mother. And, last evening, while she was talking with an
open-heartedness which I had never found in her before, I became
strangely conscious of the difference in myself that had been silently
at work within the last two years or so. Then, sir, when I was but an
ill-conditioned, uneducated, petty village farrier, there was no
inequality between me and a peasant girl; or, rather, in all things
except fortune, the peasant girl was much above me. But last evening
I asked myself, watching her and listening to her talk, 'If Jessie
were now free, should I press her to be my wife?' and I answered
myself, 'No.'"

Kenelm listened with rapt attention, and exclaimed briefly, but
passionately, "Why?"

"It seems as if I were giving myself airs to say why. But, sir,
lately I have been thrown among persons, women as well as men, of a
higher class than I was born in; and in a wife I should want a
companion up to their mark, and who would keep me up to mine; and ah,
sir, I don't feel as if I could find that companion in Mrs. Somers."

"I understand you now, Tom. But you are spoiling a silly romance of
mine. I had fancied the little girl with the flower face would grow
up to supply the loss of Jessie; and, I am so ignorant of the human
heart, I did think it would take all the years required for the little
girl to open into a woman, before the loss of the old love could be
supplied. I see now that the poor little child with the flower face
has no chance."

"Chance? Why, Mr. Chillingly," cried Tom, evidently much nettled,
"Susey is a dear little thing, but she is scarcely more than a mere