long strip of silver-paper thinness, and which he was enjoying in
a deliberate manner. It was like the story of the eastern king,
who dipped his head into a basin of water, at the magician's
command, and ere he instantly took it out went through the
experience of a lifetime. I Margaret felt stunned, and unable to
recover her self-possession enough to join in the trivial
conversation that ensued between her father and Mr. Lennox. She
was grave, and little disposed to speak; full of wonder when Mr.
Lennox would go, and allow her to relax into thought on the
events of the last quarter of an hour. He was almost as anxious
to take his departure as she was for him to leave; but a few
minutes light and careless talking, carried on at whatever
effort, was a sacrifice which he owed to his mortified vanity, or
his self-respect. He glanced from time to time at her sad and
pensive face.

'I am not so indifferent to her as she believes,' thought he to
himself. 'I do not give up hope.'

Before a quarter of an hour was over, he had fallen into a way of
conversing with quiet sarcasm; speaking of life in London and
life in the country, as if he were conscious of his second
mocking self, and afraid of his own satire. Mr. Hale was puzzled.
His visitor was a different man to what he had seen him before at
the wedding-breakfast, and at dinner to-day; a lighter, cleverer,
more worldly man, and, as such, dissonant to Mr. Hale. It was a
relief to all three when Mr. Lennox said that he must go directly
if he meant to catch the five o'clock train. They proceeded to
the house to find Mrs. Hale, and wish her good-bye. At the last
moment, Henry Lennox's real self broke through the crust.