f which she understood nothing.
"What is a sinecure?" she said.

CHAPTER X.

PAPA.

"Ursula has come back!" cried the little ones, who had returned from
their tea-party, running to meet their father at the door.

Mr. May was very good, except by moments, to his younger children. He
was not, indeed, an unkind father to any of them; but he had never
forgiven Providence for leaving him with his motherless family upon his
hands, a man so utterly unfit for the task. Perhaps he did not put this
exactly into words, but he felt it deeply, and had never got over it.
There were so many things that he could have done better, and there were
so many people who could have done this better; and yet it was precisely
to him, not a person adapted to the charge of children, that it had been
given to do it! This seemed to argue a want of judgment in the
regulation of mortal affairs, which irritated him all the more because
he was a clergyman, and had to persuade other people that everything
that happened to them was for the best. He was a man of some culture,
and literary power, and wrote very pleasant "thoughtful" papers for some
of the Church magazines; but these compositions, though very easy to
read, were only brought into the world by elaborate precautions on the
part of the family, which scarcely dared to speak above its breath when
papa was "writing;" for on such occasions he could be very savage, as
the occasional offender knew. He was a man with an imposing person,
good-looking, and of very bland and delightful manners, when he chose.
But yet he had never made friends, and was now at fifty-five the
incumbent of St. Roque, with a small income and a humble position in the
church hierarchy of Carlingford. He preached better than any other of
the Carlingford clergymen, looked better, had more reputation out of the
place; and was of sufficiently good family, and tolerably well
connected. Yet he never got on, never made any real advance in life.
Nobody could tell what was the cause of this, for his opinions were
moderate and did not stand in his way--indeed within the limits of
moderation he had been known to modify his principles, now inclining
towards the high, then towards the low, according as circumstances
required, though never going too far in either direction. Such a man
ought to have been successful, according to all rules, but he was not.
He was generally in debt and always needy. His eldest son, James, was in
Ind