conclusions, and are apt to speak in innuendoes and dark sayings.

However, we have now begun to wander from the subject of our essay, and so I vote that we conclude. Besides, it is time for dinner. You must admit, by the way, that it is an act of considerable courage to undertake a German dinner. You will see that Mr. Midhurst, though diplomatists are generally said to be a timid race, will undertake this achievement with all the courage of a young officer about to lead a forlorn hope.

The conversation ended here, and I must admit that my essay received a much more favorable treatment than I had expected.

CHAPTER VII.

LOVERS' QUARRELS.

I MUST tell now how my lovers are going on. I was diverted from that subject by the long essay and conversation "On the Miseries of Human Life," which I am glad that we have got well rid of. My thoughts, however, had not been far from these lovers I mean Ellesmere and Mildred; for the other two were not worth thinking about, as there was no difficulty with them. I am not like Milverton, who, if the world go well

-the distant world—is comparatively comforted even if things about him should go ill. More woman-like, I care exceedingly for those who are near and dear to me; and their troubles are apt to occupy my mind, sometimes to the exclusion of the affairs of all the rest of the world. I had, therefore, been very miserable about Ellesmere and Mildred, who seemed to have become more cold to each other than they were at the beginning of the journey.

Ellesmere's character is to my mind a very beautiful one. There is a certain greatness about

him. I always say of him that if he had been born a savage, he would have been a leader amongst savages. This is a curious way of testing a man; but it is often judicious to strip a man in your fancy of all his trappings of birth, rank, and education, and to see what he would then be. Now, under any circumstances, Ellesmere would not be small. He does not quite receive justice in my account of these conversations. He never oppresses the weak. If there were a stupid man amongst us, or what the Germans call a Philister, Ellesmere would be the last person to oppress that man, intellectually speaking, or to make a butt of him. He is almost insolent sometimes, as we have seen, to men like Mr. Midhurst and Milverton. But then they can take good care of themselves; and Ellesmere's insolence has always such a vein of playfulness in it, that such men are sure to take his provocations in good part.

Then, he is very affectionate, though he does all he can to conceal this. He has not however been fortunate hitherto in loving. Perhaps women in general do not quite understand such. a man, and their sensitiveness is shocked by his brusqueness. Still I thought that a girl like Mildred Vernon might see further into the character than most women would: might begin by tolerating; go on by appreciating; and end in loving a man, who, whatever his defects, has

The

certainly some greatness about him. I had no fear of the result if she were to love him. haughty Mildred, once broken in by love, would be very governable. The difficult horse to manage in the long run is one that has " no mouth." This is a strange metaphor from an elderly parson like me; but then I live much among country gentlemen and sporting farmers, whose talk sometimes goes to other subjects besides dogs and horses, but not often. I am, therefore, well up in equine metaphors.

Many times I thought of meddling in this matter, for I think I understand more about Ellesmere than I did. A great part of what, if he were a child, we should call fractiousness, that he has shown of late, arises from love. Different from most men, instead of seeking to be, or rather to seem to be, the ideal person whom the mistress of his affections would be most inclined to admire and to love, he has evidently resolved to be loved for himself alone (if I may make the distinction between a man's self and his opinions and sentiments), and in spite of all her natural predilections. I thought I would tell Mildred this, and explain Ellesmere to her; but then I restrained myself, for you often harden a person in opposition, unless you can bring in your views and arguments exactly at the right time.

Nothing could well be more offensive to the somewhat high-flown and romantic Mildred than

the low, sordid, and cynical views which Ellesmere brought forward in the essay he gave us about the arts of advancement in life. Not one offensive word, not one disagreeable thought would he have modified, I know, to please her. It was a dangerous game for a lover to play, but it was eminently characteristic of the man, and so far thoroughly sincere.

After that essay and conversation we had a walk. Ellesmere and Mildred walked together. Blanche and Milverton did the same. Mr. Midhurst preferred his own society; and I took care of Walter, for which good action (N. B. Ellesmere is right in saying that I do not much like boys) the rest of the company ought to have been exceedingly obliged to me.

I heard sometime afterwards what was the nature of the conversation between Mildred and Ellesmere, of which the following is, I believe, a pretty accurate version.

"

ELLESMERE. And so, Miss Mildred, you are not oppressed by a suffocating sense of admiration after hearing my essay. If it had been the discourse of a popular preacher, full of all manner of unrealizable hopes, conveyed in stilted language, there would then have been the choking sensation which I am sorry to see there was not to be noticed in you while listening to my lay sermon; then, talk with Blanche at night about the delightful preacher and his beautiful language;