th papa. The whole scene was astonishing
to the stranger. He had been living out of nature so long that he
wondered within himself whether it was common to retain the habits and
words of childhood to such an age as that which good Miss Wodehouse put
no disguise upon, or if sisters with twenty years of difference between
them were usual in ordinary households. He looked at them with looks
which to Miss Wodehouse appeared disapproving, but which in reality
meant only surprise and discomfort. Ho was exceedingly glad when lunch
was over, and he was at liberty to take his leave. With very different
feelings from those of young Wentworth the Rector crossed the boundary
of that green door. When he saw it closed behind him he drew a long
breath of relief, and looked up and down the dusty road, and through
those lines of garden walls, where the loads of blossom burst over
everywhere, with a sensation of having escaped and got at liberty. After
a momentary pause and gaze round him in enjoyment of that liberty, the
Rector gave a start and went on again rapidly. A dismayed, discomfited,
helpless sensation came over him. These parishioners!--these female
parishioners! From out of another of those green doors had just emerged
a brilliant group of ladies, the rustle of whose dress and murmur of
whose voices he could hear in the genteel half-rural silence. The Rector
bolted: he never slackened pace nor drew breath till he was safe in the
vacant library of the Rectory, among old Mr Bury's book-shelves. It
seemed the only safe place in Carlingford to the languishing
transplanted Fellow of All-Souls.

CHAPTER II.

A month later, Mr Proctor had got fairly settled in his new rectory,
with a complete modest establishment becoming his means--for Carlingford
was a tolerable living. And in the newly-furnished sober drawing-room
sat a very old lady, lively but infirm, who was the Rector's mother.
Nobody knew that this old woman kept the Fellow of All-Souls still a
boy at heart, nor that the reserved and inappropriate man forgot his
awkwardness in his mother's presence. He was not only a very affectionate
son, but a dutiful good child to her. It had been his pet scheme for
years to bring her from her Devonshire cottage, and make her mistress of
his house. That had been the chief attraction, indeed, which drew him
to Carlingford; for had he consulted his own tastes, and kept to his
college, who would insure him that at seventy-five his ol