prim demeanour; she would even go against her conscience, and deny that she perceived any peculiarity.  When she wanted it, she sought his advice on such small subjects as came up in her daily life; and she tried not to show signs of weariness when he used more words—­and more difficult words—­than were necessary to convey his ideas.  But her ideal husband was different from Philip in every point, the two images never for an instant merged into one.  To Philip she was the only woman in the world; it was the one subject on which he dared not consider, for fear that both conscience and judgment should decide against him, and that he should be convinced against his will that she was an unfit mate for him, that she never would be his, and that it was waste of time and life to keep her shrined in the dearest sanctuary of his being, to the exclusion of all the serious and religious aims which, in any other case, he would have been the first to acknowledge as the object he ought to pursue.  For he had been brought up among the Quakers, and shared in their austere distrust of a self-seeking spirit; yet what else but self-seeking was his passionate prayer, ‘Give me Sylvia, or else, I die?’ No other vision had ever crossed his masculine fancy for a moment; his was a rare and constant love that deserved a better fate than it met with.  At this time his hopes were high, as I have said, not merely as to the growth of Sylvia’s feelings towards him, but as to the probability of his soon being in a position to place her in such comfort, as his wife, as she had never enjoyed before.

For the brothers Foster were thinking of retiring from business, and relinquishing the shop to their two shopmen, Philip Hepburn and William Coulson.  To be sure, it was only by looking back for a few months, and noticing chance expressions and small indications, that this intention of theirs could be discovered.  But every step they took tended this way, and Philip knew their usual practice of deliberation too well to feel in the least impatient for the quicker progress of the end which he saw steadily approaching.  The whole atmosphere of life among the Friends at this date partook of this character of self-repression, and both Coulson and Hepburn shared in it.  Coulson was just as much aware of the prospect opening before him as Hepburn; but they never spoke together on the subject, although their mutual knowledge might be occasionally implied in their conversation on their future lives.  Meanwhile the Fosters were imparting more of the background of their business to their successors.  For the present, at least, the brothers meant to retain an interest in the shop, even after they had given up the active management; and they sometimes thought of setting up a separate establishment as bankers.  The separation of the business,—­the introduction of their shopmen to the distant manufacturers who furnished their goods (in those days the system of ‘travellers’ was not so widely organized