The Christmas guests began to arrive at Wodensbourne on the same day that Colin concluded this sacrifice; and for some days the tutor had scant¹ measure of that society which had lured² him to the relinquishment³ even of his “life.” When the house was full of people, Matty found a thousand occupations in which of necessity Colin had no share,—not to say that the young lady felt it a matter of prudence⁴, after she had accepted his sacrifice, to be as little as possible in his society. It was pleasant enough to feel her power, and to know that for her invaluable⁵ smile the boy had bartered⁶ his independent career; but to put him in the way of claiming any reward for his offering would have been exceedingly inconvenient⁷ to Matty. He paid the full penalty accordingly for at least a week thereafter, and had abundant opportunity of counting the cost and seeing what he had done. It was not exhilarating to spend the mornings with Charley, to answer his sharp questions, to satisfy his acute but superficial mind—in which curiosity was everything, and thought scarcely existed—and to feel that for this he had given up all that was individual in his life. He had left his own University, he had given up the chance of going to Oxford⁸, he had separated himself from his companions and given up his occupations—all for the pleasure of teaching Charley, of standing⁹ in a corner of the Wodensbourne drawing-room, and feeling acutely through every fibre of his sensitive Scotch¹⁰ frame that he was the tutor, and stood accordingly in about as much relationship to the society in which he found himself as if he had been a New Zealand chief. Colin, however, had made up his mind, and there was nothing for it now but to consent and accept his fate. But it was astonishing how different things looked from that corner of the drawing-room—unspeakably different from the aspect they bore when Colin himself was the only stranger present, and even different from the state of affairs after

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