, half-affectionate remarks upon the
inexplicable weakness of women, and to pick up the stocking which his
wife was darning, and finally to stroke her hair, which was still as
pretty and soft and brown as it had been ten years ago. Under such
circumstances a man does not object to feel himself on a platform of
moral superiority. He even began to pet her a little, with a pleasant
sense of forgiveness and forbearance. "You were perhaps a little cross,
my love, but you don't think I am the man to be hard upon you," said the
Rector. "Now you must dry your eyes and give me your advice--you know
how much confidence I have always had in your advice--"

"Forgive me, William. I don't think there is any one so good as you are;
and as long as we are together it does not matter to me where we are,"
said the repentant woman. But as she lifted up her head, her eye fell on
the carpet, and a gleam of sudden delight passed through Mrs Morgan's
mind. To be delivered from all her suspicions and injurious thoughts
about her husband would have been a deliverance great enough for one
day; but at the same happy moment to see a means of deliverance from the
smaller as well as the greater cross of her existence seemed almost too
good to be credible. She brightened up immediately when that thought
occurred to her. "I think it is the very best thing you could do," she
said. "We are both so fond of the country, and it is so much nicer to
manage a country parish than a town one. We might have lived all our
lives in Carlingford without knowing above half of the poor people,"
said Mrs Morgan, growing in warmth as she went on; "it is so different
in a country parish. I never liked to say anything," she continued, with
subtle feminine policy, "but I never--much--cared for Carlingford." She
gave a sigh as she spoke, for she thought of the Virginian creeper and
the five feet of new wall at that side of the garden, which had just
been completed, to shut out the view of the train. Life does not contain
any perfect pleasure. But when Mrs Morgan stooped to lift up some stray
reels of cotton which the Rector's clumsy fingers had dropped out of her
workbox, her eye was again attracted by the gigantic roses and tulips on
the carpet, and content and satisfaction filled her heart.

"I have felt the same thing, my dear," said Mr Morgan. "I don't say
anything against Mr Finial as an architect, but Scott himself could make
nothing of such a hideous church. I don't s