IX. "A LITTLE PROUD, BUT FULL OF PITY.*"

 Although only twenty-four hours absent from Bissett, Frank Churchill during that short period had undergone more mental conflict than is often suffered by many men in a course of years. He had had full time for reflection, and had availed himself of it to the utmost. While within the charmed circle he was necessarily under fascination; but now, although the witch was any thing but exorcised, he felt sufficiently himself to collect his thoughts, and he saw the absolute necessity of coming to some fixed determination as to his future conduct before he returned. Often before had he had occasion to weigh matters almost as important as this, though of course of a different character; and he was not the man to blink one jot of the attendant difficulties, or to over-persuade himself as to the feasibility of his designs simply because he wished them carried out. He was in love with this girl, then; he supposed that must be granted? at all events, by analysis and comparison, that was easily ascertained. Though, as the world goes, his life had been tolerably pure, he had in his student-days, and in the time immediately subsequent, had his amourettes and flirtations like the rest; but when he remembered what had been his feelings for Gretchen, the fat and fair daughter of Anton Schütz, the beery saddler; for Ernestine, the sentimental heiress of the Graf von Triebenfeld; for Eugénie and Olympe, vestals of the Quartier Latin; or for any of the half-hundred young ladies with whom during the earlier portion of his London career he had gone through the usual bouquet-sending, cotillon-dancing, Botanical-Fête-meeting flirtation,--he recognised at once that this was a very different matter. Breakers ahead and all round! As for Barbara, he felt conscious of no vanity in avowing to himself his perception of having excited her interest, but whether sufficiently to induce her to listen to an offer he could not imagine. Possibly, probably, she looked to making a brilliant marriage: her beauty and accomplishments were her capital, and should be turned to good purpose; and yet, as this idea passed through his mind, he had an instinctive feeling that Barbara's proud spirit would revolt from any such match, however much it might be pressed on her by her relations. Her relations! ay, even granting the girl's acquiescence, there would be one of the grand sources of difficulty: old Miss Lexden, rich, selfish, and narrow-minded, would doubtless oppose such a marriage in every possible way; and how would Sir Marmaduke look upon him, having come an invited and a welcome guest, and then brought this discord into the family? And even suppose it arranged somehow, she consenting and her friends satisfied, what was to be done with his mother, with whom and in whose house he then resided? how and where was the rest of her life to be passed? He could not live far from the office, where, thrice a week always, and occasionally more frequently, he was engaged till past midnight; and how would the brilliant beauty of the West be able to exist in the dreary fastnesses of Great Adullam Street, or the arid desert of Tiglath-Pileser Square? And then the narrow income--competence for one, a bare sufficiency for two! His horse must be given up, but that he would not so much mind; his Club (the Retrenchment) must be kept on, for business purposes, though he should of course never spend any money there; and he must take to sixteen-shilling trousers, and that sort of thing; all easy enough. But for her?--no brougham (and fancy those tiny high-heeled bottines over the villanous Mesopotamian pavement!), only an occasional Opera-box obtained from the Statesman (situation high, surroundings queer, claqueurs and amis des artistes), two or three balls in the season, and perhaps one dinner-party at home, with the inevitable side-dishes and attendant carpet-beater. Ay, and worse beyond!--children born and reared in that dingy atmosphere, further expenditure to be met, perhaps sickness to be struggled through, and all the household gods dependent on him,--on the soundness of his health and the clearness of his brain, which failing, what had they to look to? A?e de me! that last thought settled the question. Let it fade out, pleasant dream that it was; or rather let him crush it for ever! It was impossible, and so let it pass. Down go the Spanish castles, away melt the aerial estates; Duty's foot kicks away Alnaschar's basket, and there is the hard, dry, unsympathetic, work-a-day world before him! He will go back to Bissett, but only for a day, just to get his traps together and to make some plausible excuse, and then will start off. This first week of his holiday has been any thing but rest, and rest he requires. He will go to Scarborough--no! not there, for reasons; but to some watering-place, and pitch pebbles into the sea and lie fallow until he is compelled to return to work. Yes, that is the right course--he determines on it finally as the train nears the Brighton station; hopes must be crushed, and Duty must be obeyed. Duty has won the day for once--and where is the pearl-gray glove now? At his lips, of course! Frank Churchill has resolved upon doing his duty, and, like the drunkard in the old story, is "treating resolution."