you _will_ do it, however hard it may be."

"That's just the difficulty," cried the Rector, venturing on a longer
speech than usual, and roused to a point at which he had no fear of the
listeners in the kitchen; "such duties require other training than mine
has been. I can't!--do you hear me, mother?--I must not hold a false
position; that's impossible."

"You shan't hold a false position," cried the old lady; "that's the only
thing that _is_ impossible--but, Morley, let us consider, dear. You are
a clergyman, you know; you ought to understand all that's required of
you a great deal better than these people do. My dear, your poor father
and I trained you up to be a clergyman," said Mrs Proctor, rather
pathetically, "and not to be a Fellow of All-Souls."

The Rector groaned. Had it not been advancement, progress, unhoped-for
good fortune, that made him a member of that learned corporation? He
shook his head. Nothing could change the fact now. After fifteen years'
experience of that Elysium, he could not put on the cassock and surplice
with all his youthful fervour. He had settled into his life-habits long
ago. With the quick perception which made up for her deficiency, his
mother read his face, and saw the cause was hopeless; yet with female
courage and pertinacity made one effort more.

"And with an excellent hard-working curate," said the old lady--"a
curate whom, of course, we'd do our duty by, Morley, and who could take
a great deal of the responsibility off your hands; for Mr Leigh, though
a nice young man, is not, I know, the man _you_ would have chosen for
such a post; and still more, my dear son--we were talking of it in jest
not long ago, but it is perfect earnest, and a most important matter--with
a good wife, Morley; a wife who would enter into all the parish work,
and give you useful hints, and conduct herself as a clergyman's wife
should--with such a wife----"

"Lucy Wodehouse!" cried the Rector, starting to his feet, and forgetting
all his proprieties; "I tell you the thing is impossible. I'll go back
to All-Souls."

He sat down again doggedly, having said it. His mother sat looking at
him in silence, with tears in her lively old eyes. She was saying within
herself that she had seen his father take just such a "turn," and that
it was no use arguing with them under such circumstances. She watched
him as women often do watch men, waiting till the creature should come
to itself again and might be spoken