'I know he wishes I were not in Holy Orders. I knew he disliked it
at the time of my ordination; but if he wished me to act according to
his views, he should have given himself the right to dictate.'

'By not neglecting you all your youth.'

'Not that I regret or resent what concerns myself; but it was his
leaving me a burden on my grandmother that drove me to become a
clergyman, and a consistent one I will be, not an idle heir-apparent
to this estate, receiving it as his gift, not my own birthright.'

'An idle clergyman! Never! never!' cried Isabel. 'I should not
believe it was you! And the school--you could not leave it just as
your plans are working, and the boys improving?'

'Certainly not; it would be fatal to abandon it to that stick,
Powell. Ah! Isabel,' as he looked at her beautiful countenance, 'how
I pity the man who has not a high-minded wife! Suppose you came
begging and imploring me not to give any umbrage to the man, because
you so doted upon diamonds.'

'The less merit when one has learnt that they are very cold hard
stones,' said Isabel, smiling.

Isabel was a high-minded wife, but she would have been a still better
one if her loving admiration had allowed her to soften James, or to
question whether pride and rancour did not lurk unperceived in the
midst of the really high and sound motives that prompted him.