\"i don\"t want to be more liberal-minded, thank you,\" said mr. bell.

\"is mr. thornton ing to tea, papa?\" asked margaret in a low voice.

\"either to tea or soon after. he could not tell. he told us not to wait.\"

mr. thornton had determined that he would make no inquiry of hismother as to how far she had put her project into execution of speakingto margaret about the impropriety of her conduct. he felt pretty surethat, if this interview took place, his mother\"s account of what passed atit would only annoy and chagrin him, though he would all the time beaware of the colouring which it received by passing through her mind.

he shrank from hearing margaret\"s very name mentioned; he, while heblamed her--while he was jealous of her--while he renounced her--heloved her sorely, in spite of himself. he dreamt of her; he dreamt shecame dancing towards him with outspread arms, and with a lightnessand gaiety which made him loathe her, even while it allured him. butthe impression of this figure of margaret--with all margaret\"s charactertaken out of it, as pletely as if some evil spirit had got possession ofher form--was so deeply stamped upon his imagination, that when hewakened he felt hardly able to separate the una from the duessa; andthe dislike he had to the latter seemed to envelope and disfigure theformer yet he was too proud to acknowledge his weakness by āvoidingthe sight of her. he would neither seek an opportunity of being in herpany nor āvoid it. to convince himself of his power of self-control,he lingered over every piece of business this afternoon; he forced everymovement into unnatural slowness and deliberation; and it wasconsequently past eight o\"clock before he reached mr. hale\"s. thenthere were business arrangements to be transacted in the study with mr.

bell; and the latter kept on, sitting over the fire, and talking wearily,long after all business was transacted, and when they might just as wellhāve gone upstairs. but mr. thornton would not say a word aboutmoving their quarters; he chafed and chafed, and thought mr. bell amost prosy panion; while mr. bell returned the pliment insecret, by considering mr. thornton about as brusque and curt a fellowas he had ever met with, and terribly gone off both in intelligence andmanner. at last, some slight noise in the room above suggested thedesirableness of moving there. they found margaret with a letter openbefore her, eagerly discussing its contents with her father. on theentrance of the gentlemen, it was immediately put aside; but mr.

thornton\"s eager senses caught some few words of mr. hale\"s to mr.

bell.

\"a letter from henry lennox. it makes margaret very hopeful.\"

mr. bell nodded. margaret was red as a rose when mr. thornton lookedat her. he had the greatest mind in the world to get up and go out of theroom that very instant, and never set foot in the house again.

\"we were thinking,\" said mr. hale, \"that you and mr. thornton had takenmargaret\"s advice, and were each trying to convert the other, you wereso long in the study.\"

\"and you thought there would be nothing left of us but an opinion, likethe kilkenny cat\"s tail. pray whose opinion did you think would hāvethe most obstinate vitality?\"

mr. thornton had not a notion what they were talking about, anddisdained to inquire. mr. hale politely enlightened him.

\"mr. thornton, we were accusing mr. bell this morning of a kind ofoxonian mediaeval bigotry against his native town; and we--margaret, ibelieve--suggested that it would do him good to associate a little withmilton manufacturers.\"

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