called them, which had been introduced.
"Nothing can be more elegant than the reredos which our excellent vicar
has erected at his own expense," she wrote. "The altar, too, is
beautifully adorned, and the music, considering the performers, is
wonderfully good; for Mrs Lerew has taken great pains to instruct the
choir, and we occasionally have a first-rate musician from London to
lead them; while an air of solemnity pervades the service, both on
Sundays and week-days, very different to anything we have before had in
this neighbourhood." She did not say that she went to confession, but
she remarked that she derived great comfort from the spiritual advice of
the vicar. The letter was closed ready for the post, when General
Caulfield was announced. He came to bid her and her father a hurried
farewell, as he had just been summoned by telegram to the north of
England, to the bedside of a dying brother, whose executor he was, and
he greatly feared that some time might elapse before he should be able
to return.

"I wish to suggest to you, my dear Clara, before I go," he said, "that
it will be well, in the position in which you are placed, to avoid too
great an intimacy with the vicar and his wife, of whose constant visits
to you I have heard. He may be, according to his own notions, a
religious man, but he is not acting faithfully to the Church of which he
is a minister. He has already made many innovations in this parish
which are contrary to the spirit and practice of that Protestant Church,
and, from what I hear and observe, he intends to make others; while he
has openly pleached several Romish doctrines, and I see his name among
the members of the Church Union, which avowedly repudiates Protestant
principles. I am sure that Harry would give you the advice I do, and I
deeply regret that I cannot remain to afford you any assistance you may
require."

A blush rose on Clara's brow. She could not openly express any
disagreement with the general, but she thought he was harsh and
illiberal in the opinion he had uttered. She replied that she had
already written to Harry, and told him all about the church and the
vicar, and hoped that he would not find any great fault with her.

The general appeared satisfied. He remained but a short time with his
poor friend, whom he believed that he should never again see on earth;
for he remarked, what Clara had failed to do, the great change in her
father's countenance since his la