'No,' said he, wondering a little at the earnestness—or rather the absentness—of her manner. 'I only caught a glimpse of her. She belongs to one of the visiting sisterhoods.'

Nan was silent for a second or two.

'You came to the wedding, of course?' continued Mr. Jacomb, cheerfully. 'A capital match, that, for young De la Poer. She will have 18,000 pounds a year when her mother dies; and she is pretty too. She puts a little side on, perhaps, when she's talking to strangers; but that's nothing. His brother was at Oxford when I was there, I remember—an awfully fast fellow; but they say all the sons of clergymen are; the other swing of the pendulum, you know. There's a medium in all things; and if one generation gives itself over too much to piety, the next goes as far the other way. I suppose it's human nature.'

This air of agreeable levity—this odour of worldliness (which was in great measure assumed)—did not seem to accord well with Nan's present mood. She was disturbed—uncertain—yearning for something she knew not what—and the echoes of that strange cry in the music were still in her soul. Mr. Jacomb's airs of being a man of the world—of being a clergyman who scorned to attach any esoteric mystery to his cloth, or to expect to be treated with a particular reverence—might put him on easy terms of friendship with Nan's sisters; but they only made Nan regretful, and sometimes even impatient. Did he imagine the assumption of flippancy made him appear younger than he really was? In any case it was bad policy so far as Nan was concerned. Nan was a born worshipper. She was bound to believe in something or somebody. And the story she had heard of the Rev. Charles Jacomb's assiduous, earnest, uncomplaining labour in that big parish had at the very outset won for him her great regard. He did not understand how he was destroying her childlike faith in him by his saturnine little jokes.

'Mr. Jacomb,' said Nan, timidly, 'I should be so greatly obliged to you if you could find out something more for me about those sisterhoods. They must do a great deal of good. And their dress is such a protection; they can go anywhere without fear of rudeness or insult. I suppose it is not a difficult thing to get admission——'

He was staring at her in amazement.

'But not for you—not for you!' he cried. 'Why, it is preposterous for you to think of such a thing. There are plenty who have nothing else in the world to look forward to. You have all your life before you yet. My dear Miss Anne, you must not indulge in day-dreams. Look at your sister Madge. Oh, by-the-way, she said something about your mamma having sent me a note this morning, asking me to dine with you on Friday evening; and then remembering, after the note was posted, that on that evening you had taken a box for the pantomime. Well, there needs be no trouble about that, if I may join your party to go there also.'

Nan said nothing; but perhaps there was the slightest trace of surprise, or interrogation in her look. Immediately he said—

'Oh, I very much approve of pantomimes, from a professional point of view—I do, really. You see, the imagination of most people is very dull—it wants a stimulus—and I am perfectly certain, if the truth were known, that the great majority of people in this country have derived their pictorial notions of heaven from the transformation-scenes in pantomimes. I am certain of it. John Martin's pictures—the only other alternative—are not striking enough. So, on the whole, I very much approve of pantomimes; and I shall be very glad to go with you on Friday, if I may.'

Nan made some excuse, shook hands with him, and went. She walked home hurriedly, she knew not why; it almost seemed as though she wanted to leave something well behind her. And she was very kind to her sisters for the remainder of that day; but somewhat grave.