, and he could not have said why those words remained in
his memory.

"I wanted the boy to have something to remember me by when he grows up."

"I can't make out why she ordered a dozen," said Mr. Carey. "Two would
have done."

VI

One day was very like another at the vicarage.

Soon after breakfast Mary Ann brought in The Times. Mr. Carey shared it
with two neighbours. He had it from ten till one, when the gardener took
it over to Mr. Ellis at the Limes, with whom it remained till seven; then
it was taken to Miss Brooks at the Manor House, who, since she got it
late, had the advantage of keeping it. In summer Mrs. Carey, when she was
making jam, often asked her for a copy to cover the pots with. When the
Vicar settled down to his paper his wife put on her bonnet and went out to
do the shopping. Philip accompanied her. Blackstable was a fishing
village. It consisted of a high street in which were the shops, the bank,
the doctor's house, and the houses of two or three coalship owners; round
the little harbor were shabby streets in which lived fishermen and poor
people; but since they went to chapel they were of no account. When Mrs.
Carey passed the dissenting ministers in the street she stepped over to
the other side to avoid meeting them, but if there was not time for this
fixed her eyes on the pavement. It was a scandal to which the Vicar had
never resigned himself that there were three chapels in the High Street:
he could not help feeling that the law should have stepped in to prevent
their erection. Shopping in Blackstable was not a simple matter; for
dissent, helped by the fact that the parish church was two miles from the
town, was very common; and it was necessary to deal only with churchgoers;
Mrs. Carey knew perfectly that the vicarage custom might make all the
difference to a tradesman's faith. There were two butchers who went to
church, and they would not understand that the Vicar could not deal with
both of them at once; nor were they satisfied with his simple plan of
going for six months to one and for six months to the other. The butcher
who was not sending meat to the vicarage constantly threatened not to come
to church, and the Vicar was sometimes obliged to make a threat: it was
very wrong of him not to come to church, but if he carried iniquity
further and actually went to chapel, then of course, excellent as his meat
was, Mr. Carey would be forced to leave him for ever. Mrs. Carey often
sto