“Whew!” John whistled, and surveyed him rather curiously from head to foot.  “It is another case of deluded souls not knowing what an escape they’ve had.  What! she thought you a catch in the old days.”

“That’s all you know about it!” said Jock.  “She is not that sort.  The poverty is nothing, but there’s a fitness in things.  Women, the best of them, think much of what I suppose you call the row.  It fits in with all their chivalry and romance.”

“Then she’s a fool,” said John, shortly.

“I can’t stand any more of this, Monk, I tell you.  You know just nothing at all about it, and I’ve no right to complain, nor any one to bait me with questions.”

The Monk took the hint, and when they reached their own street Jock said—-

“You meant it all kindly, Reverend Friar, but there are things that won’t stand probing, as you’ll know some day.”

“Poor old chap,” said John, with his hand on his shoulder, “I’ll not bother you any more.  The veil shall be sacred.  If this has been going on all the time, I wonder you have carried it off so well!”

“Ali is a caution,” said Jock, who had shaken himself into his ordinary manner.  “What would become of Babie with two blighted beings on her hands?  Besides, he has some excuse, and I have not.”

After this at every carriage to which Lucas bowed, John frowned, and scanned the inmates in search of the fair deceiver, never making a guess in the right direction.

John had enough of the Kencroft character not to be original.  Set him to work, and he had plenty of intelligence and energy, perhaps more absolute force and power than his cousin Lucas; but he would never devise things for himself, and was not discursive, pausing at novelties, because his nature was so thorough that he could not take up anything without spending his very utmost force upon it.

His University training made him an excellent aid to Armine, who went up for his examination at King’s College and acquitted himself so well as to be admitted to begin his terms after the long vacation.

Indeed he and Barbara had drawn together again more.  She had her home tasks and her classes at King’s College, and did not fret as at St. Cradocke’s for want of work; she enjoyed the full tide of life, and had plenty of sympathy for whatever did not come before her in a “goody” aspect, and, though there might be little depth of serious reflection in her, she was a very charming member of the household.  Then her enjoyment of society was gratified, for society of her own kind had by no means forgotten one so agreeable as Mrs. Brownlow, and whereas, in her prosperity, she had never dropped old friends, they welcomed her back as one of themselves, resuming the homely inexpensive gatherings where the brains were more consulted than the palate, aesthetics more than fashion.  She was glad of it for the young people’s sake as well as her own, and returned to her old habit of keeping open house one evening in the week between eight and ten, with cups of coffee and varieties of cheap foreign drinks, and slight but dainty cakes made by herself and Babie according to lessons taken together at the school of cookery.