could stand it,' he said, 'as well as you can.'

There was far from being any joy in the irony with which I regarded
him and under which I saw him gather up his resolution to go;
nevertheless I did nothing to make it easy for him. I refrained
from imparting my private conviction that Cecily would accept the
first presentable substitute that appeared, although it was strong.
I made no reference to my daughter's large fund of philosophy and
small balance of sentiment. I did not even--though this was
reprehensible--confess the test, the test of quality in these ten
days with the marble archives of the Moguls, which I had almost
wantonly suggested, which he had so unconsciously accepted, so
disastrously applied. I gave him quite fifteen minutes of his bad
quarter of an hour, and when it was over I wrote truthfully but
furiously to John. . ..

That was ten years ago. We have since attained the shades of
retirement, and our daughter is still with us when she is not with
Aunt Emma and Aunt Alice--grandmamma has passed away. Mr.
Tottenham's dumb departure that day in February--it was the year
John got his C.B.--was followed, I am thankful to say, by none of
the symptoms of unrequited affection on Cecily's part. Not for ten
minutes, so far as I was aware, was she the maid forlorn. I think
her self-respect was of too robust a character, thanks to the Misses
Farnham. Still less, of course, had she any reproaches to serve
upon her mother, although for a long time I thought I detected--or
was it my guilty conscience?--a spark of shrewdness in the glance
she bent upon me when the talk was of Mr. Tottenham and the
probabilities of his return to Agra. So well did she sustain her
experience, or so little did she feel it, that I believe the