things, who cared more for whist and a glass of wine than for anything else, and who thought that he had a good excuse for never going to church in England because he was called upon, as he said, to show himself in the governor’s pew always once on Sundays, and frequently twice, when he was at the seat of his government.  Sir Marmaduke manifestly looked upon church as a thing in itself notoriously disagreeable.  To Mr Outhouse it afforded the great events of the week.  And Mrs Outhouse would declare that to hear her husband preach was the greatest joy of her life.  It may be understood therefore that though the family connection between the Rowleys and the Outhouses had been kept up with a semblance of affection, it had never blossomed forth into cordial friendship.

When therefore the clergyman of St. Diddulph’s received a letter from his niece, Nora, begging him to take her into his parsonage till Sir Marmaduke should arrive in the course of the spring, and hinting also a wish that her uncle Oliphant should see Mr Trevelyan and if possible arrange that his other niece should also come to the parsonage, he was very much perturbed in spirit.  There was a long consultation between him and his wife before anything could be settled, and it may be doubted whether anything would have been settled, had not Mr Trevelyan himself made his way to the parsonage, on the second day of the family conference.  Mr and Mrs Outhouse had both seen the necessity of sleeping upon the matter.  They had slept upon it, and the discourse between them on the second day was so doubtful in its tone that more sleeping would probably have been necessary had not Mr Trevelyan appeared and compelled them to a decision.

‘You must remember that I make no charge against her,’ said Trevelyan, after the matter had been discussed for about an hour.

‘Then why should she not come back to you?’ said Mr Outhouse, timidly.

’Some day she may if she will be obedient.  But it cannot be now.  She has set me at defiance; and even yet it is too clear from the tone of her letter to me that she thinks that she has been right to do so.  How could we live together in amity when she addresses me as a cruel tyrant?’

‘Why did she go away at first?’ asked Mrs Outhouse.

’Because she would compromise my name by an intimacy which I did not approve.  But I do not come here to defend myself, Mrs Outhouse.  You probably think that I have been wrong.  You are her friend; and to you, I will not even say that I have been right.  What I want you to understand is this.  She cannot come back to me now.  It would not be for my honour that she should do so.’

‘But, sir would it not be for your welfare, as a Christian?’ asked Mr Outhouse.

’You must not be angry with me, if I say that I will not discuss that just now.  I did not come here to discuss it.’

‘It is very sad for our poor niece,’ said Mrs Outhouse.  ’It is very sad for me,’ said Trevelyan, gloomily ’very sad, indeed.  My home is destroyed; my life is made solitary; I do not even see my own child.  She has her boy with her, and her sister.  I have nobody.’