with a strong sense of pride in her, that she would have refused him,
not on mercenary grounds, for Fanny he knew would have shared a crust
and hovel with the man she loved; but Fanny would love the man too
well to consent to the crust and the hovel, on his own account. She
would not have said in so many words, "What! marry you, a minister so
poor that a begging fair has to be held to pay his salary?" She
would have not refused him her love and sympathy, but she would have
let him down so gently from the high prospect of matrimony that he
would have suffered no jolt.

Elliot was a good fellow. It was on the girl's account that he
suffered. He suffered, as a matter of course. He wanted Fanny badly,
but he realized himself something of a cad. He discounted his own
suffering; perhaps, as he told himself with sudden suspicion of
self-conceit, he overestimated hers. Still, he was sure that the girl
would suffer more than he wished. He blamed himself immeasurably. He
tried to construct air castles which would not fall, even before the
impact of his own thoughts, in which he could marry this girl and
live with her happily ever after, but the man had too much common
sense. He did not for a moment now consider the possibility of
stepping, without influence, into a fat pastorate. He was sure that
he could count confidently upon nothing better than this.

The next morning he looked about his room wearily, and a plan which
he had often considered grew upon him. He got the keys of the
unoccupied parsonage next door, from Mrs. Black, and went over the
house after breakfast. It was rather a spacious house, old, but in
tolerable preservation. There was a southeast room of one story in
height, obviously an architectural afterthought, which immediately
appealed to him. It was practically empty except for charming