lutely listened to her anecdotes of sayings and
doings, far more like clever memoirs than the experiences of the banks
of the Avon. Perhaps there was this immediate disadvantage, that hearing
of a more intellectual tone of society tended to make Rachel less
tolerant of that which surrounded her, and especially of Mr. Touchett.
It was droll that, having so long shunned the two sisters under the
impression that they were his protegees and worshippers, she found that
Ermine's point of view was quite the rectorial one, and that to venerate
the man for his office sake was nearly as hard to Ermine as to herself,
though the office was more esteemed.

Alison, the reserved, had held her tongue on his antecedents; but Ermine
was drawn into explaining that his father had been a minor canon, who
had eked out his means with a combination of chaplaincies and parts
of curacies, and by teaching at the school where his son was educated.
Indignant at the hack estimation in which his father had been held, the
son, far more justly viewing both the dignity and duty of his office,
was resolved to be respected; but bred up in second rate society,
had neither weight, talent, nor manners to veil his aggressive
self-assertion, and he was at this time especially trying to the
Curtises.

Cathedral music had been too natural to him for the endurance of an
unchoral service, and the prime labour of his life was to work up his
choir; but he was musical by education rather than nature, and having
begun his career with such mortal offence to the native fiddlers and
singers as to impel them into the arms of dissent, he could only supply
the loss from the school by his own voice, of which he was not chary,
though using it with better will than taste. The staple of his choir
were Rachel's scholars. Her turn had always been for boys, and her
class on Sunday mornings and two evenings in the week had long been
in operation before the reign of Mr. Touchett. Then two lads, whose
paternal fiddles had seceded to the Plymouth Brethren, were suspended
from all advantages by the curate, and Rachel was with difficulty
withheld from an explosion; but even this was less annoying than the
summons at the class-room door every Sunday morning, that, in the midst
of her lesson, carried off the chief of her scholars to practise their
chants. Moreover, the blame of all imperfect lessons was laid on the
"singing for the parson," and all faults in the singing by the tasks for