"Oh, no," he said, "I'm very humble; I don't think much of my own powers in that way: nothing that I can do will affect it, if Providence doesn't take it in hand." "You really think it's a big enough thing to invoke Providence about?" "If Providence looks after the sparrows as we are told," said John, "it certainly may be expected to step in to save a nice girl like you, Nelly, from--from connections you'll soon get to hate--and--and a shady man!" She turned upon him with sparkling eyes in a sudden blaze of indignation. "How dare you! how dare you!" "I dare a great deal more than that to save you. You must hear me, Nelly: they're all badly spoken of, not one, but all. They are a shady lot--excuse a man's way of talking. I don't know what other words to use--partly from misfortune, but more from---- Nelly, Nelly, how could you, a high-minded, well-brought-up girl like you, tolerate that?" She turned upon him again, breathing hard with restrained rage and desperation; evidently she was at a loss for words to convey her indignant wrath: and at last in sheer inability to express the vehemence of her feelings she fastened on one word and repeated "well-brought-up!" in accents of scorn. "Yes," said John, "my aunt and you may not always understand each other, but she's proved her case to every fair mind by yourself, Elinor. A girl could not be better brought up than you've been: and you could not put up with it, not unless you changed your nature as well as your name." "With what?" she said, "with what?" They had gone up and down the sloping sides of the combe, through the rustling copse, sometimes where there was a path, sometimes where there was none, treading over the big bushes of ling and the bell-heather, all bursting into bloom, past groups of primeval firs and seedling beeches, self-sown, over little hillocks and hollows formed of rocks or big old roots of trees covered with the close glittering green foliage and dark blue clusters of the dewberry, with the hum of bees filling the air, the twittering of the birds, the sound of the church bells--nothing more like the heart of summer, more peaceful, genial, happy than that brooding calm of nature amid all the harmonious sounds, could be.