in Hillsborough, except by leaving Hillsborough, and working hard and long in some other town.  He felt in his own heart the love and constancy to do this; but his reason told him such constancy would be wasted; for while he was working at a distance, the impression, if any, he had made on her would wear away, and some man born with money, would step in and carry her gayly off.  This thought returned to him again and again, and exasperated him so at last, that he resolved to go to “Woodbine Villa,” and tell her his heart before he left the place.  Then he should be rejected, no doubt, but perhaps pitied, and not so easily forgotten as if he had melted silently away.

He walked up the hill, first rapidly, then slowly.  He called at “Woodbine Villa.”

The answer was “Not at home.”

“Everything is against me,” said he.

He wandered wearily down again, and just at the entrance of the town he met a gentleman with a lady on each arm, and one of those ladies was Miss Carden.  The fortunate cavalier was Mr. Coventry, whom Henry would have seen long before this, but he had been in Paris for the last four months.  He had come back fuller than ever of agreeable gossip, and Grace was chatting away to him, and beaming with pleasure, as innocent girls do, when out on a walk with a companion they like.  She was so absorbed she did not even see Henry Little.  He went off the pavement to make room for their tyrannical crinolines, and passed unnoticed.

He had flushed with joy at first sight of her, but now a deadly qualm seized him.  The gentleman was handsome and commanding; Miss Carden seemed very happy, hanging on his arm; none the less bright and happy that he, her humble worshiper, was downcast and wretched.

It did not positively prove much; yet it indicated how little he must be to her:  and somehow it made him realize more clearly the great disadvantage at which he lay, compared with an admirer belonging to her own class.  Hitherto his senses had always been against his reason:  but now for once they co-operated with his judgment, and made him feel that, were he to toil for years in London, or Birmingham, and amass a fortune, he should only be where that gentleman was already; and while the workman, far away, was slaving, that gentleman and others would be courting her.  She might refuse one or two.  But she would not refuse them all.

Then, in his despair, he murmured, “Would to God I had never seen her!”

He made a fierce resolve he would go home, and tell his mother she could pack up.

He quickened his steps, for fear his poor sorrowful heart should falter.

But, when he had settled on this course, lo! a fountain of universal hatred seemed to bubble in his heart.  He burned to inflict some mortal injury upon Jobson, Parkin, Grotait, Cheetham, and all who had taken a part, either active or passive, in goading him to despair.  Now Mr. Cheetham’s works lay right in his way; and it struck him he could make Cheetham smart a little.  Cheetham’s god was money.  Cheetham had thrown him over for money.  He would go to Cheetham, and drive a dagger into his pocket.