report of my feelings.  At the same time, if the interest I have in this young man is likely to conflict with the duty I owe to my dear parents, I ask to be informed of the fact; and I shall then teach myself to guard against the approach of that insidious passion which might make me indifferent to the higher calls and interests of life.”  Happy the man who marries such a woman!  No agonizing quarrels and delirious reconciliations, no piteous entreaties and fits of remorse and impetuous self-sacrifices await him, but a beautiful, methodical, placid life, as calm and accurate and steadily progressive as the multiplication table.  His household will be a miracle of perfect arrangement.  The relations between the members of it will be as strictly defined as the pattern of the paper on the walls.  And how can a quarrel arise when a dissecter of the emotions is close at hand to say where the divergence of opinion or interest began? and how can a fit of jealousy be provoked in the case of a person who will split up her affections into fifteen parts, give ten-fifteenths to her children, three-fifteenths to her parents, and the remainder to her husband?  Should there be any dismal fractions going about, friends and acquaintances may come in for them.

But how was Sheila to go to her father and explain to him what she could not explain to herself?  She had never dreamed of marriage.  She had never thought of having to leave Borva and her father’s house.  But she had some vague feeling that in the future lay many terrible possibilities that she did not as yet dare to look at—­until, at least, she was more satisfied as to the present.  And how could she go to her father with such a chaos of unformed wishes and fears to place before him?  That such a duty should have devolved upon Ingram was certainly odd enough, but it was not her doing.  His knowledge of the position of these young people was not derived from her.  But, having got it, he had himself asked her to leave the whole affair in his hands, with that kindness and generosity which had more than once filled her heart with an unspeakable gratitude toward him.

“Well, you are a good fellow!” said Lavender to him when he heard of this decision.

“Bah!” said the other with a shrug of his shoulders.  “I mean to amuse myself.  I shall move you about like pieces on a chess-board, and have a pretty game with you.  How to checkmate the king with a knight and a princess, in any number of moves you like—­that is the problem; and my princess has a strong power over the king where she is just now.”

“It’s an uncommonly awkward business, you know, Ingram,” said Lavender ruefully.

“Well, it is.  Old Mackenzie is a tough old fellow to deal with, and you’ll do no good by making a fight of it.  Wait!  Difficulties don’t look so formidable when you take them one by one as they turn up.  If you really love the girl, and mean to take your chance of getting her, and if she cares enough for you to sacrifice a good deal for your sake, there is nothing to fear.”