there were no parishioners to
break the sweet repose. How different was this discomposing real world!

CHAPTER III.

Matters went on quietly for some time without any catastrophe occurring
to the Rector. He had shut himself up from all society, and declined the
invitations of the parishioners for ten long days at least; but finding
that the kind people were only kinder than ever when they understood he
was "indisposed," poor Mr Proctor resumed his ordinary life, confiding
timidly in some extra precautions which his own ingenuity had invented.
He was shyer than ever of addressing the ladies in those parties he was
obliged to attend. He was especially embarrassed and uncomfortable in
the presence of the two Miss Wodehouses, who, unfortunately, were very
popular in Carlingford, and whom he could not help meeting everywhere.
Notwithstanding this embarrassment, it is curious how well he knew how
they looked, and what they were doing, and all about them. Though he
could not for his life have told what these things were called, he knew
Miss Wodehouse's dove-coloured dress and her French grey; and all those
gleams of blue which set off Lucy's fair curls, and floated about her
pretty person under various pretences, had a distinct though inarticulate
place in the good man's confused remembrance. But neither Lucy nor Miss
Wodehouse had brought matters to extremity. He even ventured to go to
their house occasionally without any harm coming of it, and lingered in
that blooming fragrant garden, where the blossoms had given place to
fruit, and ruddy apples hung heavy on the branches which had once
scattered their petals, rosy-white, on Frank Wentworth's Anglican coat.
Yet Mr Proctor was not lulled into incaution by this seeming calm.
Other people besides his mother had intimated to him that there were
expectations current of his "settling in life." He lived not in false
security, but wise trembling, never knowing what hour the thunderbolt
might fall upon his head.

It happened one day, while still in this condition of mind, that the
Rector was passing through Grove Street on his way home. He was walking
on the humbler side of the street, where there is a row of cottages with
little gardens in front of them--cheap houses, which are contented to be
haughtily overlooked by the staircase windows and blank walls of their
richer neighbours on the other side of the road. The Rector thought, but
could not be sure, that he had seen