equally with the hounds and their masters, the pleasures of the chase.
Vernon was quite of this opinion in regard to his favourite sport. He
really felt that he gave as much pleasure as he took. And his own
forgettings were so easy that the easy forgetting of others seemed a
foregone conclusion. His forgetting always came first, that was all.
But now, the Spring, her charm and his own firm _parti pris_ working
together, it seemed to him that he could never forget Betty, could
never wish to forget her.

Her pretty conscious dignity charmed him. He stood still to look at
it. He took no step forward. His role was that of the deeply
respectful "brother artist." If his hand touched hers as he corrected
her drawing, that was accident. If, as he leaned over her, criticising
her work, the wind sent the end of her hair against his ear, that
could hardly be avoided in a breezy English spring. It was not his
fault that the little thrill it gave him was intensified a
hundred-fold when, glancing at her, he perceived that her own ears had
grown scarlet.

Betty went through her days in a dream. There were all the duties she
hated--the Mothers' meetings, the Parish visits when she tried to
adjust the quarrels and calm the jealousies of the stout aggressive
Mothers, the carrying round the Parish Magazine. There were no long
hours, now. In every spare moment she worked at her drawing to please
him. It was the least she could do, after all his kindness.

Her step-father surprised her once hard at work with charcoal and
board and plumb-line, a house-maid posing for her with a broom. He
congratulated himself that his little sermon on the advantages of
occupation as a cure for discontent had borne fruit so speedy and so