n very red. "I daresay you
will be surprised--but I have accepted another living, Miss Wodehouse;"
and here the good man stopped short in a terrible state of
embarrassment, not knowing what next to say.

"Yes?" said Miss Wodehouse, interrogatively. Her heart began to beat
quicker, but perhaps he was only going to tell her about the new work
he had undertaken; and then she was a woman, and had some knowledge,
which came by nature, how to conduct herself on an occasion such as
this.

"I don't know whether you recollect," said Mr Proctor--"I shall never
forget it--one time when we all met in a house where a woman was
dying,--I mean your sister and young Wentworth, and you and I;--and
neither you nor I knew anything about it," said the late Rector, in a
strange voice. It was not a complimentary way of opening his subject,
and the occurrence had not made so strong an impression upon Miss
Wodehouse as upon her companion. She looked a little puzzled, and, as
he made a pause, gave only a murmur of something like assent, and
waited to hear what more he might have to say.

"We neither of us knew anything about it," said Mr Proctor--"neither
you how to manage her, nor I what to say to her, though the young
people did. I have always thought of you from that time. I have
thought I should like to try whether I was good for anything now--if
you would help me," said the middle-aged lover. When he had said this
he walked to the window, and once more looked out, and came back
redder than ever. "You see we are neither of us young," said Mr
Proctor; and he stood by the table turning over the books nervously,
without looking at her, which was certainly an odd commencement for a
wooing.

"That is quite true," said Miss Wodehouse, rather primly. She had
never disputed that fact by word or deed, but still it was not
pleasant to have the statement thus thrust upon her without any
apparent provocation. It was not the sort of thing which a woman
expects to have said to her under such circumstances. "I am sure I
hope you will do better--I mean be more comfortable--this time," she
continued, after a pause, sitting very erect on her seat.

"If you will help me," said Mr Proctor, taking up one of the books and
reading the name on it, which was lucky for him, for it was Miss
Wodehouse's name, which he either had forgotten or never had known.

And here they came to a dead stop. What was she to say? She was a
little affronted, to tell the truth,