sighs between her sentences.  Julian was not blind to the meaning of all this.  His active employments during the past week had kept his thoughts from brooding on the matter, and he had all but dismissed the trouble it had given him.  But this visit, and Harriet’s demeanour throughout it, revived all his anxieties.  He came back from accompanying his cousin part of her way home in a very uneasy frame of mind.  What could he do to disabuse the poor girl of the unhappy hopes she entertained?  The thought of giving pain to any most humble creature was itself a pain unendurable to Julian.  His was one of those natures to which self-sacrifice is infinitely easier than the idea of sacrificing another to his own desires or even necessities, a vice of weakness often more deeply and widely destructive than the vices of strength.

The visit having been paid, it was arranged that on the following Sunday Julian should meet his cousin at the end of Gray’s Inn Road as usual.  On that day the weather was fine, but Harriet came out in no mood for a walk.  She had been ailing for a day or two, she said, and felt incapable of exertion; Mrs. Ogle was away from home for the day, too, and it would be better they should spend the afternoon together in the house.  Julian of course assented, as always, and they established themselves in the parlour behind the shop.  In the course of talk, the girl made mention of an engraving Julian had given her a week or two before, and said that she had had it framed and hung it in her bed-room.

“Do come up and look at it,” she exclaimed; “there’s no one in the house.  I want to ask you if you can find a better place for it.  It doesn’t show so well where it is.”

Julian hesitated for a moment, but she was already leading the way, and he could not refuse to follow.  They went up to the top of the house, and entered a little chamber which might have been more tidy, but was decently furnished.  The bed was made in a slovenly way, the mantelpiece was dusty, and the pictures on the walls hung askew.  Harriet closed the door behind them, and proceeded to point out the new picture, and discuss the various positions which had occurred to her.  Julian would have decided the question as speedily as possible, and once or twice moved to return downstairs, but each time the girl found something new to detain him.  Opening a drawer, she took out several paltry little ornaments, which she wished him to admire, and, in showing them, stood very close by his side.  All at once the door of the room was pushed open, and a woman ran in.  On seeing the stranger present, she darted back with an exclamation of surprise.

“Oh, Miss Smales, I didn’t know as you wasn’t alone!  I heard you moving about, and come just to arst you to lend me—­but never mind, I’m so sorry; why didn’t you lock the door?”

And she bustled out again, apparently in much confusion.

Harriet had dropped the thing she held in her hand, and stood looking at her cousin as if dismayed.