rful?" sighed good Miss Wodehouse.

The Rector did not speak, but he answered by a very emphatic nod of his
head.

"It did not use to be so when you and I were young," said his companion
in failure. "I sometimes take a little comfort from that; but no doubt,
if it had been in me, it would have shown itself somehow. Ah, I fear, I
fear, I was not well brought up; but, to be sure, that dear child has
not been brought up at all, if one may say so. Her poor mother died when
she was born. And oh, I'm afraid I never was kind to Lucy's mother, Mr
Proctor. You know she was only a year or two older than I was; and to
think of that child, that baby! What a world she is, and always was,
before me, that might have been her mother, Mr Proctor!" said Miss
Wodehouse, with a little sob.

"But things were different in our young days," said the Rector, repeating
her sentiment, without inquiring whether it were true or not, and finding
a certain vague consolation in it.

"Ah, that is true," said Miss Wodehouse--"that is true; what a blessing
things are so changed; and these blessed young creatures," she added
softly, with tears falling out of her gentle old eyes--"these blessed
young creatures are near the Fountainhead."

With this speech Miss Wodehouse held out her hand to the Rector,
and they parted with a warm mutual grasp. The Rector went straight
home--straight to his study, where he shut himself in, and was not to be
disturbed; that night was one long to be remembered in the good man's
history. For the first time in his life he set himself to inquire what
was his supposed business in this world. His treatise on the Greek verb,
and his new edition of Sophocles, were highly creditable to the Fellow
of All-Souls; but how about the Rector of Carlingford? What was he doing
here, among that little world of human creatures who were dying, being
born, perishing, suffering, falling into misfortune and anguish, and all
manner of human vicissitudes, every day? Young Wentworth knew what to
say to that woman in her distress; and so might the Rector, had her
distress concerned a disputed translation, or a disused idiom. The good
man was startled in his composure and calm. To-day he had visibly failed
in a duty which even in All-Souls was certainly known to be one of the
duties of a Christian priest. Was he a Christian priest, or what was he?
He was troubled to the very depths of his soul. To hold an office the
duties of which he could not per