of his friend
with something like envy; he all but coveted the pleasant drawing-room,
with its pretty windows opening on to lawns and flower-beds, the
apparel of the comfortable house, and--above all--the air of home which
encompassed it all.

It will be said that no time can have been so fitted for such desires
on his part as this, when he had just possessed himself of a country
parish, of a living among fields and gardens, of a house which a wife
would grace. It is true there was a difference between the opulence
of Plumstead and the modest economy of St. Ewold, but surely Mr.
Arabin was not a man to sigh after wealth! Of all men, his friends
would have unanimously declared he was the last to do so. But how
little our friends know us! In his period of stoical rejection of
this world's happiness, he had cast from him as utter dross all
anxiety as to fortune. He had, as it were, proclaimed himself to be
indifferent to promotion, and those who chiefly admired his talents,
and would mainly have exerted themselves to secure to them their
deserved reward, had taken him at his word. And now, if the truth
must out, he felt himself disappointed--disappointed not by them
but by himself. The daydream of his youth was over, and at the age
of forty he felt that he was not fit to work in the spirit of an
apostle. He had mistaken himself, and learned his mistake when it
was past remedy. He had professed himself indifferent to mitres and
diaconal residences, to rich livings and pleasant glebes, and now
he had to own to himself that he was sighing for the good things of
other men on whom, in his pride, he had ventured to look down.

Not for wealth, in its vulgar sense, had he ever sighed; not for the
enjoyment of rich things had he ever longed; but for the allotted
share of worldly bliss which a wife, and children, and happy home
could give him, for that usual amount of comfort which he had
ventured to reject as unnecessary for him, he did now feel that he
would have been wiser to have searched.

He knew that his talents, his position, and his friends would have
won for him promotion, had he put himself in the way of winning
it. Instead of doing so, he had allowed himself to be persuaded to
accept a living which would give him an income of some L300 a year
should he, by marrying, throw up his fellowship. Such, at the age of
forty, was the worldly result of labour which the world had chosen
to regard as successful. The world also