darning a stocking or cutting bread and butter, let him pay his visits. If he thought those things derogatory, certainty let him stay away. So the thing had grown till she had found herself surprised, and taken, as it were, into a net,--caught in a pitfall of love. But she held her peace, stuck manfully to the perambulator, and was a little colder in her demeanour than heretofore. Whereupon Major Rossiter, as the reader is aware, made two visits to Brook Park. The bird might peck at the window, but he should never again be taken into the room. But the bird, from the moment in which he had packed up his portmanteau at Brook Park, had determined that he would be taken in at the window again,--that he would at any rate return to the window, and peck at the glass with constancy, soliciting that it might be opened. As he now thought of the two girls, the womanliness of the one, as compared with the worldliness of the other, conquered him completely. There had never been a moment in which his heart had in truth inclined itself towards the young athlete of Brook Park,--never a moment, hardly a moment, in which his heart had been untrue to Alice. But glitter had for awhile prevailed with him, and he had, just for a moment, allowed himself to be discontented with the homely colour of unalloyed gold. He was thoroughly ashamed of himself, knowing well that he had given pain. He had learned, clearly enough, from what her father, mother, and others had said to him, that there were those who expected him to marry Alice Dugdale, and others who hoped that he would marry Georgiana Wanless. Now, at last, he could declare that no other love than that which was warm within his heart at present could ever have been possible to him. But he was aware that he had much to do to recover his footing. Alice’s face and her manner as she bade him good-bye at the gate were very clear before his eyes. Two months passed by before he was again seen at Beetham. It had happened that he was, in truth, required elsewhere, on duty, during the period, and he took care to let it be known at Beetham that such was the case. Information to this effect was in some shape sent to Alice. Openly, she took no notice of it; but, inwardly, she said to herself that they who troubled themselves by sending her such tidings, troubled themselves in vain. “Men may come and men may go,” she sang to herself, in a low voice. How little they knew her, to come to her with news as to Major Rossiter’s coming and going! Then one day he came. One morning early in December the absolute fact was told at the dinner table. “The Major is at the parsonage,” said the maid-servant. Mrs. Dugdale looked at Alice, who continued, however, to distribute hashed mutton with an equanimity which betrayed no flaw.