I feel it all the more just now because I want to consult you; and,
after all, the occasion was no such--"

"I never said there was any occasion. I am sure I never made any
complaint. You said you wanted to consult me, William?" Mrs Morgan
went on darning her stockings while she was speaking, and the Rector,
like most other men, objected to be spoken to by the lips only. He
would have liked to toss the stocking out of the window, though it
was his own, and the task of repairing it was one of a devoted wife's
first duties, according to the code of female proprieties in which
both the husband and wife had been brought up.

"Yes," said the Rector, with a sigh. "The truth is, I have just got a
letter from Harry Scarsfield, who was my pet pupil long ago. He tells
me my father's old rectory is vacant, where we were all brought up.
There used to be a constant intercourse between the Hall and the Rectory
when I was a lad. They are very nice people the Scarsfields--at least
they used to be very nice people; and Harry has his mother living with
him, and the family has never been broken up, I believe. We used to
know everybody about there," said Mr Morgan, abandoning himself to
recollections in a manner most mysterious to his wife. "There is the
letter, my dear," and he put it down upon her table, and began to play
with the reels of cotton in her workbox unconsciously, as he had not
done for a long time; which, unawares to herself, had a softening
influence upon Mrs Morgan's heart.

"I do not know anything about the Scarsfields," she said, without
taking up the letter, "and I cannot see what you have to do with this.
Does he wish you to recommend some one?" Mrs Morgan added, with a
momentary interest; for she had, of course, like other people, a
relation in a poor living, whom it would have been satisfactory to
recommend.

"He says I may have it if I have a mind," said the Rector curtly,
betraying a little aggravation in his tone.

"You, William?" said Mrs Morgan. She was so much surprised that she laid
down her stocking and looked him straight in the face, which she had not
done for many days; and it was wonderful how hard she found it to keep up
her reserve, after having once looked her husband in the eyes. "But it is
not much more than six months since you were settled in Carlingford,"
she said, still lost in amazement. "You cannot possibly mean to make a
change so soon? and then the difference of the position," said the