brief as possible, and while he sat with his mistress, found terribly little to talk about. She was waiting for him, in vulgar parlance, to name the day; and so long as he was unprepared to be explicit on this point it seemed a mockery to pretend to talk about matters more abstract. She had no airs and no arts; she never attempted to disguise her expectancy. She was waiting on his good pleasure, and would wait modestly and patiently; his hanging back at this supreme time might appear strange, but of course he must have a good reason for it. Catherine would have made a wife of the gentle old-fashioned pattern—regarding reasons as favours and windfalls, but no more expecting one every day than she would have expected a bouquet of camellias. During the period of her engagement, however, a young lady even of the most slender pretensions counts upon more bouquets than at other times; and there was a want of perfume in the air at this moment which at last excited the girl’s alarm. “Are you sick?” she asked of Morris. “You seem so restless, and you look pale.” “I am not at all well,” said Morris; and it occurred to him that, if he could only make her pity him enough, he might get off. “I am afraid you are overworked; you oughtn’t to work so much.” “I must do that.” And then he added, with a sort of calculated brutality, “I don’t want to owe you everything!” “Ah, how can you say that?” “I am too proud,” said Morris. “Yes—you are too proud!” “Well, you must take me as I am,” he went on, “you can never change me.” “I don’t want to change you,” she said gently. “I will take you as you are!” And she stood looking at him. “You know people talk tremendously about a man’s marrying a rich girl,” Morris remarked. “It’s excessively disagreeable.” “But I am not rich?” said Catherine. “You are rich enough to make me talked about!” “Of course you are talked about. It’s an honour!” “It’s an honour I could easily dispense with.” She was on the point of asking him whether it were not a compensation for this annoyance that the poor girl who had the misfortune to bring it upon him, loved him so dearly and believed in him so truly; but she hesitated, thinking that this would perhaps seem an exacting speech, and while she hesitated, he suddenly left her. The next time he came, however, she brought it out, and she told him again that he was too proud. He repeated that he couldn’t change, and this time she felt the impulse to say that with a little effort he might change. Sometimes he thought that if he could only make a quarrel with her it might help him; but the question was how to quarrel with a young woman who had such treasures of concession. “I suppose you think the effort is all on your side!” he was reduced to exclaiming. “Don’t you believe that I have my own effort to make?” “It’s all yours now,” she said. “My effort is finished and done with!” “Well, mine is not.”