aughan's visits to Lambeth. He had the air, I used to
think, rather of an old-fashioned and highly-bred country clergyman than
of a headmaster and a Church dignitary. With his rather long hair,
brushed back, his large, pale face, with its meek and smiling air, and
his thin, clear, and deliberate voice, he gave the impression of a
much-disciplined, self-restrained, and chastened man. He had none of the
brisk effectiveness or mundane radiance of a successful man of affairs.
But this was a superficial view, because, if he became moved or
interested, he revealed a critical incisiveness of speech and judgment,
as well as a profound and delicate humour.

He had collected about himself an informal band of young men who read
theology under his direction. He used to give a daily lecture, but there
was no college or regular discipline. The men lived in lodgings,
attended the cathedral service, arranged their own amusements and
occupations. But Vaughan had a stimulating and magnetic effect over his
pupils, many of whom have risen to high eminence in the Church.

They were constantly invited to meals at the deanery, where Mrs.
Vaughan, a sister of Dean Stanley, and as brilliant, vivacious, and
witty a talker as her brother, kept the circle entranced and delighted
by her suggestive and humorous talk. My brother tells the story of how,
in one of the Dean's long and serious illnesses, from which he
eventually recovered, Mrs. Vaughan absented herself one day on a
mysterious errand, and the Dean subsequently discovered, with intense
amusement and pleasure, that she had gone to inspect a house in which
she intended to spend her widowhood. The Dean told the whole story in
her presence to some of the young men who were dining there, and
sympathised with her on the suspension of her plans. I remember, too,
that my brother described to me how, in the course of the same illness,
Mrs. Vaughan, who was greatly interested in some question of the Higher
Criticism, had gone to the Dean's room to read to him, and had suggested
that they should consider and discuss some disputed passage of the Old
Testament. The Dean gently but firmly declined. Mrs. Vaughan coming
downstairs, Bible in hand, found a caller in the drawing-room who
inquired after the Dean. "I have just come from him," said Mrs.
Vaughan, "and it is naturally a melancholy thought, but he seems to have
entirely lost his faith. He would not let me read the Bible with him; he
practically s