shoals of company in the season, and took her drives out on the white roads to Wootton and Newport, Osborne and Cowes, commonly accompanied by some poor friend to whom a drive was an unfrequent pleasure.  She never trusted herself to a small boat, and as for the wherry that bore Harry Musgrave and Elizabeth every morning flying before the wind for three delicious hours, she appreciated its boasted safety so slightly that she was always relieved to see them safe back again, whether they landed at the foot of the garden or came through the town.  It was beautiful weather, with fine fresh breezes all the week, and Harry looked and felt so much like a new man at the end of it that my lady insisted on his remaining a second week, when they would all return to the Forest together.  He had given her the highest satisfaction by so visibly taking the benefit of her hospitality, and had made great way in her private esteem besides.  Amongst her many friends and acquaintances then at Ryde, for every day’s dinner she chose one gentleman for the sake of good talk that Mr. Harry Musgrave might not tire, and the breadth and diversity of the young man’s knowledge and interests surprised her.

One evening after some especially amusing conversation with a travelled doctor, who was great in the scientific study of botany and beetles, she said to Elizabeth when they were alone, “What a pity! what a grievous pity!  There is no position brains and energy can win that Mr. Harry Musgrave might not raise himself to if his health were equal to his mental capacity.  And with what dignity and fortitude he bears his condemnation to a desultory, obscure existence!  I had no idea there could be so much sweet patience in a man.  Do you anticipate that it will be always so?”

“Harry is very happy now, and I do not look forward much or far,” Elizabeth said quietly.  “People say men are so different from women, but after all they must be more like women than like anything else.  So I try sometimes to put myself in Harry’s place, and I know there will be fluctuations—­perhaps, even a sense of waste and blankness now and then, and a waking up of regret.  But he has no envious littleness of mind and no irritability of temper:  when he is feeling ill he will feel low.  But our life need not be dull or restricted, and he has naturally a most enjoying humor.”

“And he will have you—­I think, after all, Elizabeth, you have found your vocation—­to love and to serve; a blessed vocation for those called to it, but full of sorrows to those who take it up when the world and pride have disappointed them.”

Elizabeth knew that my lady was reflecting on herself.  They were both silent for a few minutes, and then Elizabeth went on:  “Harry and I have been thinking that a yacht would be an excellent establishment for us to begin with—­a yacht that would be fit to coast along France, and could be laid up at Bordeaux while we rest for the winter at Arcachon—­or, if we are of a mind to go farther, that would carry us to the Mediterranean.  Harry loves a city, and Bologna attracts his present curiosity:  I tell him because it was once a famous school of law.”