mean," cried
Miss Wodehouse, hurrying on to cover over her inadvertence if
possible, "I have seen such cases; and a poor clergyman who has to
think of the grocer's bill and the baker's bill instead of his parish
and his duty--there are some things you young people know a great deal
better than I do, but you don't know how dreadful it is to see that."

Here Lucy, on her part, was touched on a tender point, and interposed.
"For a man to be teased about bills," said the young housekeeper, with
flushed cheeks and an averted countenance, "it must be not his
poverty, but his--his wife's fault."

"Oh, Lucy, don't say so," cried Miss Wodehouse; "what is a poor woman
to do, especially when she has no money of her own, as you wouldn't
have? and then the struggling, and getting old before your time, and
all the burdens--"

"Please don't say any more," said Lucy; "there was no intention on--on
any side to drive things to a decision. As for me, I have not a high
opinion of myself. I would not be the means of diminishing anyone's
comforts," said the spiteful young woman. "How can I be sure that I
might not turn out a very poor compensation? We settled this morning
how all that was to be, and I for one have not changed my mind--as
yet," said Lucy. That was all the encouragement Mr Wentworth got when
he propounded his new views. Things looked easy enough when he was
alone, and suffered himself to drift on pleasantly on the changed and
heightened current of personal desires and wishes; but it became
apparent to him, after that evening's discussion, that even in Eden
itself, though the dew had not yet dried on the leaves, it would be
highly incautious for any man to conclude that he was sure of having
his own way. The Perpetual Curate returned a sadder and more doubtful
man to Mrs Hadwin's, to his own apartments; possibly, as the two
states of mind so often go together, a wiser individual too.

CHAPTER XLVII.

The dinner-party at the Rectory, to which Mr Wentworth did not go, was
much less interesting and agreeable than it might have been had he been
present. As for the Rector and his wife, they could not but feel
themselves in a somewhat strange position, having between them a secret
unsuspected by the company. It was difficult to refrain from showing a
certain flagging of interest in the question of the church's
restoration, about which, to be sure, Mr Finial was just as much
concerned as he had been yesterday; though Mr