never wrote about it as though he thought he'd
been lucky in getting it."

"Didn't he?"

"Never; and I thought he was melancholy and out of spirits when I
saw him the other day. He ought to marry; that's the fact. A young
clergyman with a living should always get a wife."

"You are like the fox that lost its tail," said Adela, trying hard to
show that she joined in the conversation without an effort.

"Ah! but the case is very different. There can be no doubt that
Arthur ought to lose his tail. His position in the world is one which
especially requires him to lose it."

"He has his mother and sisters, you know."

"Oh, mother and sisters! Mother and sisters are all very well, or not
very well, as the case may be; but the vicar of a parish should be a
married man. If you can't get a wife for him down there in Hampshire,
I shall have him up to London, and look one out for him there. Pray
take the matter in hand when you go home, Miss Gauntlet."

Adela smiled, and did not blush; nor did she say that she quite
agreed with him that the vicar of a parish should be a married man.

"Well, I shan't ask any questions," said Bertram, as soon as he and
Harcourt were in the street, "or allow you to offer any opinion;
because, as we have both agreed, you have not pluck enough to give it
impartially." Bertram as he said this could hardly preserve himself
from a slight tone of triumph.

"She is simply the most most lovely woman that my eyes ever beheld,"
said Harcourt.

"Tush! can't you make it a little more out of the common way than
that? But, Harcourt, without joke, you need not trouble yourself. I
did want you to see her; but I don't care twopence as to your liking
her. I shall think much more of your wife liking her--if you ever
have a wife."

"Bertram, upon my word, I never was less in a mood to joke."

"That is saying very little, for you are always in a mood to
joke." Bertram understood it all; saw clearly what impression Miss
Waddington had made, and for the moment was supremely happy.

"How ever you had the courage to propose yourself and your two
hundred pounds a year to such a woman as that!"

"Ha! ha! ha! Why, Harcourt, you are not at all like yourself. If you
admire her so much, I shall beg you not to come to Littlebath any
more."

"Perhaps I had better not. But, Bertram, I beg to congratulate you
most heartily. There is this against your future happiness--"

"What?"

"Why, you will never be known as