heaven; and that very notion comforted her in her naughtiness; for in that case, of course, his code of morals was not meant for her; and while she took his warnings (as many of them at least as she chose), she thought herself by no means bound to follow his examples.  She all but worshipped him as her guardian angel:  but she was not meant for an angel herself; so she could indulge freely in those little escapades and frivolities for which she was born, and then, whenever frightened, run for shelter under his wings.  But to hear the same, and even loftier words, from the lips of the curate, whom she had made her toy, almost her butt, was to have them brought down unexpectedly and painfully to her own level.  If this was his ideal, why ought it not to be hers?  Was she not his equal, perhaps his superior?  And so her very pride humbled her, as she said to herself,—­“Then I ought to be useful.  I can be;—­will be!”

“Lucia,” asked she, that very afternoon, “will you let me take the children off your hands while Clara is busy in the morning?”

“Oh, you dear good creature? but it would be such a gene!  They are really stupid, I am afraid sometimes, or else I am.  They make me so miserably cross at times.”

“I will take them.  It would be a relief to you, would it not?”

“My clear!” said poor Lucia, with a doleful smile, which seemed to Valencia’s self-accusing heart to say, “Have you only now discovered that fact?”

From that day Valencia courted Headley’s company more and more.  To fall in love with him was of course absurd; and he had cured himself of his passing fancy for her.  There could be no harm, then, in her making the most of conversation so different from what she heard in the world, and which in her heart of hearts she liked so much better.  For it was with Valencia as with all women; in this common fault of frivolity, as in most others, the men rather than they are to blame.  Valencia had cultivated in herself those qualities which she saw admired by the men whom she met, and some one of whom, of course, she meant to marry; and as their female ideal was a butterfly ideal, a butterfly she became.  But beneath all lay, deep and strong, the woman’s love of nobleness and wisdom, the woman’s longing to learn and to be led, which has shown itself in every age in so many a fantastic and even ugly shape, and which is their real excuse for the flirting with, “geniuses,” casting themselves at the feet of directors; which had tempted her to coquette with Elsley, and was now bringing her into “undesirable” intimacy with the poor curate.

She had heard that day, with some sorrow, his announcement that he wished to be gone; but as he did not refer to it again, she left the thought alone, and all but forgot it.  The subject, however, was renewed about a week afterwards.  “When you return to Aberalva,” she had said, in reference to some commission.

“I shall never return to Aberalva.”