those who are sent out to be got rid of. But now Bishop Methuen was in communication with his rejoicing old schoolfellow, and the boy was to be ordained after all. The Bishop found him busy reading in his bedroom. This was the first time he had intruded on him there. Follet was seated at a little table touching the wall; from a peg high over the table depended a surprising collection of old garments, crowned by a grey felt wide-awake. They interested the Bishop in spite of his errand; he was glad, besides, to curve round to the point; so, as Follet turned round in his chair, he greeted him extempore:—
"Follet took it badly."
"What in the name of fortune are those things over your head, my dear boy?"
Follet blushed a little, tilted his chair backward, eyed the queer garments, and rather timorously answered:
"They're my old bush togs, sir. I keep them there to—to remind me—that is, so that I shan't forget—"
He stuck. The Bishop hastily changed the subject by coming to his point. In an instant Follet was on his legs, his face transfigured.
"You'll let me meet the coach, won't you?— Oh, I forgot! One of us has to go to Stratford Downs tomorrow!"
"You must be the one," said the Bishop. "I must be the one to see Evelyn first," he added, in a reminding tone. "I can't divine what is fetching her home so suddenly as this!" And as he watched the summer-lightning play of joy and anxiety over the young man's face, his heart pained for him, for he did divine evil.
He knew Evelyn only too well.
"I am glad he is not in," she said when she arrived. Her eyes and manner betrayed excitement, with difficulty controlled. "And oh, father! how thankful I am you wouldn't let me be engaged to him!"
"Why?" asked the Bishop, sternly, as he instinctively put her hands from him.
Miss Methuen tremblingly skinned the glove from her left hand, which she held up to her father's eyes, only to dazzle them with the blaze of diamonds on the third finger. The sight hit him to the heart, stopping its beat.
"Yes, I never really loved him! I know it now—now that I really love! What will he do to me, do you think? Will he kill me? I thought I loved him, God knows I did, but I never really loved before! Father! why don't you speak to me? I am engaged. You cannot prevent it—you will not want to when you know all, when you know him! Speak to me, father! Say something."
But the Bishop only stung her with his eye.
"You'll break it to him, father? Then I'll see him myself. He'll be more merciful than you! Oh! but you will be glad some day, when you know him. You will be glad when you see me happy. I never honestly loved before! And he is coming to see you as soon as ever he can leave his business."
"What is his business?" asked the Bishop.
"He is in wholesale jewellery—wholesale."
Few would have recognised Dr. Methuen in the glance he cast at the resplendent diamond ring. He could have torn it from his daughter's finger and stamped upon it under her eyes. Wholesale, indeed! There
