it led her to pietism; she spent her days in religious observance, and her nights in the study of the gravest literature.  She would have entered the Roman Church but for her brother’s interposition.  The end of this third year of discipline was bringing about another change, perhaps less obvious to herself than to those who marked her course with interest, as several people did.  Her reading became less ascetic, she passed to George Herbert and the ‘Christian Year,’ and by way of the decoration of altars proceeded to thought for her personal adornment.  A certain journal of society which she had long ago abandoned began to show itself occasionally in her rooms, though only as yet by oversight left to view.  She spoke with her brother on the subject of certain invitations, long neglected, and did not seem displeased when he went beyond her own motion to propose the issuing of cards for a definite evening.  Then came Wilfrid’s break-down.  There was really no need, said Mr. Athel, that she should transfer herself immediately to the country, just when everybody was well settled in town.  But Mrs. Rossall preferred to go; she was not sure that the juncture had not some connection with her own spiritual life.  And she maintained, on the whole, a seemly cheerfulness.

Mr. Athel was an Egyptologist of some distinction.  Though not in person or manner suggestive of romantic antecedents, he had yet come by this taste in a way which bordered on romance.  Travelling in Southern Europe at about the age which Wilfrid had now reached, he had the good fortune to rescue from drowning an Italian gentleman then on a tour in Greece.  The Italian had a fair daughter, who was travelling with him, and her, after an acquaintance of a few weeks, Athel demanded by way of recompense.  Her father was an enthusiastic student of Egyptian antiquities; the Englishman plied at one and the same time his wooing and the study of hieroglyphics, with marked success in both directions.  The Mr. Athel who at that time represented parental authority, or at all events claimed filial deference, was anything but pleased with the step his son had taken; he was a highly respectable dealer in grain, and, after the manner of highly respectable men of commerce, would have had his eldest son espouse some countrywoman yet more respectable.  It was his opinion that the lad had been entrapped by an adventurous foreigner.  Philip Athel, who had a will of his own, wedded his Italian maiden, brought her to England, and fought down prejudices.  A year or two later he was at work in Egypt, where lie remained for some twelve months; his studies progressed.  Subsequently he published certain papers which were recognised as valuable.  Wilfrid found the amusement of his childhood in his father’s pursuit; he began to decipher hieratic not much later than he learned to read English.  Scarabs were his sacred playthings, and by the time of his going to school he was able to write letters home in a demotic which would not perhaps have satisfied Champollion or Brugsch, but yet was sufficiently marvellous to his schoolfellows and gratifying to his father.