“I can’t think how a person can go about as usual, or ever get over such a thing as that.”

“Perhaps she hasn’t,” said Raymond, with a little colour on his brown cheek.  “But I’m afraid I can’t make those visits with you to-day.  I am wanted to see the plans for the new town-hall at Wil’sbro’.  Will you pick me up there?”

“There would be sure to be a dreadful long waiting, so I will luncheon at Sirenwood instead; Lady Tyrrell asked me to come over any day.”

“Alone?  I think you had better wait for me.”

“I can take Frank.”

“I should prefer a regular invitation to us both.”

“She did not mean to make a formal affair.”

“Forms are a protection, and I do not wish for an intimacy there, especially on Frank’s account.”

“It would be an excellent match for Frank.”

“Indeed, no; the estate is terribly involved, and there are three daughters; besides which, the family would despise a younger son.  An attachment could only lead to unhappiness now, besides the positive harm of unsettling him.  His tutor tells me that as it is he is very uneasy about his examination—­his mind is evidently preoccupied.  No, no, Cecil, don’t make the intercourse unnecessarily close.  The Vivians have not behaved well to my mother, and it is not desirable to begin a renewal.  But you shall not lose your ride, Cecil; I’ll ask one of the boys to go with you to the Beeches, and perhaps I shall meet you there.”

“He talks of my lonely life,” said Cecil, to herself, “and yet he wants to keep me from the only person who really understands me, all for some rancorous old prejudice of Mrs. Poynsett’s.  It is very hard.  There’s no one in the house to make a friend of—­Rosamond, a mere garrison belle; and Anne, bornee and half a dissenter; and as soon as I try to make a friend, I am tyrannized over, and this Miss Bowater thrust on me.”

She was pounding these sentiments into a sonata with great energy, when her door re-opened, and Raymond again appeared.  “I am looking for two books of Mudie’s.  Do you know where they can be?  I can’t make up the number.”

“They are here,” said Cecil; “Lanfrey’s Vie de Napoleon; but I have not finished them.”

“The box should have gone ten days ago.  My mother has nothing to read, and has been waiting all this time for the next part of Middlemarch,” said Raymond.

“She said there was no hurry,” murmured Cecil.

“No doubt she did; but we must not take advantage of her consideration.  Reading is her one great resource, and we must so contrive that your studies shall not interfere with it.”

He waited for some word of regret, but none came; and he was obliged to add, “I must deprive you of the books for the present, for she must not be kept waiting any longer; but I will see about getting them for you in some other way.  I must take the box to the station in the dog-cart.”  He went without a word from her.  It was an entirely new light to her that her self-improvement could possibly be otherwise than the first object with everyone.  At home, father and mother told one another complacently what Cecil was reading, and never dreamt of obstructing the virtuous action.  Were her studies to be sacrificed to an old woman’s taste for novels?