d who is not quite ready to
believe that he has run away with Rosa Elsworthy--a common little girl
without any education, or a single idea in her head. I suppose she is
what you would call pretty," said the indignant woman. "Everybody is
just as ready to believe that he is guilty as if he were a stranger or
a bad character." Mrs Morgan stopped in an abrupt manner, because her
quick eyes perceived a glance exchanged between the two gentlemen. Mr
Proctor had seen a good deal of the world in his day, as he was fond
of saying now and then to his intimate friends: and he had learned at
the university and other places that a girl who is "what you would
call pretty," counts for a great deal in the history of a young man,
whether she has any ideas in her head or not. He did not, any more
than the people of Carlingford, pronounce at once on _a priori_
evidence that Mr Wentworth must be innocent. The Curate's "consistent
life" did not go for much in the opinion of the middle-aged Fellow of
All-Souls, any more than of the less dignified populace. He said,
"Dear me, dear me!" in a most perplexed and distressed tone, while Mrs
Morgan kept looking at him; and looked very much as if he were tempted
to break forth into lamentations over human nature, as Mr Morgan
himself had done.

"I wonder what the Miss Wodehouses think of it," he said at last. "One
would do a great deal to keep them from hearing such a thing; but I
wonder how they are feeling about it," said Mr Proctor--and clearly
declined to discuss the matter with Mrs Morgan, who was counsel for
the defence. When the Rector's wife went to her own room to dress for
dinner, it is very true that she had a good cry over her cup of tea.
She was not only disappointed, but exasperated, in that impatient
feminine nature of hers. Perhaps if she had been less sensitive, she
would have had less of that redness in her face which was so great a
trouble to Mrs Morgan. These two slow middle-aged men, without any
intuitions, who were coming lumbering after her through all kind of
muddles of evidence and argument, exasperated the more rapid woman. To
be sure, they understood Greek plays a great deal better than she did;
but she was penetrated with the liveliest impatience of their dulness
all the same. Mrs Morgan, however, like most people who are in advance
of their age, felt her utter impotence against that blank wall of dull
resistance. She could not make them see into the heart of things as