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inconstancy for an instant; "besides," as he went on
to himself, as if to make assurance doubly sure, "whom does she see?
Those stupid Holsters, who ought to be only too proud of having such a
girl for their cousin, ignore her existence, and spoke slightingly of her
father only the very last time I dined there. The country people in this
precisely Boeotian —shire clutch at me because my father goes up to the
Plantagenets for his pedigree—not one whit for myself—and neglect
Ellinor; and only condescend to her father because old Wilkins was nobody-
knows-who's son. So much the worse for them, but so much the better for
me in this case. I'm above their silly antiquated prejudices, and shall
be only too glad when the fitting time comes to make Ellinor my wife.
After all, a prosperous attorney's daughter may not be considered an
unsuitable match for me—younger son as I am. Ellinor will make a
glorious woman three or four years hence; just the style my father
admires—such a figure, such limbs. I'll be patient, and bide my time,
and watch my opportunities, and all will come right."
    So he bade Ellinor farewell in a most reluctant and affectionate manner,
although his words might have been spoken out in Hamley market-place, and
were little different from what he said to Miss Monro. Mr. Wilkins half
expected a disclosure to himself of the love which he suspected in the
young man; and when that did not come, he prepared himself for a
confidence from Ellinor. But she had nothing to tell him, as he very
well perceived from the child's open unembarrassed manner when they were
left alone together after dinner. He had refused an invitation, and
shaken off Mr. Ness, in order to have this confidential
tete-a-tete
with his motherless girl; and there was nothing to make confidence of. He
was half inclined to be angry; but then he saw that, although sad, she
was so much at peace with herself and with the world, that he, always an
optimist, began to think the young man had done wisely in not tearing
open the rosebud of her feelings too prematurely.
    The next two years passed over in much the same way—or a careless
spectator might have thought so. I have heard people say, that if you
look at a regiment advancing with steady step over a plain on a review-
day, you can hardly tell that they are not merely marking time on one
spot of ground, unless you compare their position with some other object
by which to mark their progress, so even is the repetition of the
movement. And thus the sad events of the future life of this father and
daughter were hardly perceived in their steady advance, and yet over the
monotony and flat uniformity of their days sorrow came marching down upon
them like an armed man. Long before Mr. Wilkins had recognised its
shape, it was approaching him in the distance—as, in fact, it is
approaching all of us at this very time; you, reader, I, writer, have
each our great sorrow bearing down upon us. It may be yet beyond the
dimmest point of our horizon, but in the stillness of the night our
hearts shrink at the sound of its coming footstep. Well is it for those
who fall into the hands of the Lord rather than into the hands of men;
but worst of all is it for him who has hereafter to mingle the gall of
remorse with the cup held out to him by his doom.
    Mr. Wilkins took his ease and his pleasure yet more and more every year
of his life; nor did the quality of his ease and his pleasure improve; it
seldom does with self-indulgent people. He cared less for any books that
strained his faculties a little—less for engravings and
sculptures—perhaps more for pictures. He spent extravagantly on his
horses; "thought of eating and drinking." There was no open vice in all
this, so that any awful temptation to crime should come down upon him,
and startle him out of his mode of thinking and living; half the people
about him did much the same, as far as their lives were patent to his
unreflecting observation. But most of his