nor
do I mean hereby to complain that he picked his teeth with his fork
and misplaced his "h's." I am by no means prepared to define what
I do mean,--thinking, however, that most men and most women will
understand me. Nor do I speak of this deficiency in his clerical
aptitudes as being injurious to him simply,--or even chiefly,--among
folk who are themselves gentle; but that his efficiency for clerical
purposes was marred altogether, among high and low, by his misfortune
in this respect. It is not the owner of a good coat that sees
and admires its beauty. It is not even they who have good coats
themselves who recognize the article on the back of another. They who
have not good coats themselves have the keenest eyes for the coats
of their better-clad neighbours. As it is with coats, so it is with
that which we call gentility. It is caught at a word, it is seen at a
glance, it is appreciated unconsciously at a touch by those who have
none of it themselves. It is the greatest of all aids to the doctor,
the lawyer, the member of Parliament,--though in that position a man
may perhaps prosper without it,--and to the statesman; but to the
clergyman it is a vital necessity. Now Mr. Prong was not a gentleman.

Mrs. Prime told her tale to Mr. Prong, as Mrs. Ray had told hers to
Mr. Comfort. It need not be told again here. I fear that she made
the most of her sister's imprudence, but she did not do so with
intentional injustice. She declared her conviction that Rachel might
still be made to go in a straight course, if only she could be guided
by a hand sufficiently strict and armed with absolute power. Then she
went on to tell Mr. Prong how Mrs. Ray had gone off to Mr. Comfort,
as she herself had now come to him. It was hard,--was it not?--for
poor Rachel that the story of her few minutes' whispering under
the elm tree should thus be bruited about among the ecclesiastical
councillors of the locality. Mr. Prong sat with patient face and with
mild demeanour while the simple story of Rachel's conduct was being
told; but when to this was added the iniquity of Mr. Comfort's
advice, the mouth assumed the would-be grandeur, the chin came out,
and to any one less infatuated than Mrs. Prime it would have been
apparent that the purse was not made of silk, but that a coarser
material had come to hand in the manufacture.

"What shall the sheep do," said Mr. Prong, "when the shepherd
slumbers in the folds?" Then he shook his head and pucker