Oxford scholar with a head full of philosophy should after all fall back on the gumnastikè in place of the mousikèyou see I have not forgotten my Plato. My client will take my recommendation, you may be sure. So now, Mr Richard Loder, am I to understand that you accept the offer?"

"Oh, Mr Ferrier, it's almost too good to be true. Accept it? Do you really mean it?"

"Why, you don't even know what the salary is,” answered Ferrier, smiling at the other's enthusiasm. However, I think we can run to four hundred a-year and a small house. Now?"

The long breath which Dick drew was expressive of gratitude, surprise, and delight in equal proportions. With his own two hundred a-year here was three-quarters of the required income ready to hand at the first bidding.

"By Jove, that's six hundred!" he exclaimed aloud.

"And a house," added Ferrier; "we may call that fifty. Six hundred and fifty, we will say, and possibilities. Now, if you will take my advice, Edwin-Dick, I mean-you will go straight off to-morrow morning and lay all these facts before Angelina, I mean the young lady's father."

The audacity of the proposal fairly staggered Dick for the moment, but Ferrier clinched the matter by telegraphing in his own name to Mr Balfour and warning him to expect a visit from Mr Loder at half-past eleven on the next morning.

"Now," he said, as soon as he had sent off the telegram, "you stand committed, young man; and, as Graham is coming to dine to-night, you had better tell him all about it. I quite commend your discretion in keeping your own counsel up to date, but I think now that you ought to take your brother into your confidence.”

Graham Loder, being informed of his brother's wishes and prospects, as soon as the three men had the dining-room to themselves in the evening, played so strong a trump card that our young lover eventually went to bed in the seventh heaven of delight.

"My dear Dick," said he, having, after duly taking stock of the young man's appearance, decided that he must have been going through a very bad time of late, "I wish you had come to me earlier, as I could have spared you some anxiety. Of course you shall have your two hundred, but there is a little bit more that I put away for you in my own mind to start you in something when the time came. You remember my little nest-egg?" he went on, looking at Ferrier as he spoke; "well, it is five thousand and a bit to spare now. I think if we make it up to six, and propose to settle it right out on Miss Balfour, it would make up the amount Dick mentioned, and perhaps turn the scale in his favour. Of course," apologetically, "it is not much, and a few years hence I hope to be able to do more for them. But a settlement of a sort is a point, isn't it, Mr Ferrier?"

"So brother helps brother," replied Ferrier, smiling. "I like you two young fellows rather. You seem to live your own lives, and keep your own confidences apart, but when the test comes the bell rings true. Yes, Dick, the settlement your brother talks of is the thing to make your strongest point. Of course, you both leave out of consideration all count of what Balfour may be prepared to do for his daughter."

"Well, I really had not counted on anything. One never supposes that a clergyman's daughter is likely to have much. And besides, what she has would be her own, wouldn't it? I mean it would not count towards the eight hundred. It is awfully good of Graham to give me the chance of making a settlement, as you call it, but May has not got a brother to do the same for her."

"I daresay you will get along quite as well without brothersin-law," said the lawyer drily. "They might not be all quite like-eh-Mr Graham Loder. And now let us join my wife.

I am not going to let you sit up to all, hours, friend Dick, if you're going courting to-morrow.'

The last words that Graham said, as, an hour later, the two brothers parted on the doorstep, were―

"Good luck, old boy, and mind you make a point of that settlement," and then he went on his way rather sadly, as he reflected that three more weary years had to run before he could turn his thoughts to matrimony, a period which the money he had just given Dick might have shortened by a third.

319

CHAPTER XXV.

BARKSWORTH.

AFTER his interview with Laurence Ferrier, the Rector of Barksworth had returned from London late in the evening and rather fatigued by his long day; and as he had not either on the night of his return, or at any time in the next day, shown any inclination to enlighten his daughter upon the object of his sudden journey, she had forborne to question him, and therefore for many hours remained in the state of one who is hoping for the best, yet nervous that the worst may befall her. This keeping the girl in anxious suspense was not an act of intentional unkindness on her father's part, but dictated by caution. Being himself of a somewhat nervous temperament, he was now being assailed by vague fears. That his daughter's thoughts were centred on the young man, Richard Loder, had become to him a matter of certainty; that the girl was content to accept that young man as guardian of her future happiness the Rector had no reasonable cause to doubt. But "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" "Is thine heart right as my heart is with thy

heart?"

Such were the thoughts which were haunting him. What positive evidence had he that time and absence had not made an alteration in the young man's feelings? His own private belief was that, as to Marian Balfour, there was only in all

the wide world the one man, Richard Loder, so too, to Richard Loder in his turn, the only woman in the wide world was Marian Balfour; and in favour of this presumption there were two distinct trains of indirect evidence from independent and reliable sources.

The Bursar of St Hilary's had stated that he had seen a marked change in Mr Loder's demeanour at the University in the past eighteen months; and Laurence Ferrier, whose judgment of mankind was seldom at fault, had pronounced Mr Loder to be a young man of his word as well as of charming manners.

And yet the Rector, weighing the pros and cons in his mind, had arrived at the conclusion that it was better to have his information on a very vital point straight from headquarters, and to hear from the lips of the young man, whom he had in his study sentenced to undergo a period of probation, a statement to the effect that he was yet of the same mind as he had been eighteen months ago. Yes, like Sir Henry Lee of Woodstock, the Rector would even study the young suitor's face, would convince himself by the evidence of his own eyes, and would in no case sacrifice his only child to one "who received not her hand as the greatest blessing earth had to bestow."

It was only for a moment, when, as he was dressing for dinner on the evening of the day after his journey from London, he received a telegram from Laurence Ferrier conveying the announcement that Mr Loder would be with him on the following morning, that Mr Balfour faltered in his resolution to say nothing to May until he had had a personal interview with the young lover. But before he went downstairs he had definitely made up his mind to keep his own counsel during the few hours that yet remained before Mr Loder's arrival, in order that there might not remain the slightest risk of the girl being eventually crushed by the last and most cruel of all disappointments.

It was with considerable astonishment that May, coming