"You think I have been angry and made an idiot of myself," said Mr Morgan to his wife, who was standing looking from a safe distance through the curtains at the three ladies, who were holding a consultation with their servant out of the window of the solemn chariot provided by the Blue Boar, as to where they were to go next.

"Nonsense, dear; but I wish you had not said quite so much about Mr Wentworth," said the Rector's wife, seizing, with female art, on a cause for her annoyance which would not wound her Welshman's amour propre, "for I rather think he is dependent on his aunts. They have the living of Skelmersdale, I know; and I remember now that their nephew was to have had it. I hope this won't turn them against him, dear," said Mrs Morgan, who did not care the least in the world about Skelmersdale, looking anxiously in her husband's face.

This was the climax of the Rector's trouble. "Why did not you tell me that before?" he said, with conjugal injustice, and went off to his study with a disturbed mind, thinking that perhaps he had injured his own chances of getting rid of the Perpetual Curate. If Mrs Morgan had permitted herself to soliloquise after he was gone, the matter of her thoughts might have been interesting; but as neither ladies nor gentlemen in the nineteenth century are given to that useful medium of disclosing their sentiments, the veil of privacy must remain over the mind of the Rector's wife. She got her gardening gloves and scissors, and went out immediately after, and had an animated discussion with the gardener about the best means of clothing that bit of wall, over which every railway train was visible which left or entered Carlingford. That functionary was of opinion that when the lime-trees "growed a bit" all would be right: but Mrs Morgan was reluctant to await the slow processes of nature. She forgot her vexations about Mr Wentworth in consideration of the still more palpable inconvenience of the passing train.



CHAPTER VI.

Miss Dora Wentworth relapsed into suppressed sobbing when the three ladies were once more on their way. Between each little access a few broken words fell from the poor lady's lips. "I am sure dear Frank did not mean it," she said; it was all the plea his champion could find for him.

"He did not mean what? to do his duty and save souls?" said Miss Leonora—"is that what he didn't mean? It looks very much as if he did, though—as well as he knew how."

"Quite so, Leonora," said Miss Wentworth.

"But he could not mean to vex the Rector," said Miss Dora—"my poor dear Frank: of course he meant it for the very best. I wonder you don't think so, Leonora—you who are so fond of missions. I told you what I heard him saying to the young lady—all about the sick people he was going to visit, and the children. He is a faithful shepherd, though you won't think so; and I am sure he means nothing but—"

"His duty, I think," said the iron-grey sister, resolutely indifferent to Miss Dora's little sniffs, and turning her gaze out of the window, unluckily just at the moment when the carriage was passing Masters's shop, where some engravings were hanging of a suspiciously devotional character. The name over the door, and the aspect of the shop-window, were terribly suggestive, and the fine profile of the Perpetual Curate was just visible within to the keen eyes of his aunt. Miss Dora, for her part, dried hers, and, beginning to see some daylight, addressed herself anxiously to the task of obscuring it, and damaging once more her favourite's chance.

"Ah, Leonora, if he had but a sphere of his own," cried Miss Dora, "where he would have other things to think of than the rubric, and decorations, and sisterhoods! I don't wish any harm to poor dear old Mr Shirley, I am sure; but when Frank is in the Rectory—"

"I thought you understood that Frank would not do for the Rectory," said Miss Leonora. "Sisterhoods!—look here, there's a young lady in a grey cloak, and I think she's going into that shop: if Frank carries on that sort of thing, I shall think him a greater fool than ever. Who is that girl?"

"I'm sure I don't know, dear," said Miss Dora, with unexpected wisdom. And she comforted her conscience that she did not know, for she had forgotten Lucy's name. So there was no tangible evidence to confirm Miss Leonora's doubts, and the carriage from the Blue Boar rattled down Prickett's Lane to the much amazement of that locality. When they got to the grimy canal-banks, Miss Leonora stopped the vehicle and got out. She declined the attendance of her trembling sister, and marched along the black pavement, dispersing with the great waves of her drapery the wondering children about, who swarmed as children will swarm in such localities. Arrived at the schoolroom, Miss Leonora found sundry written notices hung up in a little wooden frame inside the open door. All sorts of charitable businesses were carried on about the basement of the house; and a curt little notice about the Provident Society diversified the list of services which was hung up for the advantage of the ignorant. Clearly the Curate of St Roque's meant it. "As well as he knows how," his aunt allowed to herself, with a softening sentiment; but, pushing her inquiries further, was shown up to the schoolroom, and stood pondering by the side of the reading-desk, looking at the table which was contrived to be so like an altar. The Curate, who could not have dreamed of such a visit, and whose mind had been much occupied and indifferent to externals on the day before, had left various things lying about, which were carefully collected for him upon a bench. Among them was a little pocket copy of Thomas a Kempis, from which, when the jealous aunt opened it, certain little German prints, such as were to be had by the score at Masters's, dropped out, some of them unobjectionable enough. But if the Good Shepherd could not be found fault with, the feelings of Miss Leonora may be imagined when the meek face of a monkish saint, inscribed with some villanous Latin inscription, a legend which began with the terrible words Ora pro nobis, became suddenly visible to her troubled eyes. She put away the book as if it had stung her, and made a precipitate retreat. She shook her head as she descended the stair—she re-entered the carriage in gloomy silence. When it returned up Prickett's Lane, the three ladies again saw their nephew, this time entering the door of No. 10. He had his prayer-book under his arm, and Miss Leonora seized upon this professional symbol to wreak her wrath upon it. "I wonder if he can't pray by a sick woman without his prayer-book?" she cried. "I never was so provoked in my life. How is it he doesn't know better? His father is not pious, but he isn't a Puseyite, and old uncle Wentworth was very sound—he was brought up under the pure Gospel. How is that the boys are so foolish, Dora?" said Miss Leonora, sharply; "it must be your doing. You have told them tales and things, and put true piety out of their head."

"My doing!" said Miss Dora, faintly; but she was too much startled by the suddenness of the attack to make any coherent remonstrance. Miss Leonora tossed back her angry head, and pursued that inspiration, finding it a relief in her perplexity.

"It must be all your doing," she said. "How can I tell that you are not a Jesuit in disguise? one has read of such a thing. The boys were as good, nice, pious boys as one could wish to see; and there's Gerald on the point of perversion, and Frank—I tell you, Dora, it must be your fault."

"That was always my opinion," said Miss Cecilia; and the accused, after a feeble attempt at speech, could find nothing better to do than to drop her veil once more and cry under it. It was very hard, but she was not quite unaccustomed to it. However, the discoveries of the day were important enough to prevent the immediate departure which Miss Leonora had intended. She wrote a note with her own hands to her nephew, asking him to dinner. "We meant to have gone away to-day, but should like to see you first," she said in her note. "Come and dine—we mayn't have anything pleasant to say, but I don't suppose you expect that. It's a pity we don't see eye to eye." Such was the intimation received by Mr Wentworth when he got home, very tired, in the afternoon. He had been asking himself whether, under the circumstances, it would not be proper of him to return some books of Mr Wodehouse's which he had in his possession, of course by way of breaking off his too familiar, too frequent intercourse. He had been representing to himself that he would make this call after their dinner would be over, at the hour when Mr Wodehouse reposed in his easy-chair, and the two sisters were generally to be found alone in the drawing-room. Perhaps he might have an opportunity of intimating the partial farewell he meant to take of them. When he got Miss Leonora's note, the Curate's countenance clouded over. He said, "Another night lost," with indignant candour. It was hard enough to give up his worldly prospects, but he thought he had made up his mind to that. However, refusal was impossible. It was still daylight when he went up Grange Lane to the Blue Boar. He was early, and went languidly along the well-known road. Nobody was about at that hour. In those closed, embowered houses, people were preparing for dinner, the great event of the day, and Mr Wentworth was aware of that. Perhaps he had expected to see somebody—Mr Wodehouse going home, most likely, in order that he might mention his own engagement, and account for his failure in the chance evening call which had become so much a part of his life. But no one appeared to bear his message. He went lingering past the green door, and up the silent deserted road. At the end of Grange Lane, just in the little unsettled transition interval which interposed between its aristocratic calm and the bustle of George Street, on the side next Prickett's Lane, was a quaint little shop, into which Mr Wentworth strayed to occupy the time. This was Elsworthy's, who, as is well known, was then clerk at St Roque's. Elsworthy himself was in his shop that Easter Monday, and so was his wife and little Rosa, who was a little beauty. Rosa and her aunt had just returned from an excursion, and a prettier little apparition could not be seen than that dimpled rosy creature, with her radiant half-childish looks, her bright eyes, and soft curls of dark-brown hair. Even Mr Wentworth gave a second glance at her as he dropped languidly into a chair, and asked Elsworthy if there was any news. Mrs Elsworthy, who had been telling the adventures of the holiday to her goodman, gathered up her basket of eggs and her nosegay, and made the clergyman a little curtsy as she hurried away; for the clerk's wife was a highly respectable woman, and knew her own place. But Rosa, who was only a kind of kitten, and had privileges, stayed. Mr Wentworth was by far the most magnificent figure she had ever seen in her little life. She looked at him with awe out of her bright eyes, and thought he looked like the prince in the fairy tales.

"Any news, sir? There aint much to call news, sir—not in a place like this," said Mr Elsworthy. "Your respected aunts, sir, 'as been down at the schoolroom. I haven't heard anything else as I could suppose you didn't know."

"My aunts!" cried the Curate; "how do you know anything about my aunts?" Mr Elsworthy smiled a complacent and familiar smile.

"There's so many a-coming and a-going here that I know most persons as comes into Carlingford," said he; "and them three respected ladies is as good as a pictur. I saw them a-driving past and down Prickett's Lane. They was as anxious to know all about it as—as was to be expected in the circumstances," said Mr Elsworthy, failing of a metaphor; "and I wish you your 'ealth and 'appiness, sir, if all as I hear is true."

"It's a good wish," said the Curate; "thank you, Elsworthy; but what you heard might not be true."

"Well, sir, it looks more than likely," said the clerk; "as far as I've seen in my experience, ladies don't go inquiring into a young gentleman's ways, not without some reason. If they was young ladies, and noways related, we know what we'd think, sir; but being old ladies, and aunts, it's equally as clear. For my part, Mr Wentworth, my worst wish is, that when you come into your fortune, it mayn't lead you away from St Roque's—not after everything is settled so beautiful, and not a thing wanted but some stained glass, as I hear a deal of people say, to make it as perfect a little church—"

"Yes, it is very true; a painted window is very much wanted," said Mr Wentworth, thoughtfully.

"Perhaps there's one o' the ladies, sir, as has some friend she'd like to put up a memorial to," said Mr Elsworthy, in insinuating tones. "A window is a deal cheerfuller a memorial than a tombstone, and it couldn't be described the improvement it would be to the church. I'm sorry to hear Mr Wodehouse aint quite so well as his usual to-night; a useful man like he is, would be a terrible loss to Carlingford; not as it's anything alarming, as far as I can hear, but being a stout man, it aint a safe thing his being took so sudden. I've heard the old doctor say, sir, as a man of a full 'abit might be took off at once, when a spare man would fight through. It would be a sad thing for his family, sir," said Mr Elsworthy, tying up a bundle of newspapers with a very serious face.

"Good heavens, Elsworthy, how you talk!" said the alarmed Curate. "What do you mean?—is Mr Wodehouse ill?—seriously ill?"

"Not serious, as I knows of," said the clerk, with solemnity; "but being a man of a full 'abit of body—I daresay as the town would enter into it by subscription if it was proposed as a memorial to him, for he's much respected in Carlingford is Mr Wodehouse. I see him a-going past, sir, at five o'clock, which is an hour earlier than common, and he was looking flabby, that's how he was looking. I don't know a man as would be a greater loss to his family; and they aint been without their troubles either, poor souls."

"I should be sorry to think that it was necessary to sacrifice Mr Wodehouse for the sake of our painted window," said the Curate, "as that seems what you mean. Send over this note for me please, as I have not time to call. No, certainly, don't send Rosa; that child is too young and too—too pretty to be out by herself at night. Send a boy. Haven't you got a boy?—there is a very nice little fellow that I could recommend to you," said Mr Wentworth, as he hastily scribbled his note with a pencil, "whose mother lives in Prickett's Lane."

"Thank you, sir, all the same; but I hope I don't need to go into that neighbourhood for good service," said Mr Elsworthy: "as for Rosa, I could trust her anywhere; and I have a boy, sir, as is the best boy that ever lived—a real English boy, that is. Sam, take this to Mr Wodehouse's directly, and wait for an answer. No answer?—very well, sir. You needn't wait for no answer, Sam. That's a boy, sir, I could trust with untold gold. His mother's a Dissenter, it is true, but the principles of that boy is beautiful. I hope you haven't mentioned, sir, as I said Mr Wodehouse was took bad? It was between ourselves, Mr Wentworth. Persons don't like, especially when they've got to that age, and are of a full 'abit of body, to have every little attack made a talk about. You'll excuse me mentioning it, sir, but it was as between ourselves."

"Perhaps you'd like me to show you my note," said the Curate, with a smile; which, indeed, Elsworthy would have very much liked, could he have ventured to say so. Mr Wentworth was but too glad of an excuse to write and explain his absence. The note was not to Lucy, however, though various little epistles full of the business of the district had passed between the two:—

"DEAR MISS W.,—I hear your father is not quite well. I can't call just now, as I am going to dine with my aunts, who are at the Blue Boar; but, if you will pardon the lateness of the hour, I will call as I return to ask for him.—Ever yours,

"F. C. WENTWORTH."

Such was the Curate's note. While he scribbled it, little Rosa stood apart watching him with admiring eyes. He had said she was too pretty to be sent across Grange Lane by herself at this hour, though it was still no more than twilight; and he looked up at her for an instant as he said the words,—quite enough to set Rosa's poor little heart beating with childish romantical excitement. If she could but have peeped into the note to see what he said!—for perhaps, after all, there might not be anything "between" him and Miss Lucy—and perhaps— The poor little thing stood watching, deaf to her aunt's call, looking at the strange ease with which that small epistle was written, and thinking it half divine to have such mastery of words and pen. Mr Wentworth threw it to Sam as if it were a trifle; but Rosa's lively imagination could already conceive the possibility of living upon such trifles and making existence out of them; so the child stood with her pretty curls about her ears, and her bright eyes gleaming dewy over the fair, flushed, rosebud cheeks, in a flutter of roused and innocent imagination anticipating her fate. As for Mr Wentworth, it is doubtful whether he saw Rosa, as he swung himself round upon the stool he was seated on, and turned his face towards the door. Somehow he was comforted in his mind by the conviction that it was his duty to call at Mr Wodehouse's as he came back. The evening brightened up and looked less dismal. The illness of the respected father of the house did not oppress the young man. He thought not of the sick-room, but of the low chair in one corner, beside the work-table where Lucy had always basketfuls of sewing in hand. He could fancy he saw the work drop on her knee, and the blue eyes raised. It was a pretty picture that he framed for himself as he looked out with a half smile into the blue twilight through the open door of Elsworthy's shop. And it was clearly his duty to call. He grew almost jocular in the exhilaration of his spirits.

"The Miss Wentworths don't approve of memorial windows, Elsworthy," he said; "and, indeed, if you think it necessary to cut off one of the chief people in Carlingford by way of supplying St Roque's with a little painted glass—"

"No, sir—no, no, sir; you're too hard upon me—there wasn't no such meaning in my mind; but I don't make no question the ladies were pleased with the church," said Elsworthy, with the satisfaction of a man who had helped to produce an entirely triumphant effect. "I don't pretend to be a judge myself of what you call 'igh art, Mr Wentworth; but if I might venture an opinion, the altar was beautiful; and we won't say nothing about the service, considering, sir—if you won't be offended at putting them together, as one is so far inferior—that both you and me—"

Mr Wentworth laughed and moved off his chair. "We were not appreciated in this instance," he said, with an odd comic look, and then went off into a burst of laughter, which Mr Elsworthy saw no particular occasion for. Then he took up his glove, which he had taken off to write the note, and, nodding a kindly good-night to little Rosa, who stood gazing after him with all her eyes, went away to the Blue Boar. The idea, however, of his own joint performance with Mr Elsworthy not only tickled the Curate, but gave him a half-ashamed sense of the aspect in which he might himself appear to the eyes of matter-of-fact people who differed with him. The joke had a slight sting, which brought his laughter to an end. He went up through the lighted street to the inn, wishing the dinner over, and himself on his way back again to call at Mr Wodehouse's. For, to tell the truth, by this time he had almost exhausted Skelmersdale, and, feeling in himself not much different now from what he was when his hopes were still green, had begun to look upon life itself with a less troubled eye, and to believe in other chances which might make Lucy's society practicable once more. It was in this altered state of mind that he presented himself before his aunts. He was less self-conscious, less watchful, more ready to amuse them, if that might happen to be possible, and in reality much more able to cope with Miss Leonora than when he had been more anxious about her opinion. He had not been two minutes in the room before all the three ladies perceived this revolution, and each in her own mind attempted to account for it. They were experienced women in their way, and found a variety of reasons; but as none of them were young, and as people will forget how youth feels, not one of them divined the fact that there was no reason, but that this improvement of spirits arose solely from the fact that the Perpetual Curate had been for two whole days miserable about Skelmersdale, and had exhausted all his powers of misery—and that now youth had turned the tables, and he was still to see Lucy tonight.



CHAPTER VII.

"Your Rector is angry at some of your proceedings," said Miss Leonora. "I did not think a man of your views would have cared for missionary work. I should have supposed that you would think that vulgar, and Low-Church, and Evangelical. Indeed, I thought I heard you say you didn't believe in preaching, Frank?—neither do I, when a man preaches the Tracts for the Times. I was surprised to hear what you were doing at the place they call Wharfside."

"First let me correct you in two little inaccuracies," said Mr Wentworth, blandly, as he peeled his orange. "The Rector of Carlingford is not my rector, and I don't preach the Tracts for the Times. Let us always be particular, my dear aunt, as to points of fact."

"Exactly so," said Miss Leonora, grimly; "but, at the same time, as there seems no great likelihood of your leaving Carlingford, don't you think it would be wise to cultivate friendly relations with the Rector?" said the iron-grey inexorable aunt, looking full in his eyes as she spoke. So significant and plain a statement took for an instant the colour out of the Curate's cheeks—he pared his orange very carefully while he regained his composure, and it was at least half a minute before he found himself at leisure to reply. Miss Dora of course seized upon the opportunity, and, by way of softening matters, interposed in her unlucky person to make peace.

"But, my dear boy, I said I was sure you did not mean it," said Miss Dora; "I told Mr Morgan I felt convinced it could be explained. Nobody knows you so well as I do. You were always high-spirited from a child, and never would give in; but I know very well you never could mean it, Frank."

"Mean it?" said the Curate, with sparkling eyes: "what do you take me for, aunt Dora? Do you know what it is we are talking of? The question is, whether a whole lot of people, fathers and children, shall be left to live like beasts, without reverence for God or man, or shall be brought within the pale of the Church, and taught their duty? And you think I don't mean it? I mean it as much as my brother Charley meant it at the Redan," said young Wentworth, with a glow of suppressed enthusiasm, and that natural pride in Charley (who got the Cross for valour) which was common to all the Wentworths. But when he saw his aunt Leonora looking at him, the Perpetual Curate stood to his arms again. "I have still to learn that the Rector has anything to do with it," said the young Evangelist of Wharfside.

"It is in his parish, and he thinks he has," said Miss Leonora. "I wish you could see your duty more clearly, Frank. You seem to me, you know, to have a kind of zeal, but not according to knowledge. If you were carrying the real Gospel to the poor people, I shouldn't be disposed to blame you; for the limits of a parish are but poor things to pause for when souls are perishing; but to break the law for the sake of diffusing the rubric and propagating Tractarianism—"

"Oh, Leonora, how can you be so harsh and cruel?" cried Miss Dora; "only think what you are doing. I don't say anything about disappointing Frank, and perhaps injuring his prospects for life; for, to be sure, he is a true Wentworth, and won't acknowledge that; but think of my poor dear brother, with so many sons as he has to provide for, and so much on his mind; and think of ourselves and all that we have planned so often. Only think what you have talked of over and over; how nice it would be when he was old enough to take the Rectory, and marry Julia Trench—"

"Aunt Dora," said the Curate, rising from the table. "I shall have to go away if you make such appeals on my behalf. And besides, it is only right to tell you that, whatever my circumstances were, I never could nor would marry Julia Trench. It is cruel and unjust to bring in her name. Don't let us hear any more of this, if you have any regard for me."

"Quite so, Frank," said Miss Wentworth; "that is exactly what I was thinking." Miss Cecilia was not in the habit of making demonstrations, but she put out her delicate old hand to point her nephew to his seat again, and gave a soft slight pressure to his as she touched it. Old Miss Wentworth was a kind of dumb lovely idol to her nephews; she rarely said anything to them, but they worshipped her all the same for her beauty and those languid tendernesses which she showed them once in ten years or so. The Perpetual Curate was much touched by this manifestation. He kissed his old aunt's beautiful hand as reverently as if it had been a saint's. "I knew you would understand me," he said, looking gratefully at her lovely old face; which exclamation, however, was a simple utterance of gratitude, and would not have borne investigation. When he had resumed his seat and his orange, Miss Leonora cleared her throat for a grand address.

"Frank might as well tell us he would not have Skelmersdale," she said. "Julia Trench has quite other prospects, I am glad to say, though Dora talks like a fool on this subject as well as on many others. Mr Shirley is not dead yet, and I don't think he means to die, for my part; and Julia would never leave her uncle. Besides, I don't think any inducement in the world would make her disguise herself like a Sister of Mercy. I hope she knows better. And it is a pity that Frank should learn to think of Skelmersdale as if it were a family living," continued Miss Leonora. "For my part, I think people detached from immediate ties as we are, are under all the greater responsibility. But as you are likely to stay in Carlingford, Frank, perhaps we could help you with the Rector," she concluded blandly, as she ate her biscuit. The Curate, who was also a Wentworth, had quite recovered himself ere this speech was over, and proved himself equal to the occasion.

"If the Rector objects to what I am doing, I daresay he will tell me of it," said Mr Wentworth, with indescribable suavity. "I had the consent of the two former rectors to my mission in their parish, and I don't mean to give up such a work without a cause. But I am equally obliged to you, my dear aunt, and I hope Mr Shirley will live for ever. How long are you going to stay in Carlingford? Some of the people would like to call on you, if you remain longer. There are some great friends of mine here; and as I have every prospect of being perpetually the Curate, as you kindly observe, perhaps it might be good for me if I was seen to have such unexceptionable relationships—"

"Satire is lost upon me," said Miss Leonora, "and we are going to-morrow. Here comes the coffee. I did not think it had been so late. We shall leave by an early train, and you can come and see us off, if you have time."

"I shall certainly find time," said the nephew, with equal politeness; "and now you will permit me to say good-night, for I have a—one of my sick people to visit. I heard he was ill only as I came here, and had not time to call," added the Curate, with unnecessary explanitoriness, and took leave of his aunt Cecilia, who softly put something into his hand as she bade him good-night. Miss Dora, for her part, went with him to the door, and lingered leaning on his arm, down the long passage, all unaware, poor lady, that his heart was beating with impatience to get away, and that the disappointment for which she wanted to console him had at the present moment not the slightest real hold upon his perverse heart. "Oh, my dear boy, I hope you don't think it's my fault," said Miss Dora, with tears. "It must have come to this, dear, sooner or later: you see, poor Leonora has such a sense of responsibility; but it is very hard upon us, Frank, who love you so much, that she should always take her own way."

"Then why don't you rebel?" said the Curate, who, in the thought of seeing Lucy, was exhilarated, and dared to jest even upon the awful power of his aunt. "You are two against one; why don't you take it into your own hands and rebel?"

Miss Dora repeated the words with an alarmed quiver. "Rebel! oh, Frank, dear, do you think we could? To be sure, we are co-heiresses, and have just as good a right as she has; and for your sake, my dear boy," said the troubled woman, "oh, Frank, I wish you would tell me what to do! I never should dare to contradict Leonora with no one to stand by me; and then, if anything happened, you would all think I had been to blame," said poor aunt Dora, clinging to his arm. She made him walk back and back again through the long passage, which was sacred to the chief suite of apartments at the Blue Boar. "We have it all to ourselves, and nobody can see us here; and oh, my dear boy, if you would only tell me what I ought to do?" she repeated, with wistful looks of appeal. Mr Wentworth was too good-hearted to show the impatience with which he was struggling. He satisfied her as well as he could, and said good-night half-a-dozen times. When he made his escape at last, and emerged into the clear blue air of the spring night, the Perpetual Curate had no such sense of disappointment and failure in his mind as the three ladies supposed. Miss Leonora's distinct intimation that Skelmersdale had passed out of the region of probabilities, had indeed tingled through him at the moment it was uttered; but just now he was going to see Lucy, anticipating with impatience the moment of coming into her presence, and nothing in the world could have dismayed him utterly. He went down the road very rapidly, glad to find that it was still so early, that the shopkeepers in George Street were but just putting up their shutters, and that there was still time for an hour's talk in that bright drawing-room. Little Rosa was standing at the door of Elsworthy's shop, looking out into the dark street as he passed; and he said, "A lovely night, Rosa," as he went by. But the night was nothing particular in itself, only lovely to Mr Wentworth, as embellished with Lucy shining over it, like a distant star. Perhaps he had never in his life felt so glad that he was going to see her, so eager for her presence, as that night which was the beginning of the time when it would be no longer lawful for him to indulge in her society. He heaved a big sigh as that thought occurred to him, but it did not diminish the flush of conscious happiness; and in this mood he went down Grange Lane, with light resounding steps, to Mr Wodehouse's door.

But Mr Wentworth started with a very strange sensation when the door was stealthily, noiselessly opened to him before he could ring. He could not see who it was that called him in the darkness; but he felt that he had been watched for, and that the door was thrown open very hurriedly to prevent him from making his usual summons at the bell. Such an incident was incomprehensible. He went into the dark garden like a man in a dream, with a horrible vision of Archimage and the false Una somehow stealing upon his mind, he could not tell how. It was quite dark inside, for the moon was late of rising that night, and the faint stars threw no effectual lustre down upon the trees. He had to grope before him to know where he was going, asking in a troubled voice, "Who is there? What is the matter?" and falling into more and more profound bewilderment and uneasiness.

"Hush, hush, oh hush!—Oh, Mr Wentworth, it is I—I want to speak to you," said an agitated voice beside him. "Come this way—this way; I don't want any one to hear us." It was Miss Wodehouse who thus pitifully addressed the amazed Curate. She laid a tremulous hand on his arm, and drew him deeper into the shadows—into that walk where the limes and tall lilac-bushes grew so thickly. Here she came to a pause, and the sound of the terrified panting breath in the silence alarmed him more and more.

"Is Mr Wodehouse ill? What has happened?" said the astonished young man. The windows of the house were gleaming hospitably over the dark garden, without any appearance of gloom—the drawing-room windows especially, which he knew so well, brightly lighted, one of them open, and the sound of the piano and Lucy's voice stealing out like a celestial reality into the darkness. By the time he had become fully sensible of all these particulars his agitated companion had found her breath.

"Mr Wentworth, don't think me mad," said Miss Wodehouse; "I have come out to speak to you, for I am in great distress. I don't know what to do unless you will help me. Oh no, don't look at the house—nobody knows in the house; I would die rather than have them know. Hush, hush! don't make any noise. Is that some one looking out at the door?"

And just then the door was opened, and Mr Wodehouse's sole male servant looked out, and round the garden, as if he had heard something to excite his curiosity or surprise. Miss Wodehouse grasped the arm of the Perpetual Curate, and held him with an energy which was almost violence. "Hush, hush, hush," she said, with her voice almost at his ear. The excitement of this mild woman, the perfectly inexplicable mystery of the meeting, overwhelmed young Wentworth. He could think of nothing less than that she had lost her senses, and in his turn he took her hands and held her fast.

"What is the matter? I cannot tell you how anxious, how distressed I am. What has happened?" said the young man, under his breath.

"My father has some suspicion," she answered, after a pause—"he came home early to-day looking ill. You heard of it, Mr Wentworth—it was your note that decided me. Oh, heaven help us! it is so hard to know what to do. I have never been used to act for myself, and I feel as helpless as a baby. The only comfort I have was that it happened on Easter Sunday," said the poor gentlewoman, incoherently; "and oh! if it should prove a rising from the dead! If you saw me, Mr Wentworth, you would see I look ten years older; and I can't tell you how it is, but I think my father has suspicions;—he looked so ill—oh, so ill—when he came home to-night. Hush! hush! did you hear anything? I daren't tell Lucy; not that I couldn't trust her, but it is cruel when a young creature is happy, to let her know such miseries. Oh, Mr Wentworth, I daresay I am not telling you what it is, after all. I don't know what I am saying—wait till I can think. It was on Easter Sunday, after we came home from Wharfside; you remember we all came home together, and both Lucy and you were so quiet. I could not understand how it was you were so quiet, but I was not thinking of any trouble—and then all at once there he was."

"Who?" said the Curate, forgetting caution in his bewilderment.

Once more the door opened, and John appeared on the steps, this time with a lantern and the watch-dog, a great brown mastiff, by his side, evidently with the intention of searching the garden for the owners of those furtive voices. Mr Wentworth drew the arm of his trembling companion within his own. "I don't know what you want of me, but whatever it is, trust to me like—like a brother," he said, with a sigh. "But now compose yourself; we must go into the house: it will not do for you to be found here." He led her up the gravel-walk into the light of the lantern, which the vigilant guardian of the house was flashing among the bushes as he set out upon his rounds. John fell back amazed but respectful when he saw his mistress and the familiar visitor. "Beg your pardon, ma'am, but I knew there was voices, and I didn't know as any of the family was in the garden," said the man, discomfited. It was all Mr Wentworth could do to hold up the trembling figure by his side. As John retreated, she gathered a little fortitude. Perhaps it was easier for her to tell her hurried tremulous story, as he guided her back to the house, than it would have been in uninterrupted leisure and quiet. The family tragedy fell in broken sentences from her lips, as the Curate bent down his astonished ear to listen. He was totally unprepared for the secret which only her helplessness and weakness and anxiety to serve her father could have drawn from Miss Wodehouse's lips; and it had to be told so hurriedly that Mr Wentworth scarcely knew what it was, except a terrible unsuspected shadow overhanging the powerful house, until he had time to think it all over. There was no such time at this moment. His trembling companion left him as soon as they reached the house, to "compose herself," as she said. When he saw her face in the light of the hall lamp it was ghastly, and quivering with agitation, looking not ten years, as she said, but a hundred years older than when, in the sweet precision of her Sunday dress and looks, old Miss Wodehouse had bidden him good-bye at the green door. He went up to the drawing-room, notwithstanding, with as calm a countenance as he himself could collect, to pay the visit which, in this few minutes, had so entirely changed in character. Mr Wentworth felt as if he saw everything exactly as he had pictured it to himself half an hour ago. Lucy, who had left the piano, was seated in her low chair again, not working, but talking to Mr Wodehouse, who lay on the sofa, looking a trifle less rosy than usual, like a man who had had a fright, or been startled by some possible shadow of a ghost. To walk into the room, into the bright household glow, and smile and shake hands with them, feeling all the time that he knew more about them than they themselves did, was the strangest sensation to the young man. He asked how Mr Wodehouse did, with a voice which, to himself, sounded hollow and unnatural, and sat down beside the invalid, almost turning his back upon Lucy in his bewilderment. It was indeed with a great effort that Mr Wentworth mastered himself, and was able to listen to what his companion said.

"We are all right," said Mr Wodehouse—"a trifle of a headache or so—nothing to make a talk about; but Molly has forsaken us, and we were just about getting bored with each other, Lucy and I; a third person was all we wanted to make us happy—eh? Well I thought you looked at the door very often—perhaps I was mistaken—but I could have sworn you were listening and looking for somebody. No wonder either—I don't think so. I should have done just the same at your age."

"Indeed, papa, you are quite mistaken," said Lucy. "I suppose that means that I cannot amuse you by myself, though I have been trying all the evening. Perhaps Mr Wentworth will be more fortunate." And, either for shame of being supposed to look for him, or in a little innocent pique, she moved away from where she was sitting, and rang for tea, and left the two gentlemen to talk to each other. That is to say, Mr Wodehouse talked, and the Perpetual Curate sat looking vaguely at the fair figure which flitted about the room, and wondering if he were awake, or the world still in its usual place. After a while Miss Wodehouse came in, very tremulous and pale, and dropped into the first chair she could find, and pretended to occupy herself over her knitting. She had a headache, Lucy said; and Mr Wentworth sat watching while the younger sister tended the elder, bringing her tea, kissing her, persuading her to go and lie down, taking all kinds of affectionate trouble to cheer the pale woman, who looked over Lucy's fair head with eyes full of meaning to the bewildered visitor, who was the only one there who understood what her trouble meant. When he got up to go away, she wrung his hand with a pitiful gaze which went to his heart. "Let me know!" she said in a whisper; and, not satisfied still, went to the door with him, and lingered upon the stair, following slowly. "Oh, Mr Wentworth! be sure you let me know," she repeated, again looking wistfully after him as he disappeared into the dark garden, going out. The stars were still shining, the spring dews lying sweet upon the plants and turf. It was a lovelier night now than when Mr Wentworth had said so to little Rosa Elsworthy an hour ago; but mists were rising from the earth, and clouds creeping over the sky, to the startled imagination of the Perpetual Curate. He had found out by practical experiments, almost for the first time, that there were more things in earth and heaven than are dreamt of in the philosophy of youth.



CHAPTER VIII.

It was the next morning after this when Mrs Hadwin's strange lodger first appeared in the astonished house. He was the strangest lodger to be taken into a house of such perfect respectability, a house in Grange Lane; and it came to be currently reported in Carlingford after a time, when people knew more about it, that even the servants could not tell when or how he arrived, but had woke up one morning to find a pair of boots standing outside the closed door of the green room, which the good old lady kept for company, with sensations which it would be impossible to describe. Such a pair of boots they were too—muddy beyond expression, with old mud which had not been brushed off for days—worn shapeless, and patched at the sides; the strangest contrast to a handsome pair of Mr Wentworth's, which he, contrary to his usual neat habits, had kicked off in his sitting-room, and which Sarah, the housemaid, had brought and set down on the landing, close by these mysterious and unaccountable articles. When the bell of the green room rang an hour or two later, Sarah and the cook, who happened to be standing together, jumped three yards apart and stared at each other; the sound gave them both "a turn." But they soon got perfectly well used to that bell from the green room. It rung very often in the day, for "the gentleman" chose to sit there more than half his time; and if other people were private about him, it was a great deal more than he was about himself. He even sent the boots to be mended, to Sarah's shame and confusion. For the credit of the house, the girl invented a story about them to calm the cobbler's suspicions. "They was the easiest boots the gentleman had, being troubled with tender feet; and he wasn't a-going to give them up because they was shabby," said Sarah. He sent down his shabby clothes to be brushed, and wore Mr Wentworth's linen, to the indignation of the household. But he was not a man to be concealed in a corner. From where he sat in the green room, he whistled so beautifully that Mrs Hadwin's own pet canary paused astonished to listen, and the butcher's boy stole into the kitchen surreptitiously to try if he could learn the art; and while he whistled, he filled the tidy room with parings and cuttings of wood, and carved out all kinds of pretty articles with his knife. But though he rang his bell so often, and was so tiresome with his litter, and gave so much trouble, Sarah's heart, after a while, melted to "the gentleman." He made her a present of a needlecase, and was very civil-spoken—more so a great deal than the Curate of St Roque's; and such a subject of talk and curiosity had certainly not been in Carlingford for a hundred years.

As for Mrs Hadwin, she never gave any explanation at all on the subject, but accepted the fact of a new inmate cheerfully, as if she knew all about it. Of course she could not ask any of her nieces to visit her while the green room was occupied; and as they were all rather large, interfering, managing women, perhaps the old lady was not very sorry. Mr Wentworth himself was still less explanatory. When Mr Wodehouse said to him, "What is this I hear about a brother of yours?—they tell me you've got a brother staying with you. Well, that's what I hear. Why don't you bring him up to dinner? Come to-morrow;" the Perpetual Curate calmly answered, "Thank you; but there's no brother of mine in Carlingford," and took no further notice. Naturally, however, this strange apparition was much discussed in Grange Lane; the servants first, and then the ladies, became curious about him. Sometimes, in the evenings, he might be seen coming out of Mrs Hadwin's garden-door—a shabby figure, walking softly in his patched boots. There never was light enough for any one to see him; but he had a great beard, and smoked a short little pipe, and had evidently no regard for appearances. It was a kind of thing which few people approved of. Mrs Hadwin ought not to permit it, some ladies said; and a still greater number were of the opinion that, rather than endure so strange a fellow-lodger, the Curate ought to withdraw, and find fresh lodgings. This was before the time when the public began to associate the stranger in a disagreeable way with Mr Wentworth. Before they came to that, the people in Grange Lane bethought themselves of all Mrs Hadwin's connections, to find out if there might not be some of them under hiding; and, of course, that excellent woman had a nephew or two whose conduct was not perfect; and then it came to be reported that it was Mr Wentworth's brother—that it was an unfortunate college chum of his—that it was somebody who had speculated, and whom the Curate had gone shares with: but, in the mean time, no real information could be obtained about this mysterious stranger. The butcher's boy, whose senses were quickened by mingled admiration and envy, heard him whistling all day long, sometimes hidden among the trees in the garden, sometimes from the open window of the green room, where, indeed, Lady Western's page was ready to take his oath he had once seen the audacious unknown leaning out in the twilight, smoking a pipe. But no trap of conversation, however ingenious—and many traps were laid for Mr Wentworth—ever elicited from the Perpetual Curate any acknowledgment of the other lodger's existence. The young Anglican opened his fine eyes a little wider than usual when he was asked sympathetically whether so many people in the house did not interfere with his quiet. "Mrs Hadwin's talk is very gentle," said the Curate; "she never disturbs me." And the mistress of the house was equally obtuse, and would not comprehend any allusion. The little household came to be very much talked of in Carlingford in consequence; and to meet that shabby figure in the evening, when one chanced to be out for a walk, made one's company sought after in the best circles of society: though the fact is, that people began to be remiss in calling upon Mrs Hadwin, and a great many only left their cards as soon as it became evident that she did not mean to give any explanation. To have the Curate to stay with her was possible, without infringing upon her position; but matters became very different when she showed herself willing to take "any one," even when in equivocal apparel and patched boots.

Probably the Curate had his own troubles during this period of his history. He was noticed to be a little quick and short in his temper for some time after Easter. For one thing, his aunts did not go away; they stayed in the Blue Boar, and sent for him to dinner, till the Curate's impatience grew almost beyond bearing. It was a discipline upon which he had not calculated, and which exceeded the bounds of endurance, especially as Miss Leonora questioned him incessantly about his "work," and still dangled before him, like an unattainable sweet-meat before a child, the comforts and advantages of Skelmersdale, where poor old Mr Shirley had rallied for the fiftieth time. The situation altogether was very tempting to Miss Leonora; she could not make up her mind to go away and leave such a very pretty quarrel in progress; and there can be no doubt that it would have been highly gratifying to her vanity as an Evangelical woman to have had her nephew brought to task for missionary work carried on in another man's parish, even though that work was not conducted entirely on her own principles. She lingered, accordingly, with a great hankering after Wharfside, to which Mr Wentworth steadily declined to afford her any access. She went to the afternoon service sometimes, it is true, but only to be afflicted in her soul by the sight of Miss Wodehouse and Lucy in their grey cloaks, not to speak of the rubric to which the Curate was so faithful. It was a trying experience to his Evangelical aunt; but at the same time it was a "great work;" and she could not give up the hope of being able one time or other to appropriate the credit of it, and win him over to her own "views." If that consummation could but be attained, everything would become simple; and Miss Leonora was a true Wentworth, and wanted to see her nephew in Skelmersdale: so it may easily be understood that, under present circumstances, there were great attractions for her in Carlingford.

It was, accordingly, with a beating heart that Miss Dora, feeling a little as she might have been supposed to feel thirty years before, had she ever stolen forth from the well-protected enclosure of Skelmersdale Park to see a lover, put on her bonnet in the early twilight, and, escaping with difficulty the lively observations of her maid, went tremulously down Grange Lane to her nephew's house. She had never yet visited Frank, and this visit was unquestionably clandestine. But then the news with which her heart was beating was important enough to justify the step she was taking—at least so she whispered to herself; though whether dear Frank would be pleased, or whether he would still think it "my fault," poor Miss Dora could not make up her mind. Nothing happened in the quiet road, where there were scarcely any passengers, and the poor lady arrived with a trembling sense of escape from unknown perils at Mrs Hadwin's garden-door. For Miss Dora was of opinion, like some few other ladies, that to walk alone down the quietest of streets was to lay herself open to unheard-of dangers. She put out her trembling hand to ring the bell, thinking her perils over—for of course Frank would walk home with her—when the door suddenly opened, and a terrible apparition, quite unconscious of anybody standing there, marched straight out upon Miss Dora, who gave a little scream, and staggered backwards, thinking the worst horrors she had dreamed of were about to be realised. They were so close together that the terrified lady took in every detail of his appearance. She saw the patched boots and that shabby coat which Sarah the housemaid felt that she rather demeaned herself by brushing. It looked too small for him, as coats will do when they get shabby; and, to complete the alarming appearance of the man, he had no hat, but only a little travelling-cap surmounting the redundancy of hair, mustache, and beard, which were enough of themselves to strike any nervous woman with terror. "Oh, I beg your pardon," cried poor Miss Dora, hysterically; "I wanted to see Mr Wentworth;" and she stood trembling and panting for breath, holding by the wall, not quite sure that this apparition could be appeased by any amount of apologies. It was a great comfort to her when the monster took off its cap, and when she perceived, by the undulations of the beard, something like a smile upon its hidden lips. "I believe Mr Wentworth is at church," said the new lodger: "may I have the pleasure of seeing you safely across to St Roque's?" At which speech Miss Dora trembled more and more, and said, faintly, "No, thank you,"—for who could tell what the man's intentions might be? The result was, however, that he only put on his cap again, and went off like any other human creature in the other direction, and that slowly; with tremulous steps Miss Dora pursued her way to her nephew's pretty church. She could not have described, as she herself said, what a relief it was after all this, to take Frank's arm, as she met him at the door of St Roque's. He was coming out, and the young lady with the grey cloak had been one of the congregation; and, to tell the truth, Miss Dora was an unwelcome addition just then to the party. Lucy's coming had been accidental, and it was very sweet to Mr Wentworth to be able to conclude that he was obliged to walk home with her. They were both coming out from their evening devotions into the tranquil spring twilight, very glad of the charmed quiet, and happy somehow to find themselves alone together. That had happened but seldom of late; and a certain expectation of something that might happen hovered over the heads of Lucy and the Curate. It did not matter that he dared not say to her what was in his heart. Mr Wentworth was only a young man after all, and the thrill of a possible revelation was upon him in that half-hour upon which he was entering with so profound a sense of happiness. And then it was an accidental meeting, and if anything did happen, they could not blame themselves as if they had sought this opportunity of being together. The circumstances were such that they might call it providential, if anything came of it. But just as the two had made their first step out of the church, where the organ was still murmuring low in the darkness, and where the music of the last Amen, in which he had recognised Lucy's voice, had not quite died from the Curate's ears, to meet Miss Dora, pale and fluttered, full of news and distress, with no other thought in her mind but to appropriate her dear Frank, and take his arm and gain his ear! It was very hard upon the Perpetual Curate. As for Lucy, she, of course, did not say anything, but merely arranged her veil and greeted Miss Wentworth sweetly. Lucy walked on the other side of the Curate, saying little as Miss Dora's eager shower of questions and remarks ran on. Perhaps she had a little insight into Mr Wentworth's feelings, and no doubt it was rather tantalising. When they came to Mrs Hadwin's door, the young Anglican made a spasmodic effort, which in his heart he felt to be unprincipled, and which, had it been successful, would have totally taken away the accidental and unpremeditated character of this walk with Lucy, which he could not find it in his heart to relinquish. He proposed that his aunt should go in and rest while he saw Miss Wodehouse safely home—he was sure she was tired, he said, eagerly. "No, my dear, not at all," said Miss Dora; "it is such a pleasant evening, and I know Miss Wodehouse's is not very far off. I should like the walk, and, besides, it is too late, you know, to see Mrs Hadwin, and I should not like to go in without calling on her; and besides—"

Mr Wentworth in his aggravation gave a momentary sudden glance at Lucy when she had no expectation of it. That glance of disappointment—of disgust—of love and longing, was no more intentional than their meeting; could he help it, if it revealed that heart which was in such a state of commotion and impatience? Anyhow, the look gave Lucy sufficient occupation to keep her very quiet on the other side while Miss Dora maundered on.

"I met the strangest man coming out when I was going to ring your bell. You will think it very foolish, Frank, but he frightened me," she said. "A man with a terrible beard, and a—a shabby man, my dear. Who could it be? Not a person to be seen coming out of a house where a clergyman lives. He could not be any friend of yours?"

"The other lodger, I suppose," said the Curate, briefly. "When are you going away?"

"Oh, my dear boy, we are not going away; I came to tell you. But, Frank, you don't mean to say that such a man as that lodges in Mrs Hadwin's house? I don't think it is safe for you—I don't think it is respectable. People might think he was a friend of yours. I wonder if Miss Wodehouse has ever seen him—a great man with a beard? To be sure, a man might have a beard and yet be respectable; but I am sure, if Miss Wodehouse saw him, she would agree with me in thinking— Frank, my dear boy, what is the matter? Have I said anything wrong?"

"Nothing that I know of," said the Curate, who had given her arm a little angry pressure to stop the stream of utterance—"only that I am not interested in the other lodger. Tell me about your going away."

"But I must appeal to Miss Wodehouse: it is for your own sake, my dear Frank," said aunt Dora—"a clergyman should be so careful. I don't know what your aunt Leonora would say. Don't you think to see a man like that coming out of Mr Wentworth's house is not as it should be? I assure you he frightened me."

"I don't think I have seen him," said Lucy. "But shouldn't a clergyman's house be like the church, open to good and bad?—for it is to the wicked and the miserable you are sent," said the Sister of Mercy, lowering her voice and glancing up at the Perpetual Curate. They could have clasped each other's hands at that moment, almost without being aware that it was any personal feeling which made their agreement so sweet. As for Miss Dora, she went on leaning on her nephew's arm, totally unconscious of the suppressed rapture and elevation in which the two were moving at the other side.

"That is very true. I am sure your aunt Leonora would approve of that, dear," said Miss Dora, with a little answering pressure on her nephew's arm—"but still I have a feeling that a clergyman should always take care to be respectable. Not that he should neglect the wicked," continued the poor aunt, apologetically, "for a poor sinner turning from the evil of his ways is the—the most interesting—sight in the world, even to the angels, you know; but to live with them in the same house, my dear—I am sure that is what I never could advise, nor Leonora either; and Mrs Hadwin ought to know better, and have him away. Don't you know who he is, Frank? I could not be content without finding out, if it was me."

"I have nothing to do with him," said the Curate, hurriedly: "it is a subject I don't want to discuss. Never mind him. What do you mean by saying you are not going away?"

"My dear, Leonora has been thinking it all over," said Miss Dora, "and we are so anxious about you. Leonora is very fond of you, though she does not show it; and you know the Meritons have just come home from India, and have not a house to go to. So you see we thought, as you are not quite so comfortable as we could wish to see you, Frank—and perhaps we might be of some use—and Mr Shirley is better again, and no immediate settlement has to be made about Skelmersdale;—that on the whole, if Leonora and you were to see more of each other—oh, my dear boy, don't be so hasty; it was all her own doing—it was not my fault."

"Fault! I am sorry to be the occasion of so many arrangements," said Mr Wentworth, with his stiff manner; "but, of course, if you like to stay in Carlingford I shall be very happy—though there is not much preaching here that will suit my aunt Leonora: as for Mr Shirley, I hope he'll live for ever. I was at No. 10 today," continued the Curate, turning his head to the other side, and changing his tone in a manner marvellous to Miss Dora. "I don't think she can live much longer. You have done a great deal to smooth her way in this last stage. Poor soul! she thinks she has been a great sinner," said the young man, with a kind of wondering pity. He had a great deal to vex him in his own person, and he knew of some skeletons very near at hand, but somehow at that moment it was hard to think of the extremities of mortal trouble, of death and anguish—those dark deeps of life by which Lucy and he sometimes stood together in their youth and happiness. A marvelling remorseful pity came to his heart. He could not believe in misery, with Lucy walking softly in the spring twilight by his side.

"But, Frank, you are not taking any notice of what I say," said Miss Dora, with something like a suppressed sob. "I don't doubt your sick people are very important, but I thought you would take some interest. I came down to tell you, all the way by myself."

"My sister would like to call on you, Miss Wentworth," said Lucy, interposing. "Gentlemen never understand what one says. Perhaps we could be of some use to you if you are going to settle in Carlingford. I think she has been a great deal better since she confessed," continued the charitable Sister, looking up to the Curate, and, like him, dropping her voice. "The absolution was such a comfort. Now she seems to feel as if she could die. And she has so little to live for!" said Lucy, with a sigh of sympathetic feeling, remorseful too. Somehow it seemed cruel to feel so young, so hopeful, so capable of happiness, with such desolation close at hand.

"Not even duty," said the Curate; "and to think that the Church should hesitate to remove the last barriers out of the way! I would not be a priest if I were debarred from the power of delivering such a poor soul."

"Oh, Frank," said Miss Dora, with a long breath of fright and horror, "what are you saying? Oh, my dear, don't say it over again, I don't want to hear it! I hope when we are dying we shall all feel what great great sinners we are," said the poor lady, who, between vexation and mortification, was ready to cry, "and not think that one is better than another. Oh, my dear, there is that man again! Do you think it is safe to meet him in such a lonely road? If he comes across and speaks to me any more I shall faint," cried poor Miss Dora, whose opinions were not quite in accordance with her feelings. Mr Wentworth did not say anything to soothe her, but with his unoccupied hand he made an involuntary movement towards Lucy's cloak, and plucked at it to bring her nearer, as the bearded stranger loomed dimly past, looking at the group. Lucy felt the touch, and wondered and looked up at him in the darkness. She could not comprehend the Curate's face.

"Are you afraid of him?" she said, with a slight smile; "if it is only his beard I am not alarmed; and here is papa coming to meet me. I thought you would have come for me sooner, papa. Has anything happened?" said Lucy, taking Mr Wodehouse's arm, who had suddenly appeared from underneath the lamp, still unlighted, at Dr Marjoribanks's door. She clung to her father with unusual eagerness, willing enough to escape from the darkness and the Curate's side, and all the tremulous sensations of the hour.

"What could happen?" said Mr Wodehouse, who still looked "limp" from his recent illness, "though I hear there are doubtful people about; so they tell me—but you ought to know best, Wentworth. Who is that fellow in the beard that went by on the other side? Not little Lake the drawing-master? Fancied I had seen the build of the man before—eh?—a stranger? Well, it's a mistake, perhaps. Can't be sure of anything nowadays;—memory failing. Well, that's what the doctor says. Come in and rest and see Molly; as for me, I'm not good for much, but you won't get better company than the girls, or else that's what folks tell me. Who did you say that fellow was?" said the churchwarden, leaning across his daughter to see Mr Wentworth's face.

"I don't know anything about him," said the Curate of St Roque's.

And curiously enough silence fell upon the little party, nobody could tell how;—for two minutes, which looked like twenty, no one spoke. Then Lucy roused herself, apparently with a little effort. "We seem to talk of nothing but the man with the beard to-night," she said. "Mary knows everything that goes on in Carlingford—she will tell us about him; and if Miss Wentworth thinks it too late to come in, we will say good-night," she continued, with a little decision of tone, which was not incomprehensible to the Perpetual Curate. Perhaps she was a little provoked and troubled in her own person. To say so much in looks and so little in words, was a mode of procedure which puzzled Lucy. It fretted her, because it looked unworthy of her hero. She withdrew within the green door, holding her father's arm fast, and talking to him, while Mr Wentworth strained his ears after the voice, which he thought he could have singled out from a thousand voices. Perhaps Lucy talked to drown her thoughts; and the Curate went away dumb and abstracted, with his aunt leaning on his arm on the other side of the wall. He could not be interested, as Miss Dora expected him to be, in the Miss Wentworths' plans. He conducted her to the Blue Boar languidly, with an evident indifference to the fact that his aunt Leonora was about to become a permanent resident in Carlingford. He said "Good-night" kindly to little Rosa Elsworthy, looking out with bright eyes into the darkness at the door of her uncle's shop; but he said little to Miss Dora, who could not tell what to make of him, and swallowed her tears as quietly as possible under her veil. When he had deposited his aunt safely at the inn, the Perpetual Curate hastened down Grange Lane at a great pace. The first sound he heard on entering Mrs Hadwin's garden was the clear notes of the stranger's whistle among the trees; and with an impatient exclamation Mr Wentworth sought his fellow-lodger, who was smoking as usual, pacing up and down a shaded walk, where, even in daylight, he was pretty well concealed from observation. The Curate looked as if he had a little discontent and repugnance to get over before he could address the anonymous individual who whistled so cheerily under the trees. When he did speak it was an embarrassed and not very intelligible call.

"I say—are you there? I want to speak to you," said Mr Wentworth.

"Yes," said the stranger, turning sharply round. "I am here, a dog without a name. What have you got to say?"

"Only that you must be more careful," said Mr Wentworth again, with a little stiffness. "You will be recognised if you don't mind. I have just been asked who you were by—somebody who thought he had seen you before."

"By whom?"

"Well, by Mr Wodehouse," said the Curate. "I may as well tell you; if you mean to keep up this concealment you must take care."

"By Jove!" said the stranger, and then he whistled a few bars of the air which Mr Wentworth's arrival had interrupted. "What is a fellow to do?" he said, after an interjection. "I sometimes think I had better risk it all—eh! don't you think so? I can't shut myself up for ever here."

"That must be as you think best," said the Perpetual Curate, in whom there appeared no movement of sympathy; and he said no more, though the doubtful individual by his side lifted an undecided look to his face, and once more murmured in perplexed tones a troubled exclamation: "A man must have a little amusement somehow," the stranger said, with an aggrieved voice; and then abruptly left his unsociable companion, and went off to his room, where he summoned Sarah to bring lights, and tried to talk to her a little in utter dearth of society. Mr Wentworth stayed behind, pacing up and down the darkening walk. The Curate's thoughts were far from satisfactory. There was not much comfort anywhere, let him look where he pleased. When a man has no spot in all his horizon on which his eye can rest with comfort, there is something more discouraging in the prospect than a positive calamity. He could not take refuge even in the imaginations of his love, for it was clear enough that already a sentiment of surprise had risen in Lucy's mind, and her tranquillity was shaken. And perhaps he had done rashly to plunge into other people's troubles—he upon whom a curious committee of aunts were now to sit en permanence. He went in to write his sermon, far from being so assured of things in general as that discourse was when it was written, though it was a little relief to his mind to fall back upon an authority somewhere, and to refer, in terms which were perhaps too absolute to be altogether free of doubt, to the Church, which had arranged everything for her children in one department of their concerns at least. If it were only as easy to know what ought to be done in one's personal affairs as to decide what was the due state of mind expected by the Church on the second Sunday after Easter! But being under that guidance, at least he could not go wrong in his sermon, which was one point of ease amid the many tribulations of the Curate of St Roque's.



CHAPTER IX.

"If they are going to stay in Carlingford, perhaps we could be of use to them? Yes, Lucy; and I am sure anything we could do for Mr Wentworth—" said Miss Wodehouse. "I wonder what house they will get. I am going to Elsworthy's about some paper, and we can ask him if he knows where they are going. That poor little Rosa should have some one to take care of her. I often wonder whether it would be kind to speak to Mrs Elsworthy about it, Lucy; she is a sensible woman. The little thing stands at the door in the evening, and talks to people who are passing, and I am afraid there are some people who are unprincipled, and tell her she is pretty, and say things to her," said Miss Wodehouse, shaking her head; "it is a great pity. Even Mr Wentworth is a great deal more civil to that little thing than he would be if she had not such a pretty face."

"I said you knew everything that went on in Carlingford," said Lucy, as they went out together from the green door, not in their grey cloaks this time; "but I forgot to ask you about one thing that puzzled us last night—who is the man in the beard who lives at Mrs Hadwin's? Mr Wentworth will not tell anybody about him, and I think he knows."

"Who is the man in the beard?" said Miss Wodehouse, with a gasp. She grew very pale, and turned away her head and shivered visibly. "How very cold it is!" she said, with her teeth chattering; "did you think it was so cold? I—I don't know any men with beards; and it is so strange of you to say I know everything that goes on in Carlingford. Don't stop to speak to that little girl just now. Did you say she came from Prickett's Lane? No. 10? It is very right to go to see the sick, but, indeed, I don't approve of your attendance upon that poor woman, Lucy. When I was a girl I dared not have gone away by myself as you do, and she might not be a proper person. There is a carriage that I don't know standing before Elsworthy's shop."

"But you have not told me yet about the man with the beard," said Lucy, whose curiosity was excited. She looked at her sister keenly with an investigating look, and poor Miss Wodehouse was fain to draw her shawl close round her, and complain again of the cold.

"I told you I did not know," she said, with a complaining tone in her voice. "It is strange you should think I knew; it looks as if you thought me a gossip, Lucy. I wonder who those people can be coming out of the carriage? My dear," said the elder sister, feeling within herself that an attack upon the enemy's country was the best means of meeting any sally—"I don't think you should go down to Prickett's Lane just now. I saw Mr Wentworth pass a little while ago, and people might say you went to meet each other. I can't keep people from talking, Lucy, and you are both so young; and you know I spoke to you before about your meeting so often. It will be a great deal better for you to come with me to call on his aunts."

"Only that my poor patient wants me," said Lucy. "Must I not do my duty to a poor woman who is dying, because Mr Wentworth is in Prickett's Lane? There is no reason why I should be afraid of meeting Mr Wentworth," said the young district-visitor, severely; and the elder sister saw that Lucy spoke in a different tone from that in which she had answered her before. She did not extinguish Miss Wodehouse by a reference to the great work. She treated the matter more as a personal one to-day; and a shadow—a very ghost of irritation—was in Lucy's voice. The two crossed the street silently after that to Elsworthy's, where a group of ladies were visible, who had come out of the strange carriage. One of them was seated in a chair by the counter, another was reading a list which Mr Elsworthy had just presented to her, and the third, who was not so tall as her sister, was pressing up to it on tiptoe, trying to read it too. "That is Miss Dora Wentworth," said Lucy, "and the other, I suppose, is Miss Leonora, who is so very Low-Church. I think I can see the Miss Hemmings coming down George Street. If I were to go in I should be in a dreadful minority; but you are Low-Church in your heart too."

"No, dear; only reasonable," said Miss Wodehouse, apologetically. "I don't go as far as you and Mr Wentworth do, but I like the service to be nicely done, and the—the authority of the Church respected too. As I have never met Miss Wentworth, you had better come in and introduce me. There is Rosa looking out of the front window, Lucy. I really must speak to Mrs Elsworthy about that child. What a lovely old lady that is sitting by the counter! Say I am your sister, and then if you are resolved upon Prickett's Lane, you can go away."

"They are the two who wear the grey cloaks," said Miss Leonora Wentworth to herself, as the introduction was effected. "I am glad to make your acquaintance, Miss Wodehouse. We are going to stay in Carlingford for a time, and to know a few pious families will be a great advantage. We don't go much into society, in the usual sense of the word—but, I am sure, to make the acquaintance of ladies who help my nephew so much in his work, is sure to be an advantage. I should like so much to hear from you how he gets on, for he does not say a great deal about it himself."

"He is so good and so nice," said kind Miss Wodehouse, "he never makes a fuss about anything he does. I am sure, to see such young creatures so pious and so devoted, always goes to my heart. When we were young it used to be so different—we took our own pleasure, and never thought of our fellow-creatures. And the young people are so good nowadays," said the gentle woman, falling instinctively into her favourite sentiment. Miss Leonora looked at her with critical eyes.

"We are none of us good," said that iron-grey woman, whose neutral tints were so different from the soft dove-colour of her new acquaintance; "it does not become such sinful creatures to talk of anybody being good. Good works may only be beautiful sins, if they are not done in a true spirit," said Miss Leonora, turning to her list of furnished houses with a little contempt. But the Miss Hemmings had come in while she was speaking, and it was seldom that such edifying talk was heard in Carlingford.

"That is such a beautiful sentiment—oh, if we only bore it always in mind!" murmured the eldest Miss Hemmings. "Mr Elsworthy, I hope you have got the tracts I ordered. They are so much wanted here. Poor dear Mr Bury would not believe his eyes if he could see Carlingford now, given up to Puseyism and Ritualism—but good men are taken away from the evil to come. I will pay for them now, please."

"If you wish it, ma'am," said Mr Elsworthy. "The town is changed; I don't say nothing different; but being in the ritual line as you say, you won't find no church as it's better done than in St Roque's. Mr Wentworth never spares no pains, ma'am, on anything as he takes up. I've heard a deal of clergymen in my day, but his reading is beautiful; I can't say as I ever heard reading as could equal it;—and them choristers, though they're hawful to manage, is trained as I never see boys trained in my life afore. There's one of them houses, ma'am," continued the optimist, turning to Miss Wentworth, "as is a beauty. Miss Wodehouse can tell you what it is; no lady in the land could desire a handsomer drawing-room; and as for the kitchings,—I don't pretend to be a judge up-stairs, but being brought up a blacksmith, I know what's what in a kitching-range. If you had all Grange Lane to dinner, there's a range as is equal to it," said Mr Elsworthy with enthusiasm—"and my wife will show you the 'ouse."

"I knew Mr Bury," said Miss Leonora; "he was a precious man. Perhaps you have heard him mention the Miss Wentworths? I am very sorry to hear that there is no real work going on in the town. It is very sad that there should be nobody able to enter into the labours of such a saint."

"Indeed," said Miss Wodehouse, who was excited, in spite of herself, by this conversation, "I think the Carlingford people go quite as much to church as in Mr Bury's days. I don't think there is less religion than there used to be: there are not so many prayer meetings, perhaps; but—"

"There is nothing the carnal mind dislikes so much as prayer meetings," said Miss Hemmings. "There is a house in Grove Street, if Miss Wentworth is looking for a house. I don't know much about the kitchen-range, but I know it belongs to a very pious family, and they wish so much to let it. My sister and I would be so glad to take you there. It is not in the gay world, like Grange Lane."

"But you might want to ask people to dinner; and then we should be so near Frank," said Miss Dora, whispering at her sister's elbow. As for the second Miss Hemmings, she was dull of comprehension, and did not quite make out who the strangers were.

"It is so sad to a feeling mind to see the mummeries that go on at St Roque's," said this obtuse sister; "and I am afraid poor Mr Wentworth must be in a bad way. They say there is the strangest man in his house—some relation of his—and he daren't be seen in the daylight; and people begin to think there must be something wrong, and that Mr Wentworth himself is involved; but what can you expect when there is no true Christian principle?" asked Miss Hemmings, triumphantly. It was a dreadful moment for the bystanders; for Miss Leonora turned round upon this new intelligence with keen eyes and attention; and Miss Dora interposed, weeping; and Miss Wodehouse grew so pale, that Mr Elsworthy rushed for cold water, and thought she was going to faint. "Tell me all about this," said Miss Leonora, with peremptory and commanding tones. "Oh, Leonora, I am sure my dear Frank has nothing to do with it, if there is anything wrong," cried Miss Dora. Even Miss Wentworth herself was moved out of her habitual smile. She said, "He is my nephew"—an observation which she had never been heard to make before, and which covered the second Miss Hemmings with confusion. As for Miss Wodehouse, she retreated very fast to a seat behind Miss Cecilia, and said nothing. The two who had arrived last slunk back upon each other with fiery glances of mutual reproach. The former three stood together in this emergency, full of curiosity, and perhaps a little anxiety. In this position of affairs, Mr Elsworthy, being the only impartial person present, took the management of matters into his own hands.

"Miss Hemmings and ladies, if you'll allow me," said Mr Elsworthy, "it aint no more than a mistake. The new gentleman as is staying at Mrs Hadwin's may be an unfortunate gentleman for anything I can tell; but he aint no relation of our clergyman. There aint nobody belonging to Mr Wentworth," said the clerk of St Roque's, "but is a credit both to him and to Carlingford. There's his brother, the Rev. Mr Wentworth, as is the finest-spoken man, to be a clergyman, as I ever set eyes on; and there's respected ladies as needn't be named more particular. But the gentleman as is the subject of conversation is no more like Mr Wentworth than—asking pardon for the liberty—I am. I may say as I have opportunities for knowing more than most," said Mr Elsworthy, modestly, "me and Rosa; for if there's a thing Mr Wentworth is particular about, it's having his papers the first moment; and ladies as knows me knows I am one that never says more nor the truth. Not saying a word against the gentleman—as is a most respectable gentleman, for anything I know against him—he aint no connection of Mr Wentworth. He's Mrs Hadwin's lodger; and I wouldn't say as he isn't a relation there; but our clergyman has got no more to do with him than the babe unborn."

Mr Elsworthy wiped his forehead after he had made this speech, and looked round for the approbation which he was aware he had deserved; and Miss Leonora Wentworth threw a glance of disdainful observation upon the unhappy lady who had caused this disturbance. "If your wife will come with us, we will go and look at the house," she said, graciously. "I daresay if it is in Grange Lane it will suit us very well. My nephew is a very young man, Miss Wodehouse," said Miss Leonora, who had not passed over the agitation of that gentle woman without some secret comments; "he does not take advice in his work, though it might be of great assistance to him; but I hope he'll grow older and wiser, as indeed he cannot help doing if he lives. I hope you and your pretty sister will come to see us when we're settled;—I don't see any sense, you know, in your grey cloaks—I'm old, and you won't mind me saying so; but I know what Frank Wentworth is," said the indignant aunt, making a severe curtsy, accompanied by lightning glances at the shrinking background of female figures, as she went out of the shop.

"Oh, Leonora! I always said you were fond of him, though you never would show it," cried poor Miss Dora. "She is a great deal more affectionate than she will let anybody believe; and my dear Frank means nothing but good," cried the too zealous champion. Miss Leonora turned back upon the threshold of the shop.

"You will please to let me know what Dissenting chapels there are in the town, and what are the hours of the services," she said. "There must surely be a Bethesda, or Zion, or something—Salem? yes, to be sure;—perhaps there's somebody there that preaches the gospel. Send me word," said the peremptory woman; and poor Miss Dora relapsed into her usual melancholy condition, and stole into the carriage in a broken-hearted manner, weeping under her veil.

After which Miss Wodehouse went home, not having much heart for further visits. That is to say, she went all the way down Grange Lane, somewhat tremulous and uncertain in her steps, and went as far as Mrs Hadwin's, and hesitated at the door as if she meant to call there; but, thinking better of it, went on a little farther with very lingering steps, as if she did not know what she wanted. When she came back again, the door of Mrs Hadwin's garden was open, and the butcher's boy stood blocking up the way, listening with all his ears to the notes of the whistle, soft and high and clear like the notes of a bird which come audibly from among the trees. Miss Wodehouse gave a little start when she heard it: again she hesitated, and looked in with such a wistful face that Sarah, the housemaid, who had been about to slam the door hastily upon the too tender butcher, involuntarily held it wide open for the expected visitor. "No, not to-day thank you," said Miss Wodehouse. "I hope your mistress is quite well; give her my love, and say I meant to come in, but I have a bad headache. No, thank you; not to-day." She went away after that with a wonderful expression of face, and reached home long before Lucy had come back from Prickett's Lane. Miss Wodehouse was not good for much in the house. She went to the little boudoir up-stairs, and lay down on the sofa, and had some tea brought her by an anxious maid. She was very nervous, trembling she could not say why, and took up a novel which was lying on the sofa, and read the most affecting scene, and cried over it; and then her sweet old face cleared, and she felt better. When Lucy came in she kissed her sister, and drew down the blinds, and brought her the third volume, and then went away herself to arrange the dessert, and see that everything was in order for one of Mr Wodehouse's little parties. These were their respective parts in the house; and surely a more peaceful, and orderly, and affectionate house, was not to be found that spring evening, either in England or Grange Lane.



CHAPTER X.

It may be easily supposed after this that Mr Wentworth and his proceedings were sufficiently overlooked and commented upon in Carlingford. The Miss Wentworths took old Major Brown's house for six months, which, as everybody knows, is next door to Dr Marjoribanks. It was just after Letty Brown's marriage, and the poor old Major was very glad to go away and pay a round of visits, and try to forget that his last daughter had gone the way of all the rest. There was a summer-house built in the corner of the garden, with a window in the outer wall looking on to Grange Lane, from which everything that happened could be inspected; and there was always somebody at that window when the Perpetual Curate passed by. Then he began to have a strange painful feeling that Lucy watched too, and was observing all his looks and ways, and what he did and said in these changed times. It was a strange difference from the sweet half-conscious bond between them which existed of old, when they walked home together from Wharfside, talking of the district and the people, in the tender union of unspoken love and fellowship. Not that they were altogether parted now; but Lucy contrived to leave the schoolroom most days before the young priest could manage to disrobe himself, and was seldom to be seen on the road lingering on her errands of kindness as she used to do. But still she knew all he was about, and watched, standing in doubt and wonder of him, which was at least a great deal better than indifference. On the whole, however, it was a cloudy world through which the Perpetual Curate passed as he went from his lodgings, where the whistle of the new lodger had become a great nuisance to him, past the long range of garden-walls, the sentinel window where Miss Dora looked out watching for him, and Mr Wodehouse's green door which he no longer entered every day. Over the young man's mind, as he went out to his labours, there used to come that sensation of having nobody to fall back upon, which is of all feelings the most desolate. Amid all those people who were watching him, there was no one upon whom he could rest, secure of understanding and sympathy. They were all critical—examining, with more or less comprehension, what he did; and he could not think of anybody in the world just then who would be content with knowing that he did it, and take that as warranty for the act, unless, perhaps, his poor aunt Dora, whose opinion was not important to the young man. It was not a pleasant state of mind into which these feelings threw him; and the natural result was, that he grew more and more careful about the rubric, and confined his sermons, with increasing precision, to the beautiful arrangements of the Church. They were very clever little sermons, even within these limitations, and an indifferent spectator would probably have been surprised to find how much he could make out of them; but still it is undeniable that a man has less scope, not only for oratory, but for all that is worthy of regard in human speech, when, instead of the ever-lasting reciprocations between heaven and earth, he occupies himself only with a set of ecclesiastical arrangements, however perfect. The people who went to St Roque's found this out, and so did Mr Wentworth; but it did not alter the system pursued by the troubled Curate. Perhaps he gave himself some half-conscious credit for it, as being against his own interests; for there was no mistaking the countenance of Miss Leonora, when now and then, on rare occasions, she came to hear her nephew preach.

All this, however, was confined to St Roque's, where there was a somewhat select audience, people who agreed in Mr Wentworth's views; but things were entirely different at Wharfside, where the Perpetual Curate was not thinking about himself, but simply about his work, and how to do it best. The bargemen and their wives did not know much about the Christian year; but they understood the greater matters which lay beneath: and the women said to each other, sometimes with tears in their eyes, that there was nothing that the clergyman didn't make plain; and that if the men didn't do what was right, it was none o' Mr Wentworth's fault. The young priest indemnified himself in "the district" for much that vexed him elsewhere. There was no question of Skelmersdale, or of any moot point there, but only a quantity of primitive people under the original conditions of humanity, whose lives might be amended, and consoled, and elevated. That was a matter about which Mr Wentworth had no doubt. He put on his surplice with the conviction that in that white ephod the truest embodiment of Christian purity was brought within sight of the darkened world. He was not himself, but a Christian priest, with power to deliver and to bless, when he went to Wharfside.

Easter had been early that year, and Ascension Day was in the beginning of May, one of those sweet days of early summer which still occur now and then to prove that the poets were right in all they say of the tenderest month of the year. Mr Wentworth had done duty at St Roque's, and afterwards at Wharfside. The sweet day and the sweet season had moved his heart. He was young, and it was hard to live shut up within himself without any sympathy either from man or woman. He had watched the grey cloak gliding out as his rude congregation dispersed, and went away quicker than was his wont, with a stronger longing than usual to overtake Lucy, and recover his place beside her. But she was not to be seen when he got into Prickett's Lane. He looked up the weary length of the street, and saw nothing but the children playing on the pavement, and some slovenly mothers at the doors. It was a very disenchanting prospect. He went on again in a kind of gloomy discontent, displeased with everything. What was the good of it all? he said to himself—weariness, and toil, and trouble, and nothing ever to come of it. As for the little good he was doing in Wharfside, God did not need his poor exertions; and, to tell the truth, going on at St Roque's, however perfect the rubric and pretty the church, was, without any personal stimulant of happiness, no great prospect for the Perpetual Curate. Such was the tenor of his thoughts, when he saw a black figure suddenly emerge out of one of the houses, and stand at the door, throwing a long shadow over the pavement. It was the Rector who was standing there in Mr Wentworth's favourite district, talking to a shopkeeper who had always been on the opposition side. The young Anglican raised his drooping head instantly, and recovered his interest in the general world.