she did. She had to wait until they had attacked the question in the
orthodox way of siege, and made gradual entrance by dint of hard
labour. All she could do to console herself was, to shed certain hot
tears of indignation and annoyance over her tea, which, however, was
excellent tea, and did her good. Perhaps it was to show her sense of
superiority, and that she did not feel herself vanquished, that, after
that, she put on her new dress, which was very much too nice to be
wasted upon Mr Proctor. As for Mr Leeson, who came in as usual just in
time for dinner, having heard of Mr Proctor's arrival, she treated him
with a blandness which alarmed the Curate. "I quite expected you, for
we have the All-Souls pudding to-day," said the Rector's wife, and she
smiled a smile which would have struck awe into the soul of any curate
that ever was known in Carlingford.

CHAPTER XXXII.

It was the afternoon of the same day on which Mr Proctor arrived in
Carlingford that Mr Wentworth received the little note from Miss
Wodehouse which was so great a consolation to the Perpetual Curate. By
that time he had begun to experience humiliations more hard to bear than
anything he had yet known. He had received constrained greetings from
several of his most cordial friends; his people in the district, all but
Tom Burrows, looked askance upon him; and Dr Marjoribanks, who had never
taken kindly to the young Anglican, had met him with satirical remarks
in his dry Scotch fashion, which were intolerable to the Curate. In
these circumstances, it was balm to his soul to have his sympathy once
more appealed to, and by those who were nearest to his heart. The next
day was that appointed for Mr Wodehouse's funeral, to which Mr Wentworth
had been looking forward with a little excitement--wondering, with
indignant misery, whether the covert insults he was getting used to
would be repeated even over his old friend's grave. It was while this
was in his mind that he received Miss Wodehouse's little note. It was
very hurriedly written, on the terrible black-edged paper which, to such
a simple soul as Miss Wodehouse, it was a kind of comfort to use in the
moment of calamity. "Dear Mr Wentworth," it said, "I am in great
difficulty, and don't know what to do: come, I beg of you, and tell me
what is best. My dear Lucy insists upon going to-morrow, and I can't
cross her when her heart is breaking, and I don't know what to do.
Please to come, if it were on