have required a man, not merely of greater goodness than James, but of
greater insight into the realities of life as well, to perceive the worth
and superiority of the girl who waited upon him with a devotion far more
angelic than servile; for whatever might have seemed to savour of the
latter, had love, hopeless of personal advantage, at the root of it.

Thus things went on for a while, with a continuous strengthening of the
pleasant yet not altogether easy bonds in which Isobel walked, and a
constant increase of the attraction that drew the student to the self-
yielding girl; until the appearance of another lodger in the house was the
means of opening Blatherwick's eyes to the state of his own feelings, by
occasioning the birth and recognition of a not unnatural jealousy, which
"gave him pause." On Isy's side there was not the least occasion for this
jealousy, and he knew it; but not the less he saw that, if he did not mean
to go further, here he must stop--the immediate result of which was that he
began to change a little in his behaviour toward her, when at any time she
had to enter his room in ministration to his wants.

Of this change the poor girl was at once aware, but she attributed it to a
temporary absorption in his studies. Soon, however, she could not doubt
that not merely was his voice or his countenance changed toward her, but
that his heart had grown cold, and that he was no longer "friends with
her." For there was another and viler element than mere jealousy concerned
in his alteration: he had become aware of a more real danger into which he
was rapidly drifting--that of irrecoverably blasting the very dawn of his
prospects by an imprudent marriage. "To saddle himself with a wife," as he
vulgarily expressed it, before he had gained his license--before even he
had had the poorest opportunity of distinguishing himself in that wherein
lay his every hope and ambition of proving his excellence, was a thing not
for a moment to be contemplated! And now, when Isobel asked him in