had grown indistinct to him.  At present the discomfort and sorrow of not feeling at liberty to make love to the woman he loved was some excuse for avoiding thought, and he found distraction in hard work and social engagements.  With regard to Sophia he stayed his mind on the belief that if he dared not woo she was not being wooed, either by any man who was his rival, or by those luxuries and tranquillities of life which nowadays often lure young women to prefer single blessedness.

In the meantime he felt he had done what he could by writing again and again, and even telegraphing, to Turrifs Station.  It is a great relief to the modern mind to telegraph when impatient; but when there is nothing at the other end of the wire but an operator who is under no official obligation to deliver the message at an address many miles distant, the action has only the utility already mentioned—­the relief it gives to the mind of the sender.  The third week in August came, and yet he had heard nothing more from Alec.  Still, Alec had said he would come in summer, and if the promise was kept he could not now be long, and Robert clung to the hope that he would return with ambitions toward some higher sphere of life, and in a better mind concerning the advisability of not being too loquacious about his former trade.

In this hope he took opportunity one day about this time, when calling on Mrs. Rexford, to mention that Alec was probably coming.  He desired, he said, to have the pleasure of introducing him to her.

“He is very true and simple-heaped,” said the elder brother; “and from the photograph you have seen, you will know he is a sturdy lad.”  He spoke with a certain air of depression, which Sophia judged to relate to wild oats she supposed this Alec to be sowing.  “He was always his dear father’s favourite boy,” added Trenholme, with a quite involuntary sigh.

“A Benjamin!” cried Mrs. Rexford, but, with that quickness of mind natural to her, she did not pause an instant over the thought.

“Well, really, Principal Trenholme, it’ll be a comfort to you to have him under your own eye.  I often say to my husband that that must be our comfort now—­that the children are all under our eye; and, indeed, with but one sitting-room furnished, and so little outing except in our own fields, it couldn’t well be otherwise.  It’s an advantage in a way.”

“A doubtful advantage in some ways,” said Sophia; but the little children were now heard crying, so she ran from the room.

“Ah, Principal Trenholme,” cried the little step-mother, shaking her head (she was sewing most vigorously the while), “if my children will but profit by her example!  But, indeed, I reproach myself that she is here at all, although she came against my desire.  Sophia is not involved in our—­I might say poverty, Principal Trenholme.” (It was the first-time the word had crossed her lips, although she always conversed freely to him.) “When