ame of money, you know, and
that goes so far with some girls. We were on our guard,"--and she
looked proudly round on Augusta,--"till we should hear what the young
man really was. He has thrown off his sheep's clothing now with a
vengeance. Mr. Tappitt feels quite ashamed that he should have
introduced him to any of the people here; he does indeed."

"That may be her misfortune, and not her fault," said Miss Harford,
who in defending Rachel was well enough inclined to give up Luke.
Indeed, Baslehurst was beginning to have a settled mind that Luke was
a wolf.

"Oh, quite so," said Mrs. Tappitt. "The poor girl has been very
unfortunate no doubt."

After that she took her leave of the rectory.

On that evening Mr. Comfort dined with Dr. Harford, as did also
Butler Cornbury and his wife, and one or two others. The chances of
the election formed, of course, the chief subject of conversation
both in the drawing-room and at the dinner-table; but in talking of
the election they came to talk of Mr. Tappitt, and in talking of
Tappitt they came to talk of Luke Rowan.

It has already been said that Dr. Harford had been rector of
Baslehurst for many years at the period to which this story refers.
He had nearly completed half a century of work in that capacity, and
had certainly been neither an idle nor an inefficient clergyman. But,
now in his old age, he was discontented and disgusted by the changes
which had come upon him; and though some bodily strength for further
service still remained to him, he had no longer any aptitude for
useful work. A man cannot change as men change. Individual men are
like the separate links of a rotatory chain. The chain goes on with
continuous easy motion as though every part of it were capable of
adapting itself to a curve, but not the less is each link as stiff
and sturdy as any other piece of wrought iron. Dr. Harford had in his
time been an active, popular man,--a man possessing even some liberal
tendencies in politics, though a country rector of nearly half a
century's standing. In his parish he had been more than a clergyman.
He had been a magistrate, and a moving man in municipal affairs. He
had been a politician, and though now for many years he had supported
the Conservative candidate, he had been loudly in favour of the
Reform Bill when Baslehurst was a close borough in the possession of
a great duke, who held property hard by. But liberal politics had
gone on and had left Dr. Harford