e were thinking of
something else, "to receive--if God's good pleasure be--holy orders."

"A parson!" shrieked Lady Enville, in her languid style.

"A parson, Orige. Hast aught against the same?"

"Oh no!--so he come not anear Blanche."

"Wilt hold him off with the fire-fork?"

"Sir Thomas, I do beseech you, consider this matter in sober sadness.
Only think, if Blanche were to take in hand any fantasy for him, after
his saving of her!"

"Well, Orige--what if so?"

"I cannot bring you to a right mind, Sir Thomas!" said his wife
pettishly. "Blanche,--our fairest bud and last!--to be cast away on a
poor parson--she who might wed with a prince, and do him no disgrace!
It were horrible!"

"Were it?" was the dry response.

"I tell you," said Lady Enville, sitting up in her chair--always with
her a mark of agitation--"I would as soon see the child in her coffin!"

"Hush, Orige, hush thee!" replied her husband, very seriously now.

"It were as little grief, Sir Thomas! I would not for the world--nay,
not for the whole world--that Blanche should be thus lost. Why, she
might as well wed a fisherman at once!"

"Well, the first Christian parsons were fishermen; and I dare be bound
they made not ill husbands. Yet methinks, Orige, if thou keptest thy
grief until the matter came to pass, it were less waste of power than
so."

"`Forewarned is forearmed,' Sir Thomas. And I am marvellous afeared
lest you should be a fool."

"Marry guep!" [probably a corruption of _go up_] ejaculated Rachel,
coming in. "`Satan rebuketh sin,' I have heard say, but I ne'er listed
him do it afore."

After all, Lady Enville proved a true prophet. Mr John Feversham was
so obtuse, so unreasonable, so unpardonably preposterous, as to imagine
it possible that Blanche Enville might yet marry him, though he had the
prospect of a curacy, and had not the prospect of Feversham Hall.

"I told you, Sir Thomas!" said the prophetess, in the tone with which
she might have greeted an earthquake. "Oh that you had listed me, and
gat him away hence ere more mischief were done!"

"I see no mischief done, Orige," replied her husband quietly. "We will
call the child, and see what she saith."

"I do beseech you, Sir Thomas, commit not this folly! Give your own
answer, and let it be, Nay. Why, Blanche may be no wiser than to say
him ay."

"She no may," [she may not] said Sir Thomas dryly.

But he was determined to tell her, despite the earnest