I entered our house, thinking of nothing but how to see her, how to speak to her, on the morrow; murmuring her name to myself; even while my hand was on the lock of my study door.  The instant I was in the room, I involuntarily shuddered and stopped speechless.  Clara was there!  I was not merely startled; a cold, faint sensation came over me.  My first look at my sister made me feel as if I had been detected in a crime.

She was standing at my writing-table, and had just finished stringing together the loose pages of my manuscript, which had hitherto laid disconnectedly in a drawer.  There was a grand ball somewhere, to which she was going that night.  The dress she wore was of pale blue crape (my father’s favourite colour, on her).  One white flower was placed in her light brown hair.  She stood within the soft steady light of my lamp, looking up towards the door from the leaves she had just tied together.  Her slight figure appeared slighter than usual, in the delicate material that now clothed it.  Her complexion was at its palest:  her face looked almost statue-like in its purity and repose.  What a contrast to the other living picture which I had seen at sunset!

The remembrance of the engagement that I had broken came back on me avengingly, as she smiled, and held my manuscript up before me to look at.  With that remembrance there returned, too—­darker than ever—­the ominous doubts which had depressed me but a few hours since.  I tried to steady my voice, and felt how I failed in the effort, as I spoke to her: 

“Will you forgive me, Clara, for having deprived you of your ride to-day?  I am afraid I have but a bad excuse—­”

“Then don’t make it, Basil; or wait till papa can arrange it for you, in a proper parliamentary way, when he comes back from the House of Commons to-night.  See how I have been meddling with your papers; but they were in such confusion I was really afraid some of these leaves might have been lost.”

“Neither the leaves nor the writer deserve half the pains you have taken with them; but I am really sorry for breaking our engagement.  I met an old college friend—­there was business too, in the morning—­we dined together—­he would take no denial.”

“Basil, how pale you look!  Are you ill?”

“No; the heat has been a little too much for me—­nothing more.”

“Has anything happened?  I only ask, because if I can be of any use—­if you want me to stay at home—­”

“Certainly not, love.  I wish you all success and pleasure at the ball.”

For a moment she did not speak; but fixed her clear, kind eyes on me more gravely and anxiously than usual.  Was she searching my heart, and discovering the new love rising, an usurper already, in the place where the love of her had reigned before?

Love! love for a shopkeeper’s daughter!  That thought came again, as she looked at me! and, strangely mingled with it, a maxim I had often heard my father repeat to Ralph—­ “Never forget that your station is not yours, to do as you like with.  It belongs to us, and belongs to your children.  You must keep it for them, as I have kept it for you.”