But the mountains make a fine background. We went there with guides one day, when I was a young man. The Acropolis--hum! ha!--very fine ruins, but a most inconvenient place to get at. Would you like to see Greece, Miss Lovel?" Clarissa gave a little sigh--half pain, half rapture. What chance had she of ever treading that illustrious soil, of ever emerging from the bondage of her dull life? She glanced across the room to the distant spot where Lady Geraldine and George Fairfax sat playing chess. _He_ had been there. She remembered his pleasant talk of his wanderings, on the night of their railroad journey. "Who would not like to see Greece?" she said. "Yes, of course," Mr. Granger answered in his most prosaic way. "It's a country that ought to be remarkably interesting; but unless one is very well up in its history, one is apt to look at everything in a vague uncertain sort of manner. A mountain here, and a temple there--and then the guides and that kind of people contrive to vulgarise everything somehow; and then there is always an alarm about brigands, to say nothing of the badness of the inns. I really think you would be disappointed in Greece, Miss Lovel." "Let me keep my dream," Clarissa answered rather sadly "I am never likely to see the reality." "You cannot be sure of that; at your age all the world is before you."