h way, which struck the Rector dumb
with astonishment; "if we hadn't been afraid to marry ten years ago,
but gone into life when we were young, and fought through it like so
many people, don't you think it would have been better for us? Neither
you nor I would have minded what gossips said, or listened to a pack
of stories when we were five-and-twenty. I think I was better then
than I am now," said the Rector's wife. Though she filled that
elevated position, she was only a woman, subject to outbreaks of
sudden passion, and liable to tears like the rest. Mr Morgan looked
very blank at her as she sat there crying, sobbing with the force of a
sentiment which was probably untranslatable to the surprised,
middle-aged man. He thought it must be her nerves which were in fault
somehow, and though much startled, did not inquire farther into it,
having a secret feeling in his heart that the less that was said the
better on that subject. So he did what his good angel suggested to
him, kissed his wife, and said he was well aware what heavy calls he
had made upon her patience, and soothed her the best way that occurred
to him. "But you were very hard upon poor Leeson, my dear," said the
Rector, with his puzzled look, when she had regained her composure.
Perhaps she was disappointed that she had not been able to convey her
real meaning to her husband's matter-of-fact bosom; at all events, Mrs
Morgan recovered herself immediately, and flashed forth with all the
lively freshness of a temper in its first youth.

"He deserved a great deal more than I said to him," said the Rector's
wife. "It might be an advantage to take the furniture, as it was all
new, though it is a perpetual vexation to me, and worries me out of my
life; but there was no need to take the curate, that I can see. What
right has he to come day after day at your dinner-hour? he knows we
dine at six as well as we do ourselves; and I do believe he knows what
we have for dinner," exclaimed the incensed mistress of the house;
"for he always makes his appearance when we have anything he likes. I
hope I know my duty, and can put up with what cannot be mended,"
continued Mrs Morgan, with a sigh, and a mental reference to the
carpet in the drawing-room; "but there are some things really that
would disturb the temper of an angel. I don't know anybody that could
endure the sight of a man always coming unasked to dinner;--and he to
speak of Mr Wentworth, who, if he were the greates