it as impossible to lead it away as to divert the rush from a pump. When Felix was about to return to his work, Marilda jumped up, exclaiming, 'Felix, I must speak to you;' and when she had him alone in the drawing-room, she began, 'Felix, I must take Alda home. We can't get on without her; and she looks very poorly, and all that nonsense is blown over.'

'You know she is still engaged.'

'Oh yes; but no one will think of that unless it is brought forward, and that she promises not to do.'

'I believe it will be best,' he answered. 'Our life is not suited to her, and she is neither well nor happy; but it is very kind of you.'

'Kind to ourselves. If Wilmet had married at once we should never have got her back at all, and we want her sadly. I can help my father in some ways, but I can't amuse him as she can. You don't mind?'

'Certainly not, if Mr. and Mrs. Underwood wish it,' said Felix, wondering how Alda made herself either amusing or useful; 'I suppose it is all right, and that they know how it stands.'

'Of course they do. They will only be too glad to have her; and though it is better to say nothing about it just yet, very likely it may end in his coming into our house, and being what Edgar might have been. How well he has behaved!'

'So has some one else,' thought Felix, as he saw her glistening eye; but he only answered, 'He is an excellent fellow.'

'Another thing, Felix. This engagement of Edgar's—is it in earnest?'

'Yes!' emphatically said Felix; 'I trust so.'

'You! I should have thought nothing could be more foolish. Is she such a nice girl, then?'

He had had time to recollect himself, and answered in his set manner, 'She is all that could be wished; and though of course there is a certain imprudence in the engagement, I can only wish to see Edgar persevere honourably in what he has undertaken.'

'But wouldn't it be great misery?'

'It might be,' said Felix; 'but it is not going to happen yet. Of course, no one could have wished it to begin; but having begun, he ought to go on.'

'Of course! I hate shilly-shally. My father would not believe there was anything in it. But you are right, Felix; it has done Edgar good. Somehow there's more purpose in him; and I believe he has worked more steadily this season. I am so glad you say she is a nice girl.'

And Felix went down to his work happier than he had been for nearly a year. What loss to himself equalled the gain of such a report of Edgar?

Marilda insisted on being shown every corner of the house, and was evidently full of enjoyment, like a child let loose from school, talking at random, so as to draw on herself more than one remonstrance from Alda, who had perfectly recovered her good-humour, and was absolutely gracious to Cherry.

About four o'clock came Thomas Underwood, embracing Alda like another daughter. 'My poor child, you are not looking well.'

'Not at all, papa,' said Marilda. 'We will take her home, and set her up again.'

'Ay, we will!' said her father. 'It has been a pretty muddle altogether; but there—we'll say no more about it. You'll come home, and be a wise girl.'

'O Uncle, how kind you are!' cried Alda.

Wilmet and Cherry looked at each other in amaze. What might this mean? How could Alda bear to be received back on such terms? But they could say nothing; indeed, they were scarcely seen till the greeting to Alda was over. Then, however, he made up for it by hearty kisses, for which they were not prepared; and Wilmet coloured crimson as she was again congratulated and rallied on her slyness in making the most of her time at Minsterham.

The illness at Spa had told upon Thomas Underwood. He was still under fifty, but an elderly look and manner had come on him; he walked feebly, and seemed to look to his daughter to help him out with purposes and recollections; while towards Alda there was an almost imploring tenderness, as if she had carried away with her a good deal of the enjoyment of his life, which he hoped to bring back again with her. He did not even seem to like leaving her for the evening to pack up, but wanted her to come out to Centry Park, and caught eagerly at Marilda's proposal that Felix should come and spend the evening there. It was as if they were both afraid of their own dullness in the great uninhabited house; and no doubt they would have caught at an invitation to share the family meal. Alda and Wilmet, for different reasons, sat in dread of Felix, in the reckless hospitality of the male heart, making such an offer; and in very truth, he was only withheld by certain authoritatively deprecating glances from those housewifely eyes.

And let it be observed that Wilmet was right. She could not have fed Mr. Underwood as would have suited him on such short notice, without a great deal more expense and personal exertion than would have been becoming; and to his eyes, their ordinary fare would have seemed ostentation of neediness.

Needy was exactly what the Underwoods had never been. It was not merely the effect of conscience and of resolution, but of Wilmet's more than ordinary power of method and adjustment, which had kept them from ever being behindhand, or in difficulties requiring external aid; and it was this that had won them already respect that hardly belonged to their years.

Thomas Underwood really respected Felix, as one who had never asked assistance from him, yet who had not declined what was offered in a friendly kinsman-like manner; and besides, had more than once asserted—modestly indeed, but still asserted—an independent will and way of his own, and shown that he was capable of carrying it out. It was five years since Mr. Underwood's prediction that he would find the attempt keeping house for such a family an utter failure, and would have to fall back on help he had not deserved: and here he was, without having made one demand, a partner in the business, and with so small a fraction of the family apparent, that there was no air of oppression, no complaint, even though Thomas himself had returned on his hands both those of whom he had meant to relieve him.

No wonder, then, that without intending it, his manner to Felix was not that of patron, but of equal—of kinsman to kinsman, not of rich man to struggling youth. And Felix, as he sat in the great handsome dining-room, could not help being amused at all the state that had followed one man and his daughter for one dinner in their own house: the courses, and the silver, and the perplexing family of wine-glasses beside every plate, and all with the Underwood rood and its motto shining on him—whether on the servant's buttons, on the panels of the oak-wainscotted hall, and the very china from which he ate his dinner.

Nothing interested Mr. Underwood more than the account of the visit to Vale Leston; and warming up under the influence of dinner, he talked much of the old times there, and with much disparagement of the two present Fulberts; but Felix was startled to find that he regarded himself as next in the succession.

'If you could only have gone into the Church, Felix, I could have given you the Vicarage. Or is not one of your brothers to be a parson?'

'Yes, Sir—Clement,' said Felix, smiling, but feeling a sense of injury that revealed to him how much more he must be reckoning on the chances than he had supposed himself to be doing. As Alda said, wealth flowed to wealth; and a little attention from Thomas to his cousins would easily turn the scale.

At any rate, poverty did not suit Alda. She was a different creature now that her exile was coming to an end.

'It had been like Portsmouth to Fanny Price,' said Geraldine, not greatly flattered by the overflow of benevolence, which Wilmet accepted as the token of real affection.

What would she do about Ferdinand? Wilmet ventured to ask.

'He certainly must not call,' said Alda; 'that would never do; but with Edgar's help it will be manageable enough. It will do the gentleman no harm to have a few difficulties in his way.