The Rector and The Doctor’s Family

The Rector

I

It is natural to suppose that the arrival of the new Rector was a rather exciting event for Carlingford. It is a considerable town, it is true, nowadays, but then there are no alien activities to disturb the place—no manufactures, and not much trade. And there is a very respectable amount of very good society at Carlingford. To begin with, it is a pretty place—mild, sheltered, not far from town; and naturally its very reputation for good society increases the amount of that much-prized article. The advantages of the town in this respect have already put five percent upon the house-rents; but this, of course, only refers to the real town, where you can go through an entire street of high garden-walls, with houses inside full of the retired exclusive comforts, the dainty economical refinement peculiar to such places; and where the good people consider their own society as a warrant of gentility less splendid, but not less assured, than the favour of Majesty itself. Naturally there are no Dissenters in Carlingford—that is to say, none above the rank of a greengrocer or milkman; and in bosoms devoted to the Church it may be well imagined that the advent of the new Rector was an event full of importance, and even of excitement.

He was highly spoken of, everybody knew; but nobody knew who had spoken highly of him, nor had been able to find out, even by inference, what were his views. The Church had been Low during the last Rector’s reign—profoundly Low—lost in the deepest abysses of Evangelicalism. A determined inclination to preach to everybody had seized upon that good man’s brain; he had half emptied Salem Chapel, there could be no doubt; but, on the other hand, he had more than half filled the Chapel of St. Roque, half a mile out of Carlingford, where the perpetual curate, young, handsome, and fervid, was on the very topmost pinnacle of Anglicanism. St. Roque’s was not more than a pleasant walk from the best quarter of Carlingford, on the north side of the town, thank heaven! which one could get at without the dread passage of that new horrid suburb, to which young Mr. Rider, the young doctor, was devoting himself. But the Evangelical rector was dead, and his reign was over, and nobody could predict what the character of the new administration was to be. The obscurity in which the new Rector had buried his views was the most extraordinary thing about him. He had taken high honours at college, and was “highly spoken of;” but whether he was High, or Low, or Broad, muscular or sentimental, sermonising or decorative, nobody in the world seemed able to tell.

“Fancy if he were just to be a Mr. Bury over again! Fancy him going to the canal, and having sermons to the bargemen, and attending to all sorts of people except to us, whom it is his duty to attend to!” cried one of this much-canvassed clergyman’s curious parishioners. “Indeed I do believe he must be one of these people. If he were in society at all, somebody would be sure to know.”

“Lucy dear, Mr. Bury christened you,” said another not less curious but more tolerant inquirer.

“Then he did you the greatest of all services,” cried the third member of the little group which discussed the new Rector under Mr. Wodehouse’s blossomed apple-trees. “He conferred such a benefit upon you that he deserves all reverence at your hand. Wonderful idea! a man confers this greatest of Christian blessings on multitudes, and does not himself appreciate the boon he conveys!”

“Well, for that matter, Mr. Wentworth, you know—” said the elder lady; but she got no farther. Though she was verging upon forty, leisurely, pious, and unmarried, that good Miss Wodehouse was not polemical. She had “her own opinions,” but few people knew much about them. She was seated on a green garden-bench which surrounded the great May-tree in that large, warm, well-furnished garden. The high brick walls, all clothed with fruit-trees, shut in an enclosure of which not a morsel except this velvet grass, with its nests of daisies, was not under the highest and most careful cultivation. It was such a scene as is only to be found in an old country town; the walls jealous of intrusion, yet thrusting tall plumes of lilac and stray branches of apple-blossom, like friendly salutations to the world without; within, the blossoms drooping over the light bright head of Lucy Wodehouse underneath the apple-trees, and impertinently flecking the Rev. Frank Wentworth’s Anglican coat. These two last were young people, with that indefinable harmony in their looks which prompts the suggestion of “a handsome couple” to the bystander. It had not even occurred to them to be in love with each other, so far as anybody knew, yet few were the undiscerning persons who saw them together without instinctively placing the young curate of St. Roque’s in permanence by Lucy’s side. She was twenty, pretty, blue-eyed, and full of dimples, with a broad Leghorn hat thrown carelessly on her head, untied, with broad strings of blue ribbon falling among her fair curls—a blue which was “repeated,” according to painter jargon, in ribbons at her throat and waist. She had great gardening gloves on, and a basket and huge pair of scissors on the grass at her feet, which grass, besides, was strewed with a profusion of all the sweetest spring blossoms—the sweet narcissus, most exquisite of flowers, lilies of the valley, white and blue hyacinths, golden ranunculus globes—worlds of sober, deep-breathing wallflower. If Lucy had been doing what her kind elder sister called her “duty,” she would have been at this moment arranging her flowers in the drawing-room; but the times were rare when Lucy did her duty according to Miss Wodehouse’s estimate; so instead of arranging those clusters of narcissus, she clubbed them together in her hands into a fragrant dazzling sheaf, and discussed the new Rector—not unaware, perhaps, in her secret heart, that the sweet morning, the sunshine and flowers, and exhilarating air, were somehow secretly enhanced by the presence of that black Anglican figure under the apple-trees.

“But I suppose,” said Lucy, with a sigh, “we must wait till we see him; and if I must be very respectful of Mr. Bury because he christened me, I am heartily glad the new Rector has no claim upon my reverence. I have been christened, I have been confirmed—”

“But, Lucy, my dear, the chances are he will marry you,” said Miss Wodehouse, calmly; “indeed, there can be no doubt that it is only natural he should, for he is the Rector, you know; and though we go so often to St. Roque’s, Mr. Wentworth will excuse me saying that he is a very young man.”

Miss Wodehouse was knitting; she did not see the sudden look of dismay and amazement which the curate of St. Roque’s darted down upon her, nor the violent sympathetic blush which blazed over both the young faces. How shocking that elderly quiet people should have such a faculty for suggestions! You may be sure Lucy Wodehouse and young Wentworth, had it not been “put into their heads” in such an absurd fashion, would never, all their virtuous lives, have dreamt of anything but friendship. Deep silence ensued after this simple but startling speech. Miss Wodehouse knitted on, and took no notice; Lucy began to gather up the flowers into the basket, unable for her life to think of anything to say. For his part, Mr. Wentworth gravely picked the apple-blossoms off his coat, and counted them in his hand. That sweet summer snow kept dropping, dropping, falling here and there as the wind carried it, and with a special attraction to Lucy and her blue ribbons; while behind, Miss Wodehouse sat calmly on the green bench, under the May-tree just beginning to bloom, without lifting her eyes from her knitting. Not far off, the bright English house, all beaming with open doors and windows, shone in the sunshine. With the white May peeping out among the green overhead, and the sweet narcissus in a great dazzling sheaf upon the grass, making all the air fragrant around them, can anybody fancy a sweeter domestic out-of-door scene? or else it seemed so to the perpetual curate of St. Roque’s.

Ah me! and if he was to be perpetual curate, and none of his great friends thought upon him, or had preferment to bestow, how do you suppose he could ever, ever marry Lucy Wodehouse, if they were to wait a hundred years?

Just then the garden-gate—the green gate in the wall—opened to the creaking murmur of Mr. Wodehouse’s own key. Mr. Wodehouse was a man who creaked universally. His boots were a heavy infliction upon the good-humour of his household; and like every other invariable quality of dress, the peculiarity became identified with him in every particular of his life. Everything belonging to him moved with a certain jar, except, indeed, his household, which went on noiseless wheels, thanks to Lucy and love. As he came along the garden path, the gravel started all round his unmusical foot. Miss Wodehouse alone turned round to hail her father’s approach, but both the young people looked up at her instinctively, and saw her little start, the falling of her knitting-needles, the little flutter of colour which surprise brought to her maidenly, middle-aged cheek. How they both divined it I cannot tell, but it certainly was no surprise to either of them when a tall embarrassed figure, following the portly one of Mr. Wodehouse, stepped suddenly from the noisy gravel to the quiet grass, and stood gravely awkward behind the father of the house.

“My dear children, here’s the Rector—delighted to see him! we’re all delighted to see him!” cried Mr. Wodehouse. “This is my little girl Lucy, and this is my eldest daughter. They’re both as good as curates, though I say it, you know, as shouldn’t. I suppose you’ve got something tidy for lunch, Lucy, eh? To be sure you ought to know—how can I tell? She might have had only cold mutton, for anything I knew—and that won’t do, you know, after college fare. Hollo, Wentworth! I beg your pardon—who thought of seeing you here? I thought you had morning service, and all that sort of thing. Delighted to make you known to the Rector so soon. Mr. Proctor—Mr. Wentworth of St. Roque’s.”

The Rector bowed. He had no time to say anything, fortunately for him; but a vague sort of colour fluttered over his face. It was his first living; and cloistered in All Souls for fifteen years of his life, how is a man to know all at once how to accost his parishioners? especially when these curious unknown specimens of natural life happen to be female creatures, doubtless accustomed to compliment and civility. If ever anyone was thankful to hear the sound of another man’s voice, that person was the new Rector of Carlingford, standing in the bewildering garden-scene into which the green door had so suddenly admitted him, all but treading on the dazzling bundle of narcissus, and turning with embarrassed politeness from the perpetual curate, whose salutation was less cordial than it might have been, to those indefinite flutters of blue ribbon from which Mr. Proctor’s tall figure divided the ungracious young man.

“But come along to lunch. Bless me! don’t let us be too ceremonious,” cried Mr. Wodehouse. “Take Lucy, my dear sir—take Lucy. Though she has her garden-gloves on, she’s manager indoors for all that. Molly here is the one we coddle up and take care of. Put down your knitting, child, and don’t make an old woman of yourself. To be sure, it’s your own concern—you should know best; but that’s my opinion. Why, Wentworth, where are you off to? ’Tisn’t a fast, surely—is it, Mary?—nothing of the sort; it’s Thursday—Thursday, do you hear? and the Rector newly arrived. Come along.”

“I am much obliged, but I have an appointment,” began the curate, with restraint.

“Why didn’t you keep it, then, before we came in,” cried Mr. Wodehouse, “chatting with a couple of girls like Lucy and Mary? Come along, come along—an appointment with some old woman or other, who wants to screw flannels and things out of you—well, I suppose so! I don’t know anything else you could have to say to them. Come along.”

“Thank you. I shall hope to wait on the Rector shortly,” said young Wentworth, more and more stiffly; “but at present I am sorry it is not in my power. Good morning, Miss Wodehouse—good morning; I am happy to have had the opportunity—” and the voice of the perpetual curate died off into vague murmurs of politeness as he made his way towards the green door.

That green door! what a slight, paltry barrier—one plank and no more; but outside a dusty dry road, nothing to be seen but other high brick walls, with here and there an apple-tree or a lilac, or the half-developed flower-turrets of a chestnut looking over—nothing to be seen but a mean little costermonger’s cart, with a hapless donkey, and, down in the direction of St. Roque’s, the long road winding, still drier and dustier. Ah me! was it paradise inside? or was it only a merely mortal lawn dropped over with apple-blossoms, blue ribbons, and other vanities? Who could tell? The perpetual curate wended sulky on his way. I fear the old woman would have made neither flannel nor tea and sugar out of him in that inhuman frame of mind.

“Dreadful young prig that young Wentworth,” said Mr. Wodehouse, “but comes of a great family, you know, and gets greatly taken notice of—to be sure he does, child. I suppose it’s for his family’s sake: I can’t see into people’s hearts. It may be higher motives, to be sure, and all that. He’s gone off in a huff about something; never mind, luncheon comes up all the same. Now, let’s address ourselves to the business of life.”

For when Mr. Wodehouse took knife and fork in hand a singular result followed. He was silent—at least he talked no longer: the mystery of carving, of eating, of drinking—all the serious business of the table—engrossed the good man. He had nothing more to say for the moment; and then a dread unbroken silence fell upon the little company. The Rector coloured, faltered, cleared his throat—he had not an idea how to get into conversation with such unknown entities. He looked hard at Lucy, with a bold intention of addressing her; but, having the bad fortune to meet her eye, shrank back, and withdrew the venture. Then the good man inclined his profile towards Miss Wentworth. His eyes wandered wildly round the room in search of a suggestion; but, alas! it was a mere dining-room, very comfortable, but not imaginative. In his dreadful dilemma he was infinitely relieved by the sound of somebody’s voice.

“I trust you will like Carlingford, Mr. Proctor,” said Miss Wodehouse, mildly.

“Yes—oh yes; I trust so,” answered the confused but grateful man; “that is, it will depend very much, of course, on the kind of people I find here.”

“Well, we are a little vain. To tell the truth, indeed, we rather pride ourselves a little on the good society in Carlingford,” said his gentle and charitable interlocutor.

“Ah, yes—ladies?” said the Rector: “hum—that was not what I was thinking of.”

“But, oh, Mr. Proctor,” cried Lucy, with a sudden access of fun, “you don’t mean to say that you dislike ladies’ society, I hope?”

The Rector gave an uneasy half-frightened glance at her. The creature was dangerous even to a Fellow of All Souls.

“I may say I know very little about them,” said the bewildered clergyman. As soon as he had said the words he thought they sounded rude; but how could he help it?—the truth of his speech was indisputable.

“Come here, and we’ll initiate you—come here as often as you can spare us a little of your time,” cried Mr. Wodehouse, who had come to a pause in his operations. “You couldn’t have a better chance. They’re head people in Carlingford, though I say it. There’s Mary, she’s a learned woman; take you up in a false quantity, sir, a deal sooner than I should. And Lucy, she’s in another line altogether; but there’s quantities of people swear by her. What’s the matter, children, eh? I suppose so—people tell me so. If people tell me so all day long, I’m entitled to believe it, I presume?”

Lucy answered this by a burst of laughter, not loud but cordial, which rang sweet and strange upon the Rector’s ears. Miss Wodehouse, on the contrary, looked a little ashamed, blushed a pretty pink old-maidenly blush, and mildly remonstrated with papa. The whole scene was astonishing to the stranger. He had been living out of nature so long that he wondered within himself whether it was common to retain the habits and words of childhood to such an age as that which good Miss Wodehouse put no disguise upon, or if sisters with twenty years of difference between them were usual in ordinary households. He looked at them with looks which to Miss Wodehouse appeared disapproving, but which in reality meant only surprise and discomfort. He was exceedingly glad when lunch was over, and he was at liberty to take his leave. With very different feelings from those of young Wentworth the Rector crossed the boundary of that green door. When he saw it closed behind him he drew a long breath of relief, and looked up and down the dusty road, and through those lines of garden walls, where the loads of blossom burst over everywhere, with a sensation of having escaped and got at liberty. After a momentary pause and gaze round him in enjoyment of that liberty, the Rector gave a start and went on again rapidly. A dismayed, discomfited, helpless sensation came over him. These parishioners!—these female parishioners! From out of another of those green doors had just emerged a brilliant group of ladies, the rustle of whose dress and murmur of whose voices he could hear in the genteel half-rural silence. The Rector bolted: he never slackened pace nor drew breath till he was safe in the vacant library of the Rectory, among old Mr. Bury’s bookshelves. It seemed the only safe place in Carlingford to the languishing transplanted Fellow of All Souls.

II

A month later, Mr. Proctor had got fairly settled in his new rectory, with a complete modest establishment becoming his means—for Carlingford was a tolerable living. And in the newly-furnished sober drawing-room sat a very old lady, lively but infirm, who was the Rector’s mother. Nobody knew that this old woman kept the Fellow of All Souls still a boy at heart, nor that the reserved and inappropriate man forgot his awkwardness in his mother’s presence. He was not only a very affectionate son, but a dutiful good child to her. It had been his pet scheme for years to bring her from her Devonshire cottage, and make her mistress of his house. That had been the chief attraction, indeed, which drew him to Carlingford; for had he consulted his own tastes, and kept to his college, who would insure him that at seventy-five his old mother might not glide away out of life without that last gleam of sunshine long intended for her by her grateful son?

This scene, accordingly, was almost the only one which reconciled him to the extraordinary change in his life. There she sat, the lively old lady; very deaf, as you could almost divine by that vivid inquiring twinkle in her eyes; feeble too, for she had a silver-headed cane beside her chair, and even with that assistance seldom moved across the room when she could help it. Feeble in body, but alert in mind, ready to read anything, to hear anything, to deliver her opinions freely; resting in her big chair in the complete repose of age, gratified with her son’s attentions, and overjoyed in his company; interested about everything, and as ready to enter into all the domestic concerns of the new people as if she had lived all her life among them. The Rector sighed and smiled as he listened to his mother’s questions, and did his best, at the top of his voice, to enlighten her. His mother was, let us say, a hundred years or so younger than the Rector. If she had been his bride, and at the blithe commencement of life, she could not have shown more inclination to know all about Carlingford. Mr. Proctor was middle-aged, and preoccupied by right of his years; but his mother had long ago got over that stage of life. She was at that point when some energetic natures, having got to the bottom of the hill, seem to make a fresh start and reascend. Five years ago, old Mrs. Proctor had completed the human term; now she had recommenced her life.

But, to tell the very truth, the Rector would very fain, had that been possible, have confined her inquiries to books and public affairs. For to make confidential disclosures, either concerning one’s self or other people, in a tone of voice perfectly audible in the kitchen, is somewhat trying. He had become acquainted with those dread parishioners of his during this interval. Already they had worn him to death with dinner-parties—dinner-parties very pleasant and friendly, when one got used to them; but to a stranger frightful reproductions of each other, with the same dishes, the same dresses, the same stories, in which the Rector communicated gravely with his next neighbour, and eluded as long as he could those concluding moments in the drawing-room which were worst of all. It cannot be said that his parishioners made much progress in their knowledge of the Rector. What his “views” were, nobody could divine any more than they could before his arrival. He made no innovations whatever; but he did not pursue Mr. Bury’s Evangelical ways, and never preached a sermon or a word more than was absolutely necessary. When zealous Churchmen discussed the progress of Dissent, the Rector scarcely looked interested; and nobody could move him to express an opinion concerning all that lovely upholstery with which Mr. Wentworth had decorated St. Roque’s. People asked in vain, what was he? He was neither High nor Low, enlightened nor narrow-minded; he was a Fellow of All Souls.

“But now tell me, my dear,” said old Mrs. Proctor, “who’s Mr. Wodehouse?”

With despairing calmness, the Rector approached his voice to her ear. “He’s a churchwarden!” cried the unfortunate man, in a shrill whisper.

“He’s what?—you forget I don’t hear very well. I’m a great deal deafer, Morley, my dear, than I was the last time you were in Devonshire. What did you say Mr. Wodehouse was?”

“He’s an ass!” exclaimed the baited Rector.

Mrs. Proctor nodded her head with a great many little satisfied assenting nods.

“Exactly my own opinion, my dear. What I like in your manner of expressing yourself, Morley, is its conciseness,” said the laughing old lady. “Just so—exactly what I imagined; but being an ass, you know, doesn’t account for him coming here so often. What is he besides, my dear?”

The Rector made spasmodic gestures towards the door, to the great amusement of his lively mother; and then produced, with much confusion and after a long search, his pocketbook, on a leaf of paper in which he wrote—loudly, in big characters—“He’s a churchwarden—they’ll hear in the kitchen.”

“He’s a churchwarden! And what if they do hear in the kitchen?” cried the old lady, greatly amused; “it isn’t a sin. Well, now, let me hear: has he a family, Morley?”

Again Mr. Proctor showed a little discomposure. After a troubled look at the door, and pause, as if he meditated a remonstrance, he changed his mind, and answered, “Two daughters!” shouting sepulchrally into his mother’s ear.

“Oh so!” cried the old lady—“two daughters—so, so—that explains it all at once. I know now why he comes to the Rectory so often. And, I declare, I never thought of it before. Why, you’re always there!—so, so—and he’s got two daughters, has he? To be sure; now I understand it all.”

The Rector looked helpless and puzzled. It was difficult to take the initiative and ask why—but the poor man looked so perplexed and ignorant, and so clearly unaware what the solution was, that the old lady burst into shrill, gay laughter as she looked at him.

“I don’t believe you know anything about it,” she said. “Are they old or young? are they pretty or ugly? Tell me all about them, Morley.”

Now Mr. Proctor had not the excuse of having forgotten the appearance of the two Miss Wodehouses: on the contrary, though not an imaginative man, he could have fancied he saw them both before him—Lucy lost in noiseless laughter, and her good elder sister deprecating and gentle as usual. We will not even undertake to say that a gleam of something blue did not flash across the mind of the good man, who did not know what ribbons were. He was so much bewildered that Mrs. Proctor repeated her question, and, as she did so, tapped him pretty smartly on the arm to recall his wandering thoughts.

“One’s one thing,” at last shouted the confused man, “and t’other’s another!” An oracular deliverance which surely must have been entirely unintelligible in the kitchen, where we will not deny that an utterance so incomprehensible awoke a laudable curiosity.

“My dear, you’re lucid!” cried the old lady, “I hope you don’t preach like that. T’other’s another!—is she so? and I suppose that’s the one you’re wanted to marry—eh? For shame, Morley, not to tell your mother!”

The Rector jumped to his feet, thunderstruck. Wanted to marry!—the idea was too overwhelming and dreadful—his mind could not receive it. The air of alarm which immediately diffused itself all over him—his unfeigned horror at the suggestion—captivated his mother. She was amused, but she was pleased at the same time. Just making her cheery outset on this second lifetime, you can’t suppose she would have been glad to hear that her son was going to jilt her, and appoint another queen in her stead.

“Sit down and tell me about them,” said Mrs. Proctor; “my dear, you’re wonderfully afraid of the servants hearing. They don’t know who we’re speaking of. Aha! and so you didn’t know what they meant—didn’t you? I don’t say you shouldn’t marry, my dear—quite the reverse. A man ought to marry, one time or another. Only it’s rather soon to lay their plans. I don’t doubt there’s a great many unmarried ladies in your church, Morley. There always is in a country place.”

To this the alarmed Rector answered only by a groan—a groan so expressive that his quick-witted mother heard it with her eyes.

“They will come to call on me,” said Mrs. Proctor, with fun dancing in her bright old eyes. “I’ll tell you all about them, and you needn’t be afraid of the servants. Trust to me, my dear—I’ll find them out. And now, if you wish to take a walk, or go out visiting, don’t let me detain you, Morley. I shouldn’t wonder but there’s something in the papers I would like to see—or I even might close my eyes for a few minutes: the afternoon is always a drowsy time with me. When I was in Devonshire, you know, no one minded what I did. You had better refresh yourself with a nice walk, my dear boy.”

The Rector got up well pleased. The alacrity with which he left the room, however, did not correspond with the horror-stricken and helpless expression of his face, when, after walking very smartly all round the Rectory garden, he paused with his hand on the gate, doubtful whether to retreat into his study, or boldly to face that world which was plotting against him. The question was a profoundly serious one to Mr. Proctor. He did not feel by any means sure that he was a free agent, or could assert the ordinary rights of an Englishman, in this most unexpected dilemma. How could he tell how much or how little was necessary to prove that a man had “committed himself”? For anything he could tell, somebody might be calculating upon him as her lover, and settling his future life for him. The Rector was not vain—he did not think himself an Adonis; he did not understand anything about the matter, which indeed was beneath the consideration of a Fellow of All Souls. But have not women been incomprehensible since ever there was in this world a pen with sufficient command of words to call them so? And is it not certain that, whether it may be to their advantage or disadvantage, every soul of them is plotting to marry somebody? Mr. Proctor recalled in dim but frightful reminiscences stories which had dropped upon his ear at various times of his life. Never was there a man, however ugly, disagreeable, or penniless, but he could tell of a narrow escape he had, some time or other. The Rector recollected and trembled. No woman was ever so dismayed by the persecutions of a lover, as was this helpless middle-aged gentleman under the conviction that Lucy Wodehouse meant to marry him. The remembrance of the curate of St. Roque’s gave him no comfort: her sweet youth, so totally unlike his sober age, did not strike him as unfavourable to her pursuit of him. Who could fathom the motives of a woman? His mother was wise, and knew the world, and understood what such creatures meant. No doubt it was entirely the case—a dreadful certainty—and what was he to do?

At the bottom of all this fright and perplexity must it be owned that the Rector had a guilty consciousness within himself, that if Lucy drove the matter to extremities, he was not so sure of his own powers of resistance as he ought to be? She might marry him before he knew what he was about; and in such a case the Rector could not have taken his oath at his own private confessional that he would have been so deeply miserable as the circumstances might infer. No wonder he was alarmed at the position in which he found himself; nobody could predict how it might end.

When Mr. Proctor saw his mother again at dinner, she was evidently full of some subject which would not bear talking of before the servants. The old lady looked at her son’s troubled apprehensive face with smiles and nods and gay hints, which he was much too preoccupied to understand, and which only increased his bewilderment. When the good man was left alone over his glass of wine, he drank it slowly, in funereal silence, with profoundly serious looks; and what between eagerness to understand what the old lady meant, and reluctance to show the extent of his curiosity, had a very heavy half-hour of it in that grave solitary dining-room. He roused himself with an effort from this dismal state into which he was falling. He recalled with a sigh the classic board of All Souls. Woe for the day when he was seduced to forsake that dear retirement! Really, to suffer himself to fall into a condition so melancholy, was far from being right. He must rouse himself—he must find some other society than parishioners; and with a glimpse of a series of snug little dinner-parties, undisturbed by the presence of women, Mr. Proctor rose and hurried after his mother, to hear what new thing she might have to say.

Nor was he disappointed. The old lady was snugly posted, ready for a conference. She made lively gestures to hasten him when he appeared at the door, and could scarcely delay the utterance of her news till he had taken his seat beside her. She had taken off her spectacles, and laid aside her paper, and cleared off her work into her workbasket. All was ready for the talk in which she delighted.

“My dear, they’ve been here,” said old Mrs. Proctor, rubbing her hands—“both together, and as kind as could be—exactly as I expected. An old woman gets double the attention when she’s got an unmarried son. I’ve always observed that; though in Devonshire, what with your fellowship and seeing you so seldom, nobody took much notice. Yes, they’ve been here; and I like them a great deal better than I expected, Morley, my dear.”

The Rector, not knowing what else to say, shouted “Indeed, mother!” into the old lady’s ear.

“Quite so,” continued that lively observer—“nice young women—not at all like their father, which is a great consolation. That elder one is a very sensible person, I am sure. She would make a nice wife for somebody, especially for a clergyman. She is not in her first youth, but neither are some other people. A very nice creature indeed, I am quite sure.”

During all this speech the Rector’s countenance had been falling, falling. If he was helpless before, the utter woe of his expression now was a spectacle to behold. The danger of being married by proxy was appalling certainly, yet was not entirely without alleviations; but Miss Wodehouse! who ever thought of Miss Wodehouse? To see the last remains of colour fade out of his cheek, and his very lip fall with disappointment, was deeply edifying to his lively old mother. She perceived it all, but made no sign.

“And the other is a pretty creature—certainly pretty: shouldn’t you say she was pretty, Morley?” said his heartless mother.

Mr. Proctor hesitated, hemmed—felt himself growing red—tried to intimate his sentiments by a nod of assent; but that would not do, for the old lady had presented her ear to him, and was blind to all his gestures.

“I don’t know much about it, mother,” he made answer at last.

“Much about it! it’s to be hoped not. I never supposed you did; but you don’t mean to say you don’t think her pretty?” said Mrs. Proctor—“but, I don’t doubt in the least, a sad flirt. Her sister is a very superior person, my dear.”

The Rector’s face lengthened at every word—a vision of these two Miss Wodehouses rose upon him every moment clearer and more distinct as his mother spoke. Considering how ignorant he was of all such female paraphernalia, it is extraordinary how correct his recollection was of all the details of their habitual dress and appearance. With a certain dreadful consciousness of the justice of what his mother said, he saw in imagination the mild elder sister in her comely old-maidenhood. Nobody could doubt her good qualities, and could it be questioned that for a man of fifty, if he was to do anything so foolish, a woman not quite forty was a thousand times more eligible than a creature in blue ribbons? Still the unfortunate Rector did not seem to see it: his face grew longer and longer—he made no answer whatever to his mother’s address; while she, with a spice of natural female malice against the common enemy triumphing for the moment over the mother’s admiration of her son, sat wickedly enjoying his distress, and aggravating it. His dismay and perplexity amused this wicked old woman beyond measure.

“I have no doubt that younger girl takes a pleasure in deluding her admirers,” said Mrs. Proctor; “she’s a wicked little flirt, and likes nothing better than to see her power. I know very well how such people do; but, my dear,” continued this false old lady, scarcely able to restrain her laughter, “if I were you, I would be very civil to Miss Wodehouse. You may depend upon it, Morley, that’s a very superior person. She is not very young, to be sure, but you are not very young yourself. She would make a nice wife—not too foolish, you know, nor fanciful. Ah! I like Miss Wodehouse, my dear.”

The Rector stumbled up to his feet hastily, and pointed to a table at a little distance, on which some books were lying. Then he went and brought them to her table. “I’ve brought you some new books,” he shouted into her ear. It was the only way his clumsy ingenuity could fall upon for bringing this most distasteful conversation to an end.

The old lady’s eyes were dancing with fun and a little mischief, but, notwithstanding, she could not be so false to her nature as to show no interest in the books. She turned them over with lively remarks and comment. “But for all that, Morley, I would not have you forget Miss Wodehouse,” she said, when her early bedtime came. “Give it a thought now and then, and consider the whole matter. It is not a thing to be done rashly; but still you know you are settled now, and you ought to be thinking of settling for life.”

With this parting shaft she left him. The troubled Rector, instead of sitting up to his beloved studies, went early to bed that night, and was pursued by nightmares through his unquiet slumbers. Settling for life! Alas! there floated before him vain visions of that halcyon world he had left—that sacred soil at All Souls, where there were no parishioners to break the sweet repose. How different was this discomposing real world!