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 A/ 
 
 THE YICAR^S DAUGHTER 
 
 3Vn ^^ttt^jbia^ra^jhical (Stx»ry. 
 
 By GEORGE MAC DONALD, ll.d. 
 
 AUTHOR OF " THE SEABOARD PARISH," ETC. 
 
 THREE VOLS.— I. 
 
 LONDON 
 
 TINSLEY BROTHERS, i8, CATHERINE STREET, STRAND 
 
 1872 
 
 ■[^// rights of Trans Lition and Reprcductio7i are rese>ved.'\
 
 PRINTED EY VIRTUE XSV CO. 
 CITY ROAD.
 
 CONTENTS OF VOL. I, 
 
 I. 
 
 IXTEODUCTGEY 
 
 
 
 
 PAGK 
 . 1 
 
 II. 
 
 I TRY .... 
 
 
 
 
 . 20 
 
 III. 
 
 MY VEDDIXG . 
 
 
 
 
 . 42 
 
 IT. 
 
 JUDY'S TISIT . 
 
 
 
 
 . 64 
 
 T. 
 
 "GOOD society" . 
 
 
 
 
 78 
 
 TI. 
 
 A EEFTJGE FEOiT THE HEAT 
 
 
 
 
 . 90 
 
 YII. 
 
 COKN-IE .... 
 
 
 
 
 . 104 
 
 Till. 
 
 coxxie's baby 
 
 
 
 
 . 115 
 
 IX. 
 
 THE FOL^T)LIXG EE-FOUXD 
 
 
 
 
 132 
 
 X. 
 
 WAGTAIL COMES TO HOXOUE 
 
 
 
 
 147 
 
 XI. 
 
 A STUPID CHAPTER 
 
 
 
 
 160 
 
 XII. 
 
 AX IXTEODUCTIOX . 
 
 
 
 
 . 173 
 
 XIII. 
 
 A XEGATITED PROPOSAL 
 
 
 
 
 185 
 
 XIT. 
 
 MY FIRST DIXXER-PARTY 
 
 
 
 
 196 
 
 XT. 
 
 A PICTURE . . . . 
 
 
 
 
 222 
 
 XTI. 
 
 RUMOURS . . . . 
 
 
 
 
 236 
 
 XTII. 
 
 s:tiii. 
 
 A DISCOTERY . . . . 
 MISS CLARE . 
 
 
 
 
 259 
 
 280
 
 CHAPTEE I. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 T THI^N'K that is the way my father would 
 -*- begin. My name is Ethelwyn Perci- 
 yale, and used to be Ethelwyn Walton. I 
 always put the Walton in between when I 
 wiite to my father ; for I think it is quite 
 enough to have to leave father and mother 
 behind for a husband, without leaving their 
 name behind you also. I am fond of lumber 
 rooms, and in some houses consider them 
 far the most interesting spots ; but I don't 
 choose that my old name should lie about in 
 the one at home. 
 
 I am much afraid of writing nonsense, 
 
 VOL. I. B
 
 2 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 but my father tells me that to see thmgs iu 
 print is a great help to recognizing whether 
 they are nonsense or not. And he tells me 
 too that his friend, the publisher, who — but 
 I will speak of him presently — his friend 
 the publisher is not like any other publisher 
 he ever met with before, for he is so fond of 
 good work that he never grumbles at any 
 alterations ^vriters choose to make — at least 
 he never says anything, although it costs a 
 great deal to shift the types again after they 
 are once set up. The other part of my 
 excuse for attempting to write, lies simply 
 in telling how it came about. 
 
 Ten days ago, my father came up from 
 Marshmallows to pay us a visit. He is 
 with us now, but we don't see much of him 
 all day, for he is generally out with a friend 
 of his in the East End, the parson of one 
 of the poorest parishes in London — who 
 thanks God that he wasn't the nephew of
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 3 
 
 any bishop to be put into a good living, for 
 lie learns more about the ways of God from 
 having to do with plain — yes, vulgar 
 human nature, than the thickness of the 
 varnish would ever have permitted him to 
 discover in what are called the higher 
 orders of society. Yet I must say that 
 amongst those I have recognized as nearest 
 the sacred communism of the early church 
 — a phrase of my father's — are two or three 
 people of rank and wealth whose names — 
 are written in heaven, and need not be set 
 down in my poor story. 
 
 A few days ago then, my father, coming 
 home to dinner, brought Vvith him the 
 publisher of the two books — called the 
 Annals of a Quiet Neighhoiirhood and 
 The Seahoard Parish. The first of these 
 had lain by him for some years before my 
 father could publish it, and then he re- 
 modelled it a little for the magazine in
 
 4 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 wliicli it came out a portion at a time. The 
 second was AVi'itten at the request of Mr. S., 
 who wanted something more of the same 
 soii; and now, after some years, he had 
 begun again to represent to my father, at 
 intervals, the necessity for another story to 
 complete the irilofjij^ as he called it ; insist- 
 ing, when my father objected the difficulties 
 of growing years and failing judgment, that 
 indeed he owed it to him, for he had left 
 him in the lurch, as it were, with an incom- 
 plete story, not to say an uncompleted 
 series. My father still objected, and Mr. S. 
 still urged, until at length my father said 
 — this I learned afterwards of course : 
 *' What would you say if I found you a 
 substitute?" "That depends on who the 
 substitute might be, Mr. Walton," said 
 Mr. S. The result of their talk was tliat 
 my father brouglit him home to dinner that 
 day, and hence it comes that, with some
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 5 
 
 real fear and mucli metaphorical trembling, 
 I am noAY writing this. I wonder if any- 
 body will ever read it. This my first 
 chapter shall be composed of a little of the 
 talk that passed at our dinner-table that 
 day. Mr. Blackstone was the only other 
 stranger present, and he certainly was not 
 much of a stranger. 
 
 ^^Do you keep a diary, Mrs. Percivale?" 
 asked Mr. S. with a twinkle in his eye, as if 
 he expected an indignant repudiation. 
 
 '' I AYOuld rather keep a rag and bottle 
 shop," I answered, at which Mr. Blackstone 
 burst into one of his splendid roars of 
 laughter — for if ever a man could laugh 
 lilve a Christian who believed the world was 
 in a fair way after all, that man was Mr. 
 Blackstone; and even my husband, who 
 seldom laughs at anything I say with more 
 than his eyes, was infected by it and 
 laughed heartily.
 
 6 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 ^^ That's rather a strong assertion, my 
 love/' said my father. '' Pray ^hat do yon 
 mean by it ? " 
 
 ^^I mean, papa," I answered, ^^ that it 
 would bo a more profitable employment to 
 keej) the one than the other." 
 
 '^ I suppose you think," said Mr. Elack- 
 stone, ^' that the lady vrho keeps a diary is 
 in the same, danger as the old woman who 
 prided herself in keeping a strict account 
 of her personal expenses. And it always 
 was correct, for when she could not get 
 it to balance at the end of the week, she 
 brought it right by putting down the deficit 
 as cliaritjjP 
 
 ^' That's just what I mean," I said. 
 
 '-^ But," resumed Mr. S., '' I did not mean 
 a diary of your feelings, but of the events 
 of the day and hour." 
 
 ''Which are never in themselves worth 
 putting dovrn," I said. '' All that is worth
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 7 
 
 remembering will find for itself some con- 
 venient cranny to go to sleep in till it is 
 wanted, witliont being made a poor mummy 
 of in a diary." 
 
 ^^ If you liavG such a memory, I grant 
 that is better — even for my purpose — much 
 better," said Mr. S. 
 
 ^Tor your purpose ! " I repeated, in sur- 
 prise. ^^I beg your pardon, but what 
 designs can you have upon my memory ? " 
 
 " "Well, I suppose I had better be as 
 straightforward as I know you would like 
 me to bo, Mrs. Percivale. I want you to 
 make up the sum your father owes me. He 
 owed me three books ; he has paid me two, 
 I want the third from you." 
 
 I laughed, for the very notion of writing 
 a book seemed preposterous. 
 
 '' I want you, under feigned names of 
 course," he went on, '^ as are all the names 
 in your father's two books, to give me the
 
 8 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 fui'ther history of tlie family, and in par- 
 ticnlar your own experiences in London. 
 I am confident tlie liistory of your married 
 life must contain a number of incidents 
 which, without the least danger of indis- 
 cretion, might be communicated to the 
 public to the great advantage of all who 
 read them." 
 
 ^^You forget," I said, hardly believing 
 him to be in earnest, '^that I should be 
 exposing my story to you and Mr. Black- 
 stone at least. If I were to make the 
 absurd attempt — I mean absurd as regards 
 my ability — I should be always thinking 
 of you two as my public, and whether it 
 would be right for me to say this and 
 say that ; which, you may see at once, 
 would render it impossible for me to write 
 at all." 
 
 '^ I think I can suggest a way out of that 
 difiiculty, Wynnie," said my father. '' You
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 9 
 
 must write freely, all you feel incliued to 
 wiite, aud then let your husband see it. 
 You may be content to let all pass that he 
 passes." 
 
 '^ You don't say you really mean it, papa! 
 The thing is perfectly impossible. I never 
 wrote a book in my life, and " 
 
 '^ No more did I, my dear, before I began 
 my first." 
 
 ^'But you grew up to it by degrees, 
 papa." 
 
 '-'- 1 have no doubt that will make it 
 the easier for you when you try. I am 
 so far at least a Darwinian as to believe 
 that." 
 
 '-^ But, really, Mr. S. ought to have more 
 sense — I beg your pardon, Mr. S., but it is 
 perfectly absurd to suppose me capable of 
 finishing anything my father has begun. I 
 assure you I don't feel fiattered by your 
 proposal. I have got a man of more con-
 
 10 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 sequence for a father than that woukl 
 imply." 
 
 All this time my tall husband sat silent 
 at the foot of the table, as if he had nothing 
 on earth to do with the affair, instead of 
 coming to my assistance, when, as I thought, 
 I really needed it, especially seeing my own 
 father was of the combination against me. 
 For what can be more miserable than to be 
 taken for wiser or better or cleverer than, 
 you know perfectly well, you are ? I looked 
 down the table, straight and sharp at him, 
 thinking to rouse him by the most powerful 
 of silent appeals ; and when he opened his 
 mouth very solemnly, staring at me in re- 
 turn down all the length of the table, I 
 thought I had succeeded. But I was not 
 a little surprised, when I heard him say — 
 
 ^' I think, Wynnie, as yoiu' father and 
 Mr. S. appear to wish it, you might at 
 least try."
 
 INTROD UCTORF. 1 1 
 
 This almost OYercamc me, and I was yery 
 near — never mind what. I bit my lips and 
 tried to smile, bnt felt as if all my friends 
 had forsaken me, and were about to turn 
 me out to beg my bread. How on earth 
 could I write a book without making a fool 
 of myself? 
 
 "You know, Mrs. Perciyale," said Mr. 
 S., "you needn't be afraid about the com- 
 position, and the spelling, and all that. 
 "We can easily set those to rights at the 
 office." 
 
 He couldn't have done anything better 
 to send the lump out of my tliroat, for this 
 made me angry. 
 
 "I am not in the least anxious about 
 the spelling," I answered ; " and for the 
 rest, pray what is to become of me, if what 
 you print should happen to be praised by 
 somebody who likes my husband or my 
 father, and therefore wants to say a good
 
 12 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 word for mc ? That's what a good deal of 
 rcYie^ying comes to, I understand. Am I 
 to receive m silence what doesn't belong 
 to me, or am I to send a letter to the papers 
 to say that the whole thing was patched and 
 polished at the printing office, and that I 
 have no right to more than perhaps a fourth 
 part of the commendation? How would 
 that do ? " 
 
 ^^But you forget it is not to have your 
 name to it," he said; ''and so it won't 
 matter a bit. There will be nothing dis- 
 honest about it." 
 
 '' You forget that although nobody knows 
 my real name, everybody will know that I 
 am the daughter of that Mr. Walton who 
 would have thro^oi his pen in the fire if you 
 had meddled with anything he wrote. They 
 would be praising me^ if they praised at all. 
 The name is nothing. Of all things, to 
 have praise you don't deserve, and not to
 
 INTRODUCTORY, 
 
 13 
 
 be able to reject it, is the most miserable ! 
 It is as bad as painting one's face." 
 
 "- Hardly a case in point," said Mr. 
 Blackstone. '^ For tlie artificial complexion 
 would be your own work, and the other 
 AYOuld not." 
 
 ^' If you come to discuss that question," 
 said my father, '^we must all confess we 
 have had in our day to pocket a good many 
 more praises than we had a right to. I 
 agree with you, however, my child, that 
 we must not conniye at anything of the sort. 
 So I will propose this clause in the bargain 
 between you and Mr. S. — namely, that if 
 he finds any fault with your work, he shall 
 send it back to yourself to be set right, and 
 if you cannot do so to his mind, you shall 
 be ofi" the bargain." 
 
 " Eut papa — Perciyale — both of you know^ 
 well enough that nothing ever happened to 
 me worth telling."
 
 14 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 '' I am sorry yom- life lias been so very 
 uniuteresting, wife," said my husband, 
 grimly ; for liis fiiii is ahvays so like 
 earnest I 
 
 ^'You know well enough what I mean, 
 husband. It does not follow that what has 
 been interesting enough to you and me will 
 be interesting to people who know nothing 
 at all about us to begin Vvdth." 
 
 '-'• It depends on how it is told," said 
 Mr. S. 
 
 '' Then, I beg leaye to say, that I never 
 had an original thought in my life, and that 
 if I were to attempt to tell my history the 
 result vv^ould be as silly a narrative as ever 
 one old woman told another by the work- 
 house fire." 
 
 " And I only wish I could hear the one 
 old woman tell her story to the other," 
 said my father. 
 
 ^' Ah ! but that's because vou see ever
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 15 
 
 SO much more iu it thau shows. You 
 always see through the words and the 
 things to something lying behind them/' I 
 said. 
 
 ^'"Well, if you told the story rightly , 
 other people would see such things behind 
 it too." 
 
 " N^ot enough of people to make it worth 
 while for Mr. S. to print it," I said. 
 
 ^^ He's not going to print it except he 
 thinks it worth his while, and you may 
 safely leave that to him," said my husband. 
 
 '^ And so I'm to write a book as big as 
 the Annals^ and after I've been slaving at 
 it for half a century or so, I'm to be told it 
 won't do, and all my labour most go for no- 
 thing ? I must say the proposal is rather 
 a cool one to make — to the mother of a 
 family." 
 
 ^^ Xot at all ; — that's not it, I mean," said 
 Mr. S. — '' If you will write a dozen pages
 
 1 6 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 or so, I shall be able to judge by those well 
 enough — at least I will take all the responsi- 
 bility on myself after that." 
 
 '-'- There's a fair offer ! " said my husband. 
 ^' It seems to me, Wynnie, that all that is 
 wanted of you is to tell your tale so that 
 other people can recognize the human heart 
 in it — the heart that is like their own, and 
 be able to feel as if they were themselves 
 going through the things you recount." 
 
 ^^ You describe the work of a genius, and 
 coolly ask me to do it. Besides, I don't 
 want to be set thinking about my heart, and 
 all that," I said peevishly. 
 
 ^^IN'ow don't be raising objections where 
 none exist," he returned. 
 
 '^ If you mean I am pretending to object, 
 I have only to say that I feel all one great 
 objection ' to the whole affair, and that I 
 won't touch it." 
 
 They were all silent, and I felt as if I
 
 INTRODVCTOR}'. ,- 
 
 tad behaved ungraciously. Then first I 
 felt as if I might have to do it after all. 
 But I couldn't see mj way in the least. 
 
 "^Wwhat is there," I asked, "in all my 
 life that is worth setting down-I mean as 
 I should be able to set it doivn ? " 
 
 "What do you ladies talk about now, in 
 your morning calls?" suggested Mr. Black- 
 stone, with a humorous glance from his 
 deep black eyes. 
 
 "A^othing worth writing about, as I am 
 sure you will readily believe, Mr. Black- 
 stone," I answered. 
 
 " How comes it to be interesting then ? " 
 "But it isn't. They_we-only talk 
 about the weather and our childi-en and 
 servants, and that sort of thing." 
 
 "WW/.'" said Mr. S._"Ind I wish I 
 could get anything sensible about the 
 weather and chilcben and servants, and 
 that sort of thing, for my magazine. I have 
 
 VOL I. c
 
 1 8 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 a weakness in the dii'cction of tlie sen- 
 f^ible.'' 
 
 ^'But there never is anything sensible 
 said abont any of them — not that I knoTT of." 
 
 " Kow, Wynnie, I am sure you are wrong, '^ 
 said ni}^ father. ^' There; is your friend, 
 !Mrs. Cromwell : I am certain she, sometimes 
 at least, must sa}^ what is Avorth hearing 
 about such matters." 
 
 ''Well, but she's an exception. Besides, 
 she hasn't any children." 
 
 ''Then," said my husband, "there's Lady 
 Bernard " 
 
 " Ah — but she was like no one else. Be- 
 sides, she is almost a public character, and 
 anything said about her, would betray ni}^ 
 original." 
 
 " It would be no matter. She is beyond 
 caring for that now ; and not one of her 
 friends could object to anything you who 
 loved her so much Avould say about her." 
 
 I
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 19 
 
 The mGiitiou of this lady seemed to put 
 some strength into me. I felt as if I did 
 know something worth telling, and I was 
 silent in my turn. 
 
 ^^ Certainly/' Mr. S. resumed, ^'whatever 
 is worth talking about is worth writing 
 about — though not perhaps in the way it is 
 talked about. Besides, Mrs. Percivale, my 
 clients want to know more about your 
 sisters and little Theodora or Dorothea, or 
 what was her name in the book ? " 
 
 The end of it was that I agreed to try to 
 the extent of a dozen pages or so.
 
 CHAPTEE II. 
 
 I TRY. 
 
 T HOPE no one will think I try to write 
 like my father, for that would be to go 
 against what he always made a great point 
 of — that nobody whatever should imitate 
 any other person whatever, but in modesty 
 and humility allow the seed that God had 
 sown in her to grow. He said all imitation 
 tended to dwarf and distort the plant, if it 
 even allowed the seed to germinate at all. 
 So if I do ^yvitQ like him, it will be because 
 I cannot help it. 
 
 I will just look how The Seaboard Parish 
 ends, and perhaps that will put into my
 
 / TRY. 21 
 
 head liow I ought to begin. I see my 
 father does mention that I had then been 
 Mrs. Percivale for many years. Not so yery 
 many though — fiye or six, if I remember 
 rightly, and that is three or four years ago. 
 Yes, I haye been married nine years. I 
 may as well say a word as to how it came 
 about, and if Perciyale doesn't like it, the 
 remedy lies in his pen. I shall be far more 
 thankful to have anything struck out on 
 suspicion than remain on sufferance. 
 
 After our return home from Ivilkliayen, 
 my father and mother had a good many 
 talks about me and Perciyale, and sometimes 
 they took different sides. I will giye a 
 shadow of one of these conyersations. I 
 think ladies can write fully as natural talk 
 as gentlemen can, though the bits between 
 ma}Ti't be so good. 
 
 Mother, — I am afraid, my dear husband, 
 (This was my mother's most solemn mode of
 
 122 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 addressing my father.) — they are too like 
 each other to make a suitable match. 
 
 Father. — I am sorry to learn you consider 
 me so very unlike youi-sclf, Ethehvyn. I 
 had hoped there was a very strong resem- 
 blance indeed, and that the match had not 
 proved altogether unsuitable. 
 
 Mother. — Just thinlv, though, what would 
 have become of me by this time, if you had 
 been half as unbelieving a creature as I 
 was. Indeed I fear sometimes I am not 
 much better now. 
 
 Father. — I think I am then ; and I know 
 you've done me nothing but good with 3'oui* 
 unbelief. It was just because I was of the 
 same sort precisely that I was able to under- 
 stand and help you. My circumstances and 
 education and superior years — 
 
 Ilother. — ^ow don't plume yourself on 
 that, Harry, for you knov/ everybody says 
 you look much the younger of the two.
 
 / TRY. ^3 
 
 Father. — I had no idea that eycrybod^? 
 was so rude. I repeat, that my more years, 
 as well as my severer education, had, no 
 doubt, helped mo a little further on before 
 I came to Imow you ; but it was only in 
 virtue of the doubt in me that I was able 
 to understand and appreciate the doubt in 
 you. 
 
 Mother. — But then you had at least begun 
 to leave it behind before I knew you, and 
 so had grown able to help me. And Mr. 
 Percivale does not seem, by all I can make 
 out, a bit nearer believing in anything than 
 poor Yv^ynnie herself. 
 
 Father. — At least he doesn't fancy he 
 believes when he does not, as so many do, 
 and consider themselves superior persons in 
 consequence. I don't know that it would 
 have done you any great harm, Miss 
 Ethelwyn, to have made my acquaintance 
 when I was in the worst of my doubts
 
 24 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 concerning the trutli of things. Allow mc 
 to tell you that I was nearer making ship- 
 wreck of my faith at a certain period than 
 I ever was before or have been since. 
 
 Mother. — What period was that ? 
 
 Father. — Just the little while when I had 
 lost all hope of ever marrying you — un- 
 believer as you counted yourself. 
 
 Mother. — You don't mean to say you 
 would have ceased to believe in God if he 
 hadn't given you 3'our own way ? What is 
 faith worth if it depends on being indulged? 
 
 Father. — l^'o, my dear. I firmly believe 
 that had I never married you, I should 
 have come in the end to say Thy ivill he 
 done^ and to believe that it must be all 
 right however hard to bear. But, oh, what 
 a terrible thing it would have been, and 
 what a frightful valley of the shadow of 
 death I should have had to go tlu'ough 
 first !
 
 / TRY, 25 
 
 I know my mother said notliing more just 
 tlieiij but let my father have it all his own 
 way for a while. 
 
 Father, — You see this Percivale is an 
 honest man. I don't exactly know how he 
 has been brought up, and it is quite possible 
 he may have had such evil instruction in 
 Christianity that he attributes to it doctrines 
 which, if I supposed they actually belonged 
 to it, would make me reject it at once as 
 ungodlike and bad. I have found this the 
 case sometimes. I remember once being 
 astonished to hear a certain noble-minded 
 lady utter some indignant words against 
 what I considered a very weighty doc- 
 trine of Christianity; but listening I soon 
 found that what she supposed the doctrine 
 to contain was something I considered vastly 
 unchristian. This may be the case with 
 Percivale, though I never heard him say a 
 word of the kind. I think his difficulty
 
 26 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 comes mainly from seeing so much suffering 
 in tlie "world that he cannot imagine the 
 presence and rule of a good God ; and 
 therefore lies with religion rather than with 
 Christianity as yet. I am all but certain, 
 the only thing that will ever make him able 
 to believe in a God at all is meditation on 
 the Christian idea of God — I mean the idea 
 of God in Christ reconciling the world to 
 himself. He will then see that suffering is 
 not cither "\Yi'ath or neglect, but sore-hearted 
 love and tenderness. But we must give 
 him time, wife ; as God has borne with us, 
 we must believe that he bears with others, 
 and so learn to wait in hopeful patience 
 until they too see as we see. 
 
 And as to trusting our Wynnie with Per- 
 civale — he seems to be as good as she is. I 
 should for my part have more apprehension 
 in giving her to one who would be called a 
 thoroughly religious man ; for not only
 
 / TRY. 27 
 
 would the uiLfitrLess be greater, but such a 
 man would be more likely to confirm her in 
 doubt, if the phrase be permissible. She 
 Avants Vv^hat some would call homoeopathic 
 treatment. And how should they be able 
 to love one another if they are not fit to be 
 married to each other ? The fitness seems 
 inherent in the fact. 
 
 Mother, — But many a two love each other 
 who would have loved each other a good 
 deal more if they hadn't been married. 
 
 Father. — Then it was most desirable they 
 should find out that what they thought a 
 grand affection was not worthy of the name. 
 But I don't think there is much fear of that 
 between those tv/o. 
 
 Mother. — I don't however see how that 
 man is to do her any good, when you have 
 tried to make her happy for so long, and all 
 in vain. 
 
 Father. — I don't know that it has been
 
 2 8 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 all in yain. But it is quite possible she 
 does not understand me. Slie fancies, I 
 dare say, that I believe everything without 
 any trouble, and therefore cannot enter into 
 her difficulties. 
 
 Mother. — Eut you have told her many 
 and many a time that you do. 
 
 Father. — Yes — and I hope I was right; 
 but the same things look so different to 
 different peojDle that the same words won't 
 describe them to both ; and it ma}^ seem to 
 her that I am talking of something not at 
 all like what she is feeling or thinking of. 
 Eut when she sees the troubled face of 
 Percivale, she knows that he is suffering; 
 and sympathy being thus established be- 
 tween them, the least word of the one will 
 do more to help the other than oceans of 
 argument. Love is the one great instructor. 
 And each will try to be good and to find 
 out for the sake of the other.
 
 / TRY, 29 
 
 Mother. — I don't like her going from 
 lionie for the help that lay at her very 
 door. 
 
 Father. — You know, my dear, yon like 
 the Dean's preaching much better than 
 mine. 
 
 Mother. — IsTow that is unkind of you ! 
 
 Father. — And why ? (my father went 
 on, taking no heed of my mother's expostu- 
 lation.) Because in the first place it is 
 better ; because in the second it comes 
 in a newer form to you, for you have got 
 used to all my modes ; in the third place it 
 has more force from the fact that it is not 
 subject to the doubt of personal preference ; 
 and lastly because he has a large compre- 
 hensive way of asserting things, which 
 pleases you better than my more dubitant 
 mode of submitting them — all very sound 
 and good reasons ; but still, why be so vexed 
 with Wynnie ?
 
 30 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 My mother was now however so vexed 
 with my father for saying she preferred the 
 Dean's preaching to his, although I doubt 
 very much whether it wasn't true, that she 
 actually walked out of the octagon room 
 where they were, and left him to meditate 
 on his unkindness. Vexed with herself the 
 next moment she returned as if nothing had 
 happened. — I am only telling what my 
 mother told me, for to her grown daughters 
 she is blessedly trusting. 
 
 Mother. — Then if you will have them 
 married, husband, will you say how on 
 earth you expect them to live ? He just 
 makes both ends meet now : I suppose he 
 doesn't make things out worse than they 
 are, and that is his own account of the state 
 of his affairs. 
 
 Father. — Ah, yes ! that is — a secondary 
 consideration, my dear. But I have hardly 
 begun to think about it yet. There will be
 
 / TRY. 3j 
 
 a difficulty there, I can easily imagine ; for 
 lie is far too independent to let ns do any- 
 thing for liim. 
 
 Mother. — And yon can't do mnclij if they 
 ^'onld. Eeally they oughtn't to marry yet. 
 
 Father. — Eeally we mnst leave it to 
 themselyes. I don't thinlv yon and I need 
 trouble onr heads about it. When Perci- 
 vale considers himself prepared to marry, 
 and Wynnie thinks he is right, you may be 
 sure they see their ^Yay to a livelihood "with- 
 out running in hopeless debt to their trades- 
 people. 
 
 Mother. — Oh yes ! I daresay ! — in some 
 poky little lodging or other I 
 
 Father. — For my part, Ethelwyn, I think 
 it better to build castles in the air than 
 huts in the smoke. Eut seriously, a little 
 poverty, and a little struggling would be a 
 most healthy and healing thing for Wynnie. 
 It hasn't done Eercivale much good yet, I
 
 32 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 confess ; for lie is far too indifferent to his 
 own comforts to mind it ; bnt it will be 
 quite another thing when he has a young 
 wife and perhaps children depending upon 
 him. Then his poAxrty may begin to hurt 
 him and so do him good. 
 
 It may seem odd that my father and 
 mother should now be taking such opposite 
 sides to those they took when the question 
 of our engagement was first started — as 
 represented by my father in The Seaboard 
 Parish. But it will seem inconsistent to 
 none of the family ; for it was no unusual 
 thing for them to take opposite sides to 
 those they had previously advocated — each 
 happening at the time, possibly enlightened 
 by the foregone arguments of the other, to 
 be impressed with the correlate truth — as 
 my father calls the other side of a thing. 
 Besides, engagement and marriage are two 
 different things, and although my mother
 
 I TRY. 33 
 
 was the first to recognize the good of our 
 being engaged, when it came to marriage 
 she got frightened, I think. Anyhow I 
 have her anthority for saying that some- 
 thing like this passed between her and my 
 father on the subject. 
 
 Discussion between them differed in tliis 
 fi'om what I have generally heard between 
 married people, that it was always founded 
 on a tacit understanding of certain unmen- 
 tioned principles ; and no doubt sometimes, 
 if a stranger had been present, he would have 
 been bewildered as to the very meaning of 
 what they were saying. But we girls gene- 
 rally understood; and I fancy we learned 
 more from their diiferences than from their 
 agreements ; for of course it was the diifer- 
 ences that brought out their minds most, 
 and chiefly led us to think that we might 
 understand. In our house there were very 
 few of those mysteries which in some houses 
 
 VOL. I. D
 
 34 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 seem so to abound ; and I tliink the openness 
 with which every question, for whose con- 
 cealment there was no special reason, was 
 discussed, did more than even any direct 
 instruction we received to develope what 
 thinking faculty might be in us. IN'or 
 was there much reason to dread that my 
 small brothers might repeat anything. I 
 remember hearing Harry say to Charley 
 once — they being then eight and nine years 
 old — " That is mamma's opinion, Charley — 
 not yours, and you know we must not repeat 
 what we hear." 
 
 They soon came to be of one mind about Mr. 
 Percivale and me — for indeed the only real 
 ground for doubt that had ever existed was 
 — whether I was good enough for him ; and 
 for my part I knew then and know now that 
 I was and am dreadfully inferior to him. 
 And notwithstanding the tremendous work 
 women are now making about their rights —
 
 I TRY. 35 
 
 I SO wish they had them, if it were only 
 that certain who make me feel ashamed 
 of myself because I too am a woman, 
 might perhaps then drop ont of the 
 public regard,) — notwithstanding this, I 
 venture the sweeping assertion that every 
 woman is not as good as every man, and 
 that it is not necessary to the dignity of 
 a wife that she should assert even equality 
 with her husband. Let Mm assert her 
 equality or superiority if he will ; but were 
 it a fact, it vrould be a poor one for her to 
 assert, seeing her glory is in her husband. 
 To seek the chief place is especially unfit- 
 ting the marriage feast. Whether I be a 
 Christian or not, and I have good reason to 
 doubt it every day of my life, at least I see 
 that in the ]S^ew Jerusalem one essential of 
 citizenship consists in knowing how to set 
 the good in others over against the evil in 
 ourselves.
 
 36 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 There now — my father might have said 
 that ! and no doubt has said so twenty times 
 in my hearing. It is however only siQce I 
 was married that I have come to see it for 
 myself; and now that I do see it, I have a 
 right to say it. 
 
 So we were married at last. My mother 
 "believes it was my father's good advice to 
 Percivale concerning the sort of pictures he 
 painted, that brought it about. For cer- 
 tainly soon after we were engaged, he began 
 to have what his artist friends called a run 
 of luck: he sold one picture after another 
 in a very extraordinary and hopeful manner. 
 But Percivale says it was his love for me — 
 indeed he does — which enabled him to see 
 not only much deeper into things, but also 
 to see much better the bloom that hangs 
 about everything, and so to paint much 
 better pictures than before. lie felt, he 
 said, that he had a hold now where before
 
 / TRY. 
 
 37 
 
 iie had only a sight. However this may be, 
 he had got on so well for a while that he 
 wrote at last that if I was willing to share 
 his poverty, it would not, he thought, he 
 absolute starvation, and I was, of course, 
 perfectly content. I can't put in words — 
 indeed I dare not, for fear of writing what 
 would be if not unladylike at least uncha- 
 ritable — my contempt for those women who, 
 loving a man, hesitate to run every risk with 
 him. Of course, if they cannot trust him, 
 it is a different thing. I am not going to 
 say anything about that, for I should be 
 out of my depth — not in the least under- 
 standing how a woman can love a man to 
 whom she cannot look up. I believe there 
 are who can ; I see some men married whom 
 I don't believe any woman ever did or ever 
 could respect; all I say is, I don't under- 
 stand it. 
 
 My father and mother made no objection,
 
 38 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 and Trere evidently at last quite agreed that 
 it would be the best thing for both of ns — 
 and so, I say, we were married. 
 
 I ought just to mention that, before the 
 day arrived, my mother went up to London 
 at Percivale's request, to help him in getting 
 together the few things absolutely needful 
 for the barest commencement of housekeep- 
 ing. For the rest, it had been arranged that 
 we should furnish by degrees, buying as we 
 saw what we liked, and could afford it. The 
 greater part of modern fashions in furniture, 
 having both been accustomed to the stateli- 
 ness of a more artistic period, we detested 
 for their ugliness, and chiefly therefore we 
 desired to look about us at our leisure. 
 
 My mother came back more satisfied with 
 the little house he had taken than I had 
 expected. It was not so easy to get one to 
 suit us, for of course he required a large 
 room to paint in, with a good north light.
 
 / TRY. 59^ 
 
 He had however succeeded better than he 
 had hoped. 
 
 ^^ Yon will find things very different from 
 what yon have been nsed to, Wynnie," said 
 my mother. 
 
 ^' Of conrse, mamma ; I know that," I 
 answered. "I hope I am prepared to meet 
 it. If I don't like it, I shall have no one 
 to blame bnt myself; and I don't see what 
 right people have to expect what they have 
 been nsed to." 
 
 '^ There is jnst this advantage," said my 
 father, ^'in having been nsed to nice things, 
 that it onght to be easier to keep from sink- 
 ing into the sordid, however straitened the 
 new cii'cnmstances may be, compared Avith 
 the old." 
 
 On the evening before the wedding, my 
 father took me into the octagon room, and 
 there knelt do^ii with me and my mother, 
 and prayed for me in snch a wonderful way
 
 40 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 that I was perfectly astonished and over- 
 come. I had never known him do anything 
 of the kind before. He was not favourable 
 to extempore prayer in public, or even in 
 the family, and indeed had often seemed 
 willing to omit prayers for what I could not 
 always count sufficient reason : he had a 
 horror at their getting to be a matter of 
 course and a form; for then, he said, they 
 ceased to be worship at all, and were a mere 
 pagan rite, better far left alone. I remember 
 also he said, that those, however good they 
 might be, who urged attention to the forms 
 of religion, such as going to church and 
 saying prayers, were, however innocently, 
 just the prophets of Pharisaism ; that what 
 men had to be stirred up to was to lay hold 
 upon God, and then they would not fail to 
 find out what religious forms they ought to 
 cherish. '^ The spirit first and then the 
 flesh," he would say. To put the latter
 
 / TRY. 41 
 
 before the former was a falsehood, and there- 
 fore a frightful danger, being at the root of 
 all declensions in the chnrch, and making 
 ever recni-ring earthquakes and persecutions 
 and repentances and reformations needful. 
 I find what my father used to say coming 
 back so often now that I hear so little of it 
 — especially as he talks much less, accusing 
 himself of haying always talked too much — 
 and I understand it so much better now, that 
 I shall be always in danger of interrupting 
 my narrative to say something that he said. 
 But when I commence the next chapter, I 
 shall get on faster, I hope. My story is like 
 a vessel I saw once being launched : it would 
 stick on the stocks instead of sliding away 
 into the expectant waters.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 MY WEDDING. 
 
 I 
 
 COl^rESS the first thing I did when I 
 
 knew myself the next morning was to 
 have a good cry. To leave the place where 
 I had been born was like forsaking the laws 
 and order of the nature I knew — for some 
 other — nature it might be, but not known to 
 me as such. How, for instance, could one 
 Avho has been used to our bright Avhite sun, 
 and our pale modest moon, with oui* soft 
 twilights and far, mysterious skies of night, 
 be willing to fall in with the order of things 
 in a planet such as I have read of some- 
 where, with three or four suns, one red and
 
 MF WEDDING. 43 
 
 another green and another yellow? Only 
 perhaps I've taken it all np wrong — and I 
 do like looking at a landscape for a minute 
 or so through a coloured glass ; and if it be 
 so, of course it all blends, and all we want 
 is harmony. What I mean is, that I found 
 it a great wrench to leave the dear old place, 
 and of coui'se loved it more than I had ever 
 loved it. But I would get all my crying 
 about that over beforehand. It would be 
 bad enough afterwards to have to part with 
 my father and mother and Connie and the 
 rest of them. Only it wasn't like leaving 
 them. You can't leave hearts as you do 
 rooms. You can't leave thoughts as you do 
 books. Those you love only come nearer to 
 you when you go away from them. The 
 same rules don't hold with thinJcs and thing Sj 
 as my eldest boy distinguished them the other 
 day. 
 
 Eut somehow I couldn't get up and dress.
 
 44 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 I scemocl to liavc got very fond of my own 
 Led, and the queer old crows, as I had called 
 them from babyhood, on the chintz curtains, 
 and the Chinese paper on the walls with the 
 strangest birds and creeping things on it. 
 It was a lovely spring morning, and the sun 
 was shining gloriously. I knew that the 
 rain of the last night must be glittering on the 
 grass and the young leaves, and I heard the 
 birds singing as if they knew far more than 
 mere human beings, and 'believed a great 
 deal more than they knew, l^obody will 
 persuade me that the birds don't mean it ; 
 that they sing from anything else than glad- 
 ness of heart. And if they don't think about 
 cats and guns, why should they ? Even when 
 they fall on the ground, it is not without 
 our Father. How horridly dull and stupid 
 it seems to say that ^'without your Father" 
 means without Ms hiotving it. The Father's 
 mere Jcnowledge of a thing — if that could be,
 
 Jir WEDDING. 45 
 
 which my father says can't — is not the Father. 
 The father's tenderness and care and love of 
 it all the time — that is the not falling with- 
 out him. When the cat kills the bird — as 
 I have seen happen so often in our poor little 
 London garden — God yet saves his bird from 
 his cat. There is nothing so bad as it looks 
 to our half-sight, our blinding perceptions. 
 My father used to say we are all walking in 
 a spiritual twilight, and are all more or less 
 affected with twilight blindness, as some 
 people are physically. Percivale, for one, 
 who is as brave as any wife could wish, is far 
 more timid than I am in crossing a London 
 street in the twilight ; he can't see what is 
 coming, and fancies he sees what is not 
 coming. But then he has faith in me, and 
 never starts when I am leading him. 
 
 Well, the birds were singing, and Dora 
 and the boys were making a great chatter, 
 like a whole colony of sparrows, under my
 
 46 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 window. Still I felt as if I had twenty 
 questions to settle before I conld get up 
 comfortably, and so lay on and on till 
 the breakfast bell rang ; and I was not 
 more than half di'essed when my mother 
 came to see why I was late, for I had 
 not been late for ever so long before. 
 
 She comforted me as nobody but a 
 mother can comfort. Oh ! I do hope I 
 shall be to my children what my mother 
 has been to me. It wonld be such a 
 blessed thing to be a well of water whence 
 they may be siu-e of drawing comfort. 
 And all she said to me has come true. 
 
 Of course, my father gave me away, and 
 Mr. "Weir married us. 
 
 It had been before agreed that we 
 should have no wedding journey. We all 
 liked the old-fashioned plan of the bride 
 going straight from her father's house to 
 her husband's. The other way seemed a
 
 Mr WEBBING. 47 
 
 poor mvention, just for the sake of some- 
 thing different. So after the wedding, we 
 spent the time as we should have done 
 any other day, wandering about in groups, 
 or sitting and reading, only that we were 
 all more smartly dressed — until it was time 
 for an early dinner, after which we drove 
 to the station, accompanied only by my 
 father and mother. 
 
 After they left us, or rather we left 
 them, my husband did not speak to me for 
 nearly an hour. I knew why, and was 
 very grateful. He would not show his 
 new face in the midst of my old loves and 
 their sorrows, but would give me time to 
 rearrange the grouping so as myself to 
 bring him in when all was ready for him. 
 I know that was what he was thinking, 
 or feeling rather ; and I understood him 
 perfectly. At last, when I had got things 
 a little tidier inside me, and had persuaded
 
 48 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 my eyes to stop, I held out my hand to him, 
 and then — I knew that I was his wife. 
 
 This is all I have to tell, though I 
 have plenty more to keep, till wx got to 
 London. There, instead of my father's 
 nice carriage, we got into a jolting, lumber- 
 ing, horrid cab, with my five boxes and 
 Per ci vale's little portmanteau on the top 
 of it, and di'ove away to Camden Town. 
 It IV as to a part of it near the Eegent's 
 Park, and so our letters were always, ac- 
 cording to the divisions of the Post Office, 
 addressed to Eegent's Park, but for 
 all practical intents we were in Camden 
 Town. It was indeed a change from a 
 fine old house in the country, but the 
 street wasn't much uglier than Belgrave 
 Square, or any other of those heaps of 
 uglinesses, called squares, in the West End; 
 and after what I had been told to expect, 
 I was surprised at the prettiness of the
 
 Mr WEDDING. 49 
 
 little house wlien I stepped out of the cab 
 aud looked about me. It was stuck on 
 like a swallow's nest to the end of a 
 great row of commonplace houses, nearly a 
 quarter of a mile in length, but itself was 
 not the work of one of those wretched 
 builders who care no more for beauty in 
 what they build than a scavenger in the 
 heaj) of mud he scrapes from the street. 
 It had been built by a painter for him- 
 self — in the Tudor style; and though 
 Percivale says the idea is not very well 
 carried out, I like it much. 
 
 I found it a little dreary when I entered 
 though — from its emptiness. The only 
 sitting-room at all prepared had just a 
 table and two or three old-fashioned chairs 
 in it — not even a carpet on the floor. The 
 bedroom and dressing-room were also as 
 scantily furnished as they well could be. 
 
 ^^ Don't be dismayed, my darling," said 
 
 VOL. I. E
 
 50 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 my Imsband. ''Look here" — showing mo 
 a bunch of notes — ''we shall go out to- 
 morrow and buy all we want — as far as 
 this ^ill go, and then wait for the rest. 
 It will be such a pleasure to buy the 
 things with you, and see them come home, 
 and have you appoint their places. You 
 and Sarah will make the carpets, won't 
 you ? — and I will put them down, and Ave 
 shall be like birds building their nest." 
 
 " We have onl}^ to line it ; the nest is 
 built already." 
 
 "Well, neither do the birds build the 
 tree. — I wonder if they ever sit in their 
 old summer nests in the winter nights." 
 
 "I am afraid not," I answered; "but 
 I'm ashamed to say I can't tell." 
 
 "It is the only pretty house I knov/ 
 in all London," he went on, "with a studio 
 at the back of it. I have had my eye on 
 it for a long time, but there seemed no
 
 3fr WEDDING. 51 
 
 sign of a migratory disposition in tlie bird 
 who had occupied it for three years past. 
 All at once he spread his wings and flew. 
 I count myself very fortunate." 
 
 " So do I. But now you must let me 
 see your study," I said. ''I hope I may 
 sit in it when you've got nobody there." 
 
 *' As much as ever you like, my love," 
 he answered, '' Only I don't want to make 
 all my women like you, as I've been doing 
 for the last two years. You must get me 
 out of that somehow." 
 
 '^ Easily. I shall be so cross and dis- 
 agreeable that you will get tired of me, 
 and find no more difiiculty in keeping me 
 out of your pictures." 
 
 But he got me out of his pictures without 
 that; for when he had me always before 
 him he didn't want to be always producing 
 me. 
 
 He led me into the little hall — made 
 
 LIBKARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS .
 
 52 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 lovely by a cast of an un finished Madonna 
 of Michael Angelo's let into the wall — and 
 then to the back of it, where he opened 
 a small cloth-covered door, when there 
 yawned before me, below me, and above 
 me, a great Avide lofty room. Down into 
 it led an almost perpendicnlar staii\ 
 
 ^' So you keep a little private precipice 
 here," I said. 
 
 ^^ Ko, my dear," he returned ; " you 
 mistake. It is a Jacob's ladder — or will 
 be in one moment more." 
 
 He gave me his hand and led me down. 
 
 '-'- This is quite a banqueting-hall, Per- 
 civale ! " I cried, looking round me. 
 
 ^'It shall be, the first time I get a thou- 
 sand pounds for a picture," he returned. 
 
 ^'How grand you talk !" I said, looking 
 up at him with some wonder ; for big words 
 rarely came out of his mouth. 
 
 ^'Well," he answered merrily, '^I had
 
 MF WEDDING. 53 
 
 two hiinclred and seyenty-five for tlie 
 last." 
 
 "That's a long way off a thousand," I 
 returned, with a silly sigh. 
 
 '^ Quite right ; and, therefore, this study 
 is a long w^ay off a banqueting-hall." 
 
 There was literally nothing inside the 
 seventeen feet cube except one chair, one 
 easel, a horrible thing like a huge doll, 
 with no end of joints, called a lay figure, 
 but Percivale called it his bishop ; a num- 
 ber of pictures leaning their faces against 
 the walls in attitudes of grief that their 
 beauty was despised and no man would 
 buy them ; a few casts of legs and arms 
 and faces, half a dozen murderous-looking 
 weapons, and a couple of yards square of 
 the most exquisite tapestry I ever saw. 
 
 '•Do you like being read to when you 
 are at work ? " I asked him. 
 
 '' Sometimes — at certain kinds of work,
 
 54 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 l3ut not by any means always," he answered. 
 — '-^ Will you sliut yoiu' eyes for one minate," 
 lie wont on, ''and, whatever I do, not open 
 them till I tell you ? " 
 
 '' You mustn't hiu't me, then, or I may 
 open them without being able to help it, 
 you know," I said, closing my eyes tight. 
 
 ''Hurt you ! " he repeated, with a tone 
 I would not put on the paper if I could ; 
 and the same moment I foimd myself in his 
 arms, carried like a baby, for Percivale is 
 one of the strongest of men. 
 
 It was only for a few yards, howeyer. 
 He laid me down somewhere, and told me 
 to open my eyes. 
 
 I could scarcely believe them when I 
 did. I was lying on a couch in a room — 
 small, indeed, but beyond exception the 
 loveliest I had ever seen. At first I was 
 only aware of an exquisite harmony of 
 colour, and could not have told of what it
 
 J/r WEDDING. 55 
 
 was composed. The place was lighted by a 
 soft lamp that hung in the middle, and 
 when my eyes went np to see where it was 
 fastened, I found the ceiling marvellous in 
 deep blue, with a suspicion of green, just 
 like some of the shades of a peacock's 
 feathers, with a multitude of gold and red 
 stars upon it. "What the walls were I could 
 not for some time tell, they were so covered 
 with pictures and sketches. Against one 
 was a lovely little set of bookshelves filled 
 with books ; and on a little carved table 
 stood a vase of white hothouse flowers, 
 with one red camellia. One pictarc had a 
 curtain of green silk before it, and by its 
 side hung the wounded knight whom his 
 friends were carrying home to die. 
 
 ^^ Oh, my Percivale ! " I cried, and could 
 say no more. 
 
 "Do you like it ? " he asked quietly, but 
 with shining eyes.
 
 S6 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 ^'Like it?" I repeated. ^^ Shall I like 
 Paradise when I get there ? Eiit what a 
 lot of money it must have cost you I '' 
 
 '^ Kot much," he answered ; ''- not more 
 than thirty pounds or so. Every spot of 
 paint there is from my own brush." 
 
 ^^OhPercivale!" 
 
 I must make a conversation of it to tell 
 it at all ; but what I really did say I know 
 no more than the man in the moon. 
 
 ^' The carpet was the only expensive 
 thing. That must be as thick as I could 
 get it, for the floor is of stone, and must not 
 come near your pretty feet. Guess what 
 the place was before." 
 
 ^^ I should say — the flower of a prickly 
 pear cactus, full of sunlight from behind, 
 which a fairy took the fancy to swell into a 
 room." 
 
 '^ It was a shed, in which the sculptor 
 who occupied the place before me used
 
 MY WEDDING. 57 
 
 to keep his wet clay and blocks of 
 marble." 
 
 '' Seeing is hardly believing," I said. 
 ' ' Is it to be my room ? I know you mean 
 it for my own room, where I can ask you to 
 come when I please, and where I can hide 
 when any one comes you don't want me to 
 see." 
 
 '^ That is just what I meant it for, my 
 Ethelwyn — and to let you know what I 
 ivoitld do for you if I could." 
 
 ^' I hate the place, ' Perciyale," I said, 
 ''What right has it to come poking in 
 between you and me, telling me what I 
 know and have known for — well, I won't 
 say how long — ^far better than even you can 
 tell me ? " 
 
 He looked a little troubled. 
 
 ''Ah, my dear," I said, "let my foolish 
 words breathe and die." 
 
 I wonder sometimes to think how seldom
 
 58 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 I am in that room now. But there it is, 
 and somehow I seem to laiow it all the time 
 I am busy elsewhere. 
 
 He made me shut my eyes again, and 
 carried me into the study. 
 
 ^' JN'ow," he said, ^^ find your way to your 
 own room." 
 
 I looked about me, but could see no sign 
 of a door. He took up a tall stretcher with 
 a canyas on it, and revealed the door, at 
 the same time showing a likeness of myself 
 — at the top of the Jacob's ladder, as he 
 called it, with one foot on the first step, and 
 the other half way to the second. The 
 light came from the window on my left, 
 which he had turned into a western window, 
 in order to get certain efi'ects from a sup- 
 posed sunset. I was represented in a white 
 dress, tinged with the rose of the west ; 
 and he had managed, attributing the phe- 
 nomenon to the inequalities of the glass in
 
 MF WEDDING. 59 
 
 the window, to suggest one rosy wing 
 behind me, with just the shoulder-root of 
 another visible. 
 
 '' There ! " he said. ^' It is not finished yet, 
 but that is how I saw you one evening as I 
 was sitting here all alone in the twilight." 
 
 ^^But you didn't really see me like 
 that ! " I said. 
 
 " I hardly know," he answered. ^' I had 
 been forgetting everything else in dreaming 
 about you, and — how it was I cannot tell, 
 but either in the body or out of the body 
 there I saw you, standing just so at the top 
 of the stair — smiling to me as much as to 
 say — ' Have patience. My foot is on the 
 first step. I'm coming.' I turned at once 
 to my easel, and before the twilight was 
 gone had sketched the vision. To-morrow 
 you must sit to me for an hour or so — for 
 I will do nothing else till I have finished it 
 and sent it off to your father and mother."
 
 6o THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 I may just add tliat I liear it is con- 
 sidered a very fine painting. It hangs in 
 the great dining-room at home. I wish I 
 were as good as he has made it look. 
 
 The next morning, after I had given him 
 the sitting he wanted, we set ont on onr 
 furnitnre-hnnt ; when, having keen enough 
 eyes, I caught sight of this and of that and 
 of twenty different things in the brokers' 
 shops. We did not agree about the merits 
 of everything by which one or the other 
 was attracted, but an objection by the one 
 always turned the other — a little at least ; 
 and we bought nothing we were not agreed 
 about. Yet that evening the hall was piled 
 with things sent home to line our nest. 
 Percivale, as I have said, had saved up 
 some money for the purpose, and I had a 
 hundred pounds my father had given me 
 before we started, which, never having had 
 more than ten of my own at a time, I was
 
 MF WEDDING. 6i 
 
 eager enough to spend. So we found plenty 
 to do for the fortnight during which time 
 my mother had promised to say nothing to 
 her friends in London of our arrival. 
 Percivale also keeping out of the way of his 
 friends, everybody thought we were on the 
 continent — or somoAvhere else, and left us 
 to ourselves. And as he had sent in his 
 pictures to the Academy, he was able to 
 take a rest, which rest consisted in working 
 hard at all sorts of upholstery, not to 
 mention painters' and carpenters' work ; so 
 that we soon got the little house made into 
 a very warm and very pretty nest. I may 
 mention that Percivale was particularly 
 pleased with a cabinet I bought for him on 
 the sly — to stand in his study, and hold his 
 paints and brushes and sketches, for there 
 were all sorts of drawers in it, and some 
 that it took us a good deal of trouble to 
 find out, though he was clever enough to
 
 62 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 suspect them from the first, wlien I hadn't a 
 thought of such a thing ; and I have often 
 fancied since that that cabinet was just like 
 himself, for I have been going on finding 
 out things in him that I had no idea were 
 there when I married him. I had no idea 
 that he was a poet, for instance. I wonder 
 to this day why he never showed me any of 
 his verses before we were married. He 
 writes better poetry than my father — at 
 least my father says so. Indeed I soon 
 came to feel very ignorant and stupid beside 
 him ; he could tell me so many things, and 
 especially in art — for he had thought 
 about all kinds of it — making me under- 
 stand that there is no end to it, any more 
 than to the nature which sets it going, and 
 that the more we see into nature, and try to 
 represent it, the more ignorant and helpless 
 we find ourselves ; — ^until at length I began 
 to wonder whether God might not have
 
 MF WEDDING. 63 
 
 made the world so rich and Ml just to 
 teach his children hnmilit}^ For a while I 
 felt qnite stunned. He very much wanted 
 me to draw; but I thought it was no use 
 trying, and indeed had no heart for it. I 
 spoke to my father about it. He said it 
 was indeed of no use if my object was to 
 be able to think much of myself, for no 
 one could ever succeed in that in the 
 long run ; but if my object was to reap 
 the delight of the truth, it was Avorth while 
 to spend hoiu*s and hours on trying to 
 draw a single tree-leaf, or paint the wing of 
 a moth.
 
 CHAPTEE lY. 
 
 judy's visit. 
 
 rilTTE very first morning after the expiry 
 of the fortnight, when I was in the 
 Mtchen with Sarah, giving her instructions 
 about a certain dish as if I had made it 
 twenty times, whereas I had only just 
 learned how from a shilling cookery-book, 
 there came a double knock at the door. I 
 guessed who it must be. 
 
 " Eun, Sarah," I said, ''and show Mrs. 
 Morley into the drawing-room." 
 
 When I entered, there she was — Mrs. 
 Morley, alias, Cousin Judy. 
 
 ^' Well, little cozzie ! " she cried, as 
 
 I
 
 JUDY'S VISIT. bs 
 
 she Idssecl me three or four times, '^I'm 
 glad to see you gone the way of -woman- 
 kind — wooed and married and a' ! — Fate, 
 chiki ! inscrutable fate ! " and she kissed me 
 again. 
 
 She always calls me little coz, though I 
 am a head taller than herself. She is as 
 good as ever, quite as brusque, and at the 
 first word apparently more overbearing. 
 But she is as ready to listen to reason as 
 ever was woman of my acquaintance, and I 
 think the form of her speech is but a some- 
 what distorted reflex of her perfect honesty. 
 After a little trifling talk, which is sure to 
 come first when people are more than 
 ordinarily glad to meet, I asked after her 
 children. I forget how many there were of 
 them, but they were then pretty far into 
 the plural number. 
 
 ^' Growing like ill weeds," she said — ^' as 
 anxious as ever their grandfathers and 
 
 YOL. I. F
 
 66 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 mothers Avcre to get their heads up and do 
 mischief. For my part I wish I was Jove 
 — to start them full grown at once. Or 
 why shoukln't they be made like Eve out 
 of their father's ribs ? It would be a great 
 comfort to their mother." 
 
 My father had always been much pleased 
 with the results of Judy's training, as con- 
 trasted with those of his sister's. The 
 little ones of my aunt Martha's family were 
 always wanting something, and always look- 
 ing careworn like their mother, he said, 
 while she was always reading them lectures 
 on their duty, and never making them mind 
 Avhat she said. She would represent the 
 self-same thing to them over and over, until 
 not merely all force, but all sense as well 
 seemed to have forsaken it. Her notion of 
 duty was to tell them yet again the duty 
 which they had been told at least a thousand 
 times abeady, without the slightest result.
 
 JUDY'S VISIT. 67 
 
 They were dull children, wearisome and nn- 
 interesting. On the other hand the little 
 Morleys were full of life and eagerness. 
 The fault in them was that they wouldn't 
 take petting, and what's the good of a 
 child that won't be petted ? They lacked 
 that something which makes a woman feel 
 motherly. 
 
 "' When did you arrive, cozzie ? " she 
 asked. 
 
 '^ A fortnight ago yesterday." 
 
 ''Ah, you sly thing I What have 
 you been doing with yourself all the 
 time ? " 
 
 '• Furnishing." 
 
 ''What! you came into an empty 
 house ? " 
 
 "^N^ot quite that, but nearly." 
 
 " It is very odd I should never have seen' 
 your husband. We have crossed each other 
 twenty times."
 
 68 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 '' ]S[ot SO vcrij odd, seeing he has been my 
 husband only a fortnight." 
 ^^ What is he like?'' 
 ^^ Like nothing but himself." 
 ^as he tall?" 
 /^Yes." 
 
 ^as he stout?" 
 ^'Ko." 
 ^^ An Adonis?" 
 
 ^^ A Hercules?" 
 '' m." 
 
 u Yery clever, I believe." 
 ^' I^ot at all." 
 
 For my father had taught me to look 
 down on that word. 
 
 '' Why did you marry him, then ? " 
 '-^ I didn't. He married me." 
 "What did you marry him for then?" 
 "For love." 
 " What did you love him for ? "
 
 JUDY'S VISIT. 69 
 
 ^' Because he was a philosopher." 
 
 ^^ That's the oddest reason I ever heard 
 for marrying a man." 
 
 "' I said for loving him, Judy." 
 
 Her bright eyes were twinkling with fun. 
 
 '^ Come, cozzie," she said, '^ give me a 
 proper reason for falling in love with this 
 husband of 5^ours." 
 
 "Well, ril tell you, then," I said; 
 " only you mustn't tell any other body : 
 he's got such a big shaggy head, just like a 
 lion's." 
 
 '' And such a huge big foot — just like a 
 bear's?" 
 
 "Yes, and such great huge hands I Why 
 the two of them go quite round my waist ! 
 And such big eyes, that they look right 
 through me ; and such a big heart, that if 
 he saw me doing anything wrong, he would 
 kill me, and bury me in it." 
 
 "Well, I must say, it is the most
 
 70 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 extraordinary description of a husband I 
 ever heard. It sounds to me very like an 
 ogre." 
 
 ^^ Yes, I admit, the description is rather 
 ogrish. But then he's poor, and that makes 
 up for a good deal." 
 
 I was in the humour for talking nonsense, 
 and of course expected of all people that 
 Judy would understand my fun. 
 
 ^^How does that make up for any- 
 thing?" 
 
 '^ Because if he is a poor man, he isn't a 
 rich man, and therefore not so likely to be 
 stupid." 
 
 '-'- How do you make that out ? " 
 
 ^^ Because, first of all, the rich man 
 doesn't know what to do with his money, 
 whereas my ogre knows what to do without 
 it. Then the rich man wonders in the 
 morning which Avaistcoat he shall put on, 
 while my ogre has but one, besides his
 
 JUDY'S VISIT. 71 
 
 Sunday one. Then supposing the rich man 
 has slept well, and has done a fan- stroke or 
 two of business, he wants nothing but a 
 well-dressed wife, a well-dressed dinner, a 
 few glasses of his favourite wine, and the 
 evening paper, well diluted with a sleep 
 in his easy-chair, to be perfectly satisfied 
 that this world is the best of all pos- 
 sible worlds. Now my ogre, on the other 
 hand " 
 
 I was going on to point out how fright- 
 fully different from all this my ogre was — 
 how he would devour a half-cooked chop, 
 and drink a pint of ale from the public- 
 house, &c., &c., when she interrupted 
 me, saying with an odd expression of 
 voice — 
 
 " You are satirical, cozzie. He's not the 
 worst sort of man you've just described. 
 A woman might be very happy with him. 
 If it weren't such early days, I should
 
 72 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 doubt if you were as comfortable as you 
 would have people think ; for liow else 
 should you be so ill-natured? " 
 
 It flashed upon me that without the least 
 intention I had been giving a very fair por- 
 trait of Mr. Morley. I felt my face grow 
 as red as fire. 
 
 ^'I had no intention of being satirical, 
 Judy," I replied. '' I was only describing 
 a man the very opposite of my husband." 
 
 ^'You don't know mine yet," she said. 
 '-'• You may think " 
 
 She actually broke down and cried. I 
 had never in my life seen her cry, and I 
 was miserable at what I had done. Here 
 Avas a nice beginning of social relations in 
 my married life ! 
 
 I knelt down, put my arms round her, 
 and looked up in her face. 
 
 ''Dear Judy," I said, ''you mistake me 
 quite. I never thought of Mr. Morley
 
 JUDY'S VISIT. 73 
 
 when I said that. How should I have 
 dared to say such thmgs if I had ? He is 
 a most kindj good man, and papa and every 
 one is glad when he comes to see us. I 
 daresay he does like to sleep well — I know 
 Percivale does ; and I don't doubt he likes 
 to ^ei on with what he's at — Percivale does, 
 for he's ever so much better com]3any Avhen 
 he has got on with his picture ; and I know 
 he likes to see me well dressed — at least I 
 haven't tried him with anything else yet, 
 for I have plenty of clothes for a while; 
 and then for the dinner, Avhich I believe 
 was one of the points in the description I 
 gave — I wish Percivale cared a little more 
 for his, for then it would be easier to do 
 something for him. As to the newspaper, 
 there I fear I must give him up, for I have 
 never yet seen him with one in his hand. 
 He's so stupid about some things ! " 
 
 '' Oh ! you've found that out, have you ?
 
 74 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 Men arc stupid ; there's no doubt of that. 
 But you don't loiow my Walter yet." 
 
 I looked up, and, behold, Percivale was 
 in the room ! His face wore such a curious 
 expression that I could hardly help laugh- 
 ing. And no wonder ! for here Avas I on 
 my knees, clasping my first visitor, and to 
 all ajDpearance pouring out the woes of my 
 wedded life in her lap — woes so deep that 
 they drew tears fi'om her as she listened. 
 All this flashed upon me as I started to my 
 feet, but I could give no explanation ; I 
 could only make haste to introduce my hus- 
 band to my cousin Judy. 
 
 He behaved of course as if he had heard 
 nothing. But I fancy Judy caught a 
 glimpse of the awkward position, for she 
 plrmged into the affair at once. 
 
 ''Here is my cousin, Mr. Percivale, has 
 been abusing my husband to my face, 
 calling him rich and stupid, and I don't
 
 JUDY'S VISIT. 75 
 
 know what all. I confess lie is so stupid 
 as to be yeiy fond of me, but that's all I 
 know against him." 
 
 And her handkerchief went once more to 
 her eyes. 
 
 ''Dear Judy!" I expostulated, ''you 
 know I didn't say one word about him." 
 
 " Of coiu'se I do, you silly coz ! " she 
 cried, and burst out laughing. "But I 
 won't forgive you except you make amends 
 by dining with us to-morrow." 
 
 Thus for the time she carried it off; 
 but I believe, and have since had good 
 reason for believing that she had really 
 mistaken me at first, and been much an- 
 noyed. 
 
 She and Percivale got on very well. He 
 showed her the portrait he was still working 
 at — even accepted one or two trifling hints 
 as to the likeness, and they parted the best 
 friends in the world. 
 
 I
 
 76 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 Glad as I had been to sec her, how I 
 longed to see the last of her ! The mo- 
 ment she was gone, I th^e'v^' myself into his 
 arms, and told him how it eame about. He 
 laughed heartily. 
 
 ^^I 2va-'< a little puzzled," he said, "to 
 hear you inform a lady I had never seen 
 that I was so A'ery stupid.*' 
 
 " But I wasn't telling a story either, for 
 you know you are A'e-e-e-ry stupid, Perci- 
 vale. You don't know a leg from a shoulder 
 of mutton, and you can't carve a bit. How 
 ever you can draw as you do, is a marvel to 
 me, when you Imow nothing about the 
 shapes of things. It was very wrong to 
 say it, even for the sake of covering poor 
 Mrs. Morley's husband ; but it was quite 
 true, you know." 
 
 '' Perfectly true, my love," he said, with 
 something else where I've only put commas ; 
 " and I mean to remain so, in order that
 
 JUDY'S VISIT. 77 
 
 YOU may always have something to fall back 
 upon when you get yourself into a scrape 
 by forgetting that other people have hus- 
 bands as well as you."
 
 CHAPTEE V. 
 
 GOOD SOCIETY." 
 
 W 
 
 E had agreed, rather against the 
 
 inclination of both of ns, to dine 
 the next evening with the Morleys. We 
 should have preferred onr own society, but 
 we could not refuse. 
 
 '^They will be talking to me about my 
 pictures," said my husband, ^^and that is 
 just what I hate. People that know nothing 
 of art, that can't distinguish purple from 
 black, will yet parade their ignorance, and 
 expect me to be pleased." 
 
 '^ Mr. Morley is a well-bred man, Perci- 
 vale," I said.
 
 ''GOOD SOCIETYr 79 
 
 ^^ That's the worst of it — they do it for 
 good manners ; I know the kind of people 
 perfectly. I hate to have my pictures 
 praised. It is as bad as talking to one's 
 face about the nose upon it." 
 
 I wonder if all ladies keep their husbands 
 waiting. I did that night, I know, and, I 
 am afraid, a good many times after — not, 
 however, since Percivale told me very seri- 
 ously that being late for dinner was the 
 only fault of mine the blame of which he 
 would not take on his own shoulders. The 
 fact on this occasion was, that I could not 
 get my hair right. It was the first time I 
 missed what I had been used to, and longed 
 for the deft fingers of my mother's maid to 
 help me. When I told him the cause, he 
 said he would do my hair for me next time, 
 if I would teach him how. But I have 
 managed ver}' well since without either him 
 or a lady's maid.
 
 8o THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 When wc reached Bolivar Square, we 
 found the company waiting ; and as if 
 for a rebuke to us, the butler announced 
 dinner the moment we entered. I was 
 seated between Mr. Morley and a friend 
 of his who took me do^ni, Mr. Baddeley, 
 a portly gentleman, with an expanse 
 of snowy shirt from which flashed three 
 diamond studs. A huge gold chain 
 reposed upon his front, and on his flnger 
 shone a brilliant of great size. Everything 
 about him seemed to say, '' Look how real 
 I am ! ISTo shoddj^ about me ! " His hands 
 were plump and white, and looked as if 
 they did not know what dust was. His talk 
 sounded very rich, and yet there was no 
 pretence in it. His wife looked less of a 
 lady than he of a gentleman, for she be- 
 trayed conscious importance. I found after- 
 wards that he was the only son of a railway 
 contractor, who had himself handled the
 
 ''GOOD SOCIETYr 8i 
 
 spade, but at last died enormously ricli. 
 He spoke blandly, but witli a certain quiet 
 authority which I disliked. 
 
 ^^Are you fond of the opera, Mrs. Perci- 
 vale ? " he asked me, in order to make talk. 
 
 ^'I have never been to the opera," I 
 answered. 
 
 ^^IN'ever been to the opera? Ain't you 
 fond of music ? " 
 
 "Did you ever know a lady that 
 wasn't ? " 
 
 "Then you must go to the opera." 
 
 "But it is just because I fancy myself 
 fond of music that I ^don't think I should 
 like the opera." 
 
 "You can't hear such music anywhere 
 else." 
 
 "But the antics of the singers, pretend- 
 ing to be in such furies of passion, yet 
 modulating every note with the cunning of 
 a carver in ivory, seems to me so prepos- 
 
 voL. I. a
 
 82 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 tcrous ! For sui-ely song springs from a 
 brooding over past feeling — I do not mean 
 lost feeling — never from present emotion." 
 
 '-'- All ! yon would change your mind 
 after liaving once been. I should strongly 
 advise you to go, if only for once. You 
 ought now, really." 
 
 ^' An artist's wife must do without such 
 expensive amusements — except her hus- 
 band's pictures be very popular indeed. I 
 might as well cry for the moon. The cost 
 of a box at the opera for a single night 
 would keep my little household for a fort- 
 night." 
 
 '-'- Ah, well — but you should see ^ The 
 Barber,' " he said. 
 
 '^Perhaps if I could hear without seeing, 
 I should like it better," I answered. 
 
 He fell silent, busying himself with his 
 fish, and when he spoke again tiu'ned to the 
 lady on his left. I went on with my dinner.
 
 ''GOOD SOCIETrr 85 
 
 I laiew that our host had heard what I 
 said, for I saw him turn rather hastily to 
 his butler. 
 
 Mr. Morley is a mau difficult to describe ^ 
 stiff in the back, and long and loose in the neck, 
 reminding me of those toy birds that bob head 
 and tail up and down alternately. When he 
 agrees with anything you say, down comes 
 his head with a rectangular nod ; when he 
 does not agree with you, he is so silent and 
 motionless that he leaves you in doubt 
 whether he has heard a word of what you. 
 have been saying. His face is hard, and was 
 to me then inscrutable ; while what he said 
 always seemed to have little or nothing to do 
 with what he was thinking ; and I had not 
 then learned whether he had a heart or not. 
 His features were well-formed, but they 
 and his head and face too small for his body. 
 He seldom smiled except when in doubt. 
 He had, I understood, been very successful
 
 84 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 in business, and always looked full of 
 schemes. 
 
 "Have you been to the Academy yet?" 
 he asked. 
 
 " No ; this is only the fh'st day of it." 
 " Are your husband's pictures well 
 hung ? " 
 
 "As high as Haman," I answered; 
 " — skied, in fact. That is the right word, 
 I believe." 
 
 " I would advise you to avoid slang, my 
 dear cousin — lorofessional slang especially ; 
 and to remember that in London there are 
 no professions after six o'clock." 
 
 "Indeed!" I returned. "As we came 
 along in the carriage — cabbage, I mean — I 
 saw no end of shops open." 
 
 " I mean in society — at dinner — amongst 
 friends, you know." 
 
 "My dear Mr. Morley, you have just 
 done asking me about my husband's pic-
 
 ''GOOD SOCIETVr 85 
 
 tures, and if you listen a moment you will 
 liear that lady next my husband talking to 
 him about Leslie and Turner, and I don't 
 know who more — all in the trade." 
 
 ^^Hush ! hush ! I beg," he almost whis- 
 pered, looking agonized. " That's Mrs. 
 Baddeley. Her husband, next to you, is a 
 great picture-buyer. That's why I asked 
 him to meet you." 
 
 ''I thought there were no professions in 
 London after six o'clock." 
 
 '' I am afraid I have not made my mean- 
 ing quite clear to you." 
 
 "jSTot quite. Yet I think I understand 
 you." 
 
 '^ "We'll have a talk about it another 
 time." 
 
 ^^ With i^leasure." 
 
 It irritated me rather that he should talk 
 to me, a married woman, as to a little girl 
 who did not know how to behave herself ;
 
 86 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 but liis patronage of my husband displeased 
 mo far more, and I was on the point of 
 nommitting the terrible blunder of asking 
 Mr. Baddcley if lie had any poor relations ; 
 but I checked myself in time, and prayed 
 to know whether he was a member of Par- 
 liament. He answered that he was not in 
 the house at present, and asked in return 
 why I had wished to know. I answered 
 that I wanted a bill brought in for the 
 punishment of fraudulent milkmen, for I 
 couldn't get a decent pennyworth of milk in 
 all Camden Town. He laughed, and said it 
 would be a very desirable measure, only too 
 great an interference with the liberty of the 
 subject. I told him that kind of liberty 
 was just what law in general owed its 
 existence to, and was there on purpose to 
 interfere with; but he did not seem to see it. 
 The fact is I was very silly. Proud of 
 being the wife of an artist, I resented the
 
 ''GOOD SOCIETrr 87 
 
 social injustice which I thought gave artists 
 no place but one of sufferance. Proud also 
 of being poor for Percivale's sake, I made a 
 show of my poverty before people whom I 
 supposed, rightly enough in many cases, to 
 be proud of their riches. But I kncAV no- 
 thing of what poverty really meant, and 
 was as yet only playing at being poor; 
 cherishing a foolish, though unacknowledged 
 notion of protecting my husband's poverty 
 with the ^gis of my position as the daughter 
 of a man of consequence in his county. I 
 was thus vrronging the dignity of my hus- 
 band's position, and complimenting wealth 
 by making so much of its absence. Poverty 
 or wealth ought to have been in my eyes 
 such a trifle, that I never thought of pub- 
 lishing whether I was rich or poor. I 
 ought to have taken my position without 
 wasting a thought on what it might appear 
 in the eyes of those about me, meeting them
 
 88 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 on tlie mere level of humanity, and leaving 
 them to settle witli themselves how they 
 were to think of me, and Avhere they were 
 to place me. I suspect also, now that I 
 think of it, that I looked down upon my 
 cousin Judy because she had a mere man of 
 business for her husband; forgetting that 
 our Lord had found a collector of conquered 
 taxes, a man, I presume, with little enough 
 of the artistic about him, one of the fittest 
 in his nation to bear the message of his 
 redemption to the hearts of his countrymen. 
 It is his loves and his hopes, not his visions 
 and intentions, by which a man is to be 
 judged. My father had taught me all this, 
 but I did not understand it then, nor until 
 years after I had left him. 
 
 ^'Is Mrs. Percivale a lady of fortune?" 
 asked Mr. Baddeley of my cousin Judy 
 when we were gone, for we were the first 
 to leave.
 
 ''GOOD SOCIETYr 8q 
 
 '^Certainly not. Why do you ask?" 
 she returned. 
 
 '^ Because, from her talk, I thought she 
 must be," he answered. 
 
 Cousin Judy told me this the next day, 
 and I could see she thought I had been brag- 
 ging of my family. So I recounted all the 
 conversation I had had with him, as nearly 
 as I could recollect, and set down the ques- 
 tion to an impertinent irony. But I have 
 since changed my mind : I now judge that 
 he could not believe any poor person would 
 joke about poverty. I never found one of 
 those people who go about begging for chari- 
 ties believe me when I told him the simple 
 truth that I could not afford to subscribe. 
 Xone but a rich person, they seem to think, 
 would dare such an excuse, and that only 
 in the just expectation that its very assertion 
 must render it incredible.
 
 T 
 
 CHAPTEE YI. 
 
 A REFUGE FEOiM THE IIEAT. 
 
 HEEE Tvas a little garden, one side 
 
 enclosed by the house, another by 
 the studio, and the remaining two by 
 walls, evidently built for the nightly 
 convenience of promenading cats. There 
 was one pear-tree in the grass plot which 
 occupied the centre, and a few small 
 fruit trees, which, I may now safely say, 
 never bore anything, upon the walls. But 
 the last occupant had cared for his garden, 
 and when I came to the cottage, it was, 
 although you would hardly believe it now 
 that my garden is inside the house, a pretty
 
 A REFUGE FROM THE HEAT. 91 
 
 little spot — only if yon stop thinking about a 
 garden, it begins at once to go to the bad. 
 Used altliougli I had been to great wide 
 la^vns and park and gardens and ^YildernessJ 
 the tiny enclosure soon became to me the 
 type of the boundless universe. The streets 
 roared about me with ugly omnibuses and 
 uglier cabs, fine carriages, huge earth-shaking 
 drag's, and, worse far, with the cries of all 
 the tribe of costermongers — ^one especially 
 offensive which soon began to haunt me. I 
 almost hated the man who sent it forth to 
 fill the summer air with disgust. He always 
 put his hollowed hand to his jaw, as if it 
 were loose and he had to hold it in its place, 
 before he uttered his hideous howl, which 
 would send me hurrying up the stairs to 
 bury my head under all the pillows of my 
 bed until, coming back across the wilderness 
 of streets and lanes like the cry of a jackal 
 growing fainter and fainter upon the wind,
 
 92 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 it should pass and die a^vay in the distance. 
 Suburban London, I say, was roaring about 
 me, and I was confined to a few square 
 yards of grass and gravel walk and flower 
 plot ; but above was the depth of the sky, 
 and thence at night the hosts of heaven 
 looked in upon me with the same calm 
 assured glance with which they shone upon 
 southern forests, swarming with great but- 
 terflies and creatures that go flaming through 
 the tropic darkness ; and there the moon 
 would come and cast her lovely shadows ; 
 and there was room enough to feel alone and 
 to try to pray. And what was strange, the 
 room seemed greater, though the loneliness 
 was gone, when my husband walked up and 
 down in it with me. True, the greater part 
 of the walk seemed to be the turnings, for 
 they always came just when you wanted to 
 go on and on ; but even with the scope of 
 the world for your walk, you must turn and
 
 A REFUGE FROM THE HEAT. 93 
 
 come back sometime. At first, when lie was 
 smolving liis great broAYii meerschaum, he 
 and I would wallv in opposite directions, 
 passing each other in the middle, and so 
 make the space double the size, for he had 
 all the garden to himself, and I had it all to 
 myself; and so I had his garden and mine 
 too. That is hoAv by degrees I got able to 
 bear the smoke of tobacco, for I had never 
 been used to it, and found it a small trial at 
 first, but now I have got actually to like it, 
 and greet a stray whiff from the study like 
 a message from my husband. I fancy I 
 could tell the smoke of that old black and 
 red meerschaum from the smoke of any other 
 pipe in creation. 
 
 ''You must cure him of that bad habit," 
 said cousin Judy to me once. 
 
 It made me angry. What right had she 
 to call anything my husband did a bad 
 habit ? and to expect me to agree with her
 
 94 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 was ten times worse. I am saving my money 
 now to buy liim a grand new pipe ; and I 
 may just mention here, that once I spent 
 ninepence out of my last shilling to get him 
 a packet of Bristol bird's-eye, for he was on 
 the point of giving up smoking altogether 
 because of — well, because of what will appear 
 by and by. 
 
 England is getting dreadfully crowded 
 with mean, ugly houses. If they were those 
 of the poor and struggling, and not of the 
 rich and comfortable, one might be consoled. 
 Eut rich barbarism, in the shape of ugliness, 
 is again pushing us to the sea. There, how- 
 ever, its ^'control stops;" and since I lived 
 in London the sea has grown more precious 
 to me than it was even in those lovely days 
 at Killdiaven — merely because no one can 
 build upon it. Ocean and sky remain as 
 God made them. He must love space for 
 us, though it be needless for himself; seeing
 
 A REFUGE FROM THE HEAT. 
 
 95 
 
 that in all the magnificent notions of crea- 
 tion afforded ns by astronomers — shoal npon 
 shoal of suns, each the centre of compli- 
 cated and infinitely varied systems — the 
 spaces between are yet more overwhelming 
 in their vast inconceivableness. I thank 
 God for the room he thns gives iis, and 
 hence can endui-e to see the fair face of his 
 England disfigured by the mud-pies of his 
 children. 
 
 There was in the garden a little summer- 
 house, of which I was very fond, chiefly be- 
 cause, knowing my passion for the flower, 
 Percivale had surrounded it with a multitude 
 of sweet-peas, which as they grew, he had 
 trained over the trellis-work of its sides. 
 Through them filtered the sweet airs of 
 the summer as through an JEolian harp of 
 unheard harmonies. To sit there in a warm 
 evening, when the moth-airs just woke and 
 gave two or three wafts of their wings and
 
 96 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 ceased, was like sitting in tlie midst of a 
 small gospel. 
 
 The summer liad come on, and the daj's 
 were A'ery hot — so hot and changeless, with 
 their unclouded skies and tlieii* glowing- 
 centre, that they seemed to grow stupid 
 with their own heat. It was as if — like a 
 hen brooding over her chickens — the day, 
 brooding over its coming harvests, grew dull 
 and sleepy, living only in what was to come. 
 Notwithstanding the feelings I haAc just 
 recorded, I began to long for a wider horizon, 
 whence some wind might come and blow 
 upon me, and wake me up, not merely to 
 live, but to know that I lived. 
 
 One afternoon, I left my little summer- 
 seat, where I had been sitting at work, and 
 went through the house, and dow^i the pre- 
 cipice, into my husband's study. 
 
 ''It is so hot," I said, '' I will try my 
 little grotto ; it may be cooler."
 
 A REFUGE FROM THE HEAT. 97 
 
 He opened the door for me, and, with his 
 palette on his thumb, and a brush in his 
 hand, sat down for a moment beside me. 
 
 ''This heat is too much foi* you, darling," 
 
 he said. 
 
 " I do feel it. I wish I could get from 
 
 the garden into my nest without going up 
 
 through the house and down the Jacob's 
 
 ladder," I said. "It is so hot ! I never 
 
 felt heat like it before." 
 
 He sat silent for awhile, and then said : 
 
 " I've been thinking I must get you into 
 the coimtry for a few weeks. It would do 
 you no end of good." 
 
 " I suppose the wind does blow some- 
 where," I returned. " But — " 
 
 " You don't want to leave me ?" he said. 
 
 " I don't. And I know with that ugly 
 portrait on hand you can't go with me." 
 
 He happened to be painting the portrait 
 of a plain red-faced lady, in a delicate lace 
 
 VOL. I. H
 
 98 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 cap — a very unlit subject for art — much 
 needing to be made over again first, it seemed 
 to me. Only there she was, with a right to 
 have her portrait painted if she wished it ; 
 and there was Percivak^, with time on his 
 hands and room in his pockets, and the faith 
 tliat whatever God had thought w^orth mak- 
 ing couki not be unworthy of representation. 
 Hence he had willingly undertaken a like- 
 ness of her, to be finished within a certain 
 time, and was now working at it as conscien- 
 tiously as if it had been the portrait of a 
 lovely young duchess or peasant girl. I 
 was only afraid he would make it too like to 
 please the lady herself. His time was now 
 getting short, and he could not leave home 
 before fulfilling his engagement. 
 
 ^^ But," he returned, "why shoukhi't you 
 go to the Hall for a week or two without me ? 
 I will take you down and come and fetch 
 yen."
 
 A REFUGE FROM THE HEAT. 99 
 
 ^' I'm so stupid you want to get rid of 
 me !" I said. 
 
 I did not in the least believe it, and yet 
 was on the edge of crying, which is not a 
 habit with me. 
 
 ''You know better than that, my Wynnie," 
 he answered gravely. "You want your 
 mother to comfort you. And there must be 
 some air in the country. So tell Sarah to 
 put up your things, and I'll take you down 
 to-morrow morning. When I get this por- 
 trait done, I will come and stay a few days, 
 if they will have me, and then take you 
 home." 
 
 The thought of seeing my mother and my 
 father, and the old place, came over me with 
 a rush. I felt all at once as if I had been 
 absent for years instead of weeks. I cried 
 in earnest now — with delight though — and 
 there is no shame in that. So it was all 
 arranged, and next afternoon I was lying on
 
 loo THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 a couch in the yellow drawing-room, with my 
 mother seated beside me, and Connie in an 
 easy chair by the open window, tlu-ough 
 which came every now and then such a 
 sweet wave of air as bathed me with hope, 
 and seemed to wash all the noises, even the 
 loose -jawed man's hateful howl, from my 
 brain. 
 
 Yet, glad as I was to be once inore at 
 home, I felt, when Percivale left me the 
 next morning to return by a third-class 
 train to his ugly portrait, for the lady was 
 to sit to him that same afternoon, that the 
 idea of home was already leaving Oldcastle 
 Hall, and flitting back to the suburban 
 cottage haunted by the bawling voice of 
 the costermonger. 
 
 But I soon felt better, for here there was 
 plenty of shadow, and in the hottest days 
 my father could always tell where any wind 
 would be stirring ; for iie knew every out
 
 A REFUGE FROM THE HEAT. loi 
 
 and in of the place like his own pockets, 
 as Dora said, who took a little after cousin 
 Judy in her way. It will give a notion of 
 his tenderness if I set down just one tiniest 
 instance of his attention to me. The fore- 
 noon was oppressive. I was sitting under a 
 tree, trying to read when he came up to me. 
 There was a wooden gate, with open bars 
 near. He went and set it wide, saying — 
 
 ''There, my love! Yon will fancy 
 yourself cooler if I leave the gate open." 
 
 Will my reader laugh at me for men- 
 tioning such a trifle ? I think not, for it 
 went deep to my heart, and I seemed to 
 know God better for it ever after. A father 
 is a great and marvellous truth, and one 
 you can never get at the depth of, try how 
 you may. 
 
 Then my mother I She was if possible 
 yet more to me than my father. I could 
 tell her anything and everything without
 
 102 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 fear, Avhile I confess to a little cbeacl of my 
 father still. He is too like my own con- 
 science to allow of my being quite confident 
 with him. But Connie is jnst as comfort- 
 able Avith him as I am with my mother. 
 If in my childhood I was ever tempted to 
 conceal anything from her, the very thonght 
 of it made me miserable until I had told her. 
 And now she would watch me with her 
 gentle dove-like eyes, and seemed to know 
 at once, without being told, what was the 
 matter with me. She never asked me what 
 I should like, but went and brought some- 
 thing, and if she saw that I didn't care for 
 it, wouldn't press me, or offer anything 
 instead, but chat for a minute or two, carry 
 it away, and return w^ith sometliing else. 
 My heart w/as like to break at times with 
 the swelling of the love that was in it. 
 My eldest child, my Ethelwyn — for my 
 husbajid would have her called the same
 
 A REFUGE FROM THE HEAT. 105 
 
 name as me, only I insisted it should be 
 after my mother and not after me — has her 
 very eyes, and for years has been trying to 
 mother me over again to the best of her 
 sweet ability.
 
 CHAPTEE YII. 
 
 CONNIE. 
 
 TT is high time though that I dropped 
 writing about myself for a while. I 
 don't find myself so interesting as it used 
 to be. 
 
 The worst of some kinds especially of 
 small illnesses is that they make you think 
 a great deal too much about yourself. 
 Connie's, which was a great and terrible 
 one, never made her do so. She was always 
 forgetting herself in her interest about 
 others. I think I was made more selfish 
 to begin with ; and yet I have a hope that 
 a too-much-thinking about yourself may not 
 
 I
 
 CONNIE. 105 
 
 aliuai/s be pure selfisliiiess. It may be 
 something else wrong in yon that makes 
 yon nncomfortable, and keeps drawing yonr 
 eyes towards the aching place. I will hope 
 so till I get rid of the whole business, and 
 then I shall not care much how it came or 
 what it was. 
 
 Connie was now a thin, pale, delicate- 
 looking — not handsome, but lovely girl. 
 Her eyes, some people said, were too big 
 for her face, but that seemed to me no 
 more to the discredit of her beauty than it 
 would have been a reproach to say that her 
 soul was too big for her body. She had 
 been early ripened by the hot sun of suffering, 
 and the self-restraint which pain had taught 
 her. Patience had mossed her over, and 
 made her warm and soft and sweet. She 
 never looked for attention, but accepted 
 all that was offered with a smile which 
 seemed to say — '^ It is more than I need,
 
 io6 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 but you are so good I mustn't spoil it." 
 Slic was not confined to lier sofa now, 
 thougli she needed to lie down often, but 
 could walk about pretty well, only you 
 must give her time. You could always 
 make her merry by saying she walked like 
 an old woman ; and it was the only Avay 
 we could get rid of the sadness of seeing 
 it. We betook oui\selyes to her to laugh 
 her sadness away from us. 
 
 Once, as I lay on a couch on the lawn, 
 she came towards me carrying a bunch of 
 grapes from the greenhouse — a great bunch, 
 each individual grape ready to burst with 
 the sunlight it had bottled up in its swollen 
 purple skin. 
 
 '^ They are too heavy for you, old lady," 
 I cried. 
 
 '•'' Yes ; I am an old lady," she answered. 
 ^^ Think what good use of my time I have 
 made compared with you I I have got 
 
 I
 
 CONNIE. 
 
 107 
 
 ever so far before you : I've nearly for- 
 gotten how to walk I " 
 
 The tears gathered in my eyes as she left 
 me with the bunch, for how conld one help 
 being sad to think of the time when she 
 used to bound like a fa^yn over the grass, 
 her slender figure borne like a feather on 
 its own slight yet firm muscles, which 
 used to knot so much harder than any 
 of ours. She turned to ^j something, 
 and, perceiving my emotion, came slowly 
 back. 
 
 ''Dear W}Tinie," she said, ''you wouldn't 
 have me back Avitli my old foolishness, 
 would you ? Believe me life is ten times 
 more precious than it was before. I feel, 
 and enjoy, and love so much more I I don't 
 know how often I thank God for what 
 befell me." 
 
 I could only smile an answer, unable to 
 speak, not now fro;n pity, but from shame
 
 io8 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 of my own petulant restlessness and im- 
 patient helplessness. 
 
 I believe she had a special affection for 
 poor Sprite, the pony which threw her — 
 special I mean since the accident — regard- 
 ing him as in some sense the angel which 
 had driven her out of paradise into a better 
 world. If ever he got loose, and Connie 
 was am^where about, he was sure to find 
 her : he was an omnivorous animal, and 
 she had always something he would eat 
 when his favourite apples were nnattain- 
 able. More than once she had been roused 
 from her sleep on the lawn by the lips and 
 the breath of Sprite upon her face ; but, 
 although one painful sign of her weakness 
 was, that she started at the least noise or 
 sudden discovery of a presence, she never 
 started at the most unexpected intrusion 
 of Sprite, any more than at the voice of 
 my father or mother. IN'eed I say there
 
 CONNIE. 109 
 
 was one more wliose voice or presence never 
 startled lier ? 
 
 The relation between them was lovely to 
 see. Turner was a fine^ healthy, broad- 
 shouldered fellow, of bold carriage and 
 frank manners, above the middle height, 
 with rather large features, keen black eyes, 
 and great personal strength. Yet to such 
 a man, poor little wan-faced big-eyed Connie 
 assumed imperious airs, mostly, but per- 
 haps not entirely, for the fun of it; while 
 he looked only enchanted every time she 
 honoured him with a little tyranny. 
 
 '-'- There ! I'm tired," she would say, 
 holding out her arms like a baby. '' Carry 
 me in." 
 
 And the great strong man would stoop 
 with a worshipping look in his eyes, and 
 taking her carefully would carry her in as 
 lightly, and gently, and steadily, as if she 
 had been but the baby whose manners she
 
 no THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER, 
 
 liad for the moment assumed. Tliis began, 
 of course, A^dien she was unable to walk, 
 but it did not stop then, for she would 
 occasionally tell him to carry her after she 
 was quite capable of crawling at least. 
 They had now been engaged for some 
 months, and before me, as a newly married 
 woman, they did not mind talking a little. 
 
 One day she was lying on a rug on the 
 lawn, with him on the grass beside her, 
 leaning on his elbow, and looking down 
 into her sky-like eyes. She lifted her hand 
 and stroked his moustache with a forefinger, 
 while he kept as still as a statue, or one 
 who fears to scare the bird that is picking 
 up the crumbs at his feet. 
 
 ^^ Poor, poor man I " she said; and from 
 the tone I knew the tears had begun to 
 gather in those eyes. 
 
 '^ Why do you pity me, Connie ? " he 
 asked. 
 
 I
 
 CONNIE. Ill 
 
 " Because you will have such a wretched 
 little creature for a wife some cla}^ — or per- 
 haps never — which would be best after 
 all." 
 
 He answered cheerily : 
 
 '' If you will kindly allow me my choice, 
 I prefer just such a wretched little creature 
 to any one else in the world." 
 
 "And why, pray? Give a good reason, 
 and I will forgive your bad taste." 
 
 " Because she won't be able to hurt nu^ 
 much when she beats me." 
 
 '' A better reason, or she will." 
 
 " Because I can punish her if she 
 isn't good by taking her up in my 
 arms and carrying her about until she 
 gives in." 
 
 " A better reason, or I shall be naughty 
 dii'ectly." 
 
 " Because I shall always know where to 
 find her."
 
 112 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 ^' Ah., yes ; she must leave you to find 
 her. Eut that's a silly reason. If you don't 
 give me a better, I'll get up and walk into 
 the house." 
 
 "- Because there won't be any waste of 
 me. Will that do ? " 
 
 ^^"What do you mean?" she asked with 
 mock imperiousness. 
 
 ''I mean that I shall be able to lay not 
 only my heart but my brute strength at her 
 feet. I shall be allowed to be her beast of 
 burden, to carry her whither she would ; 
 and so with my body her to worship more 
 than most husbands have a chance of wor- 
 shipping their wives." 
 
 ^^ There ! take me, take me ! " she said, 
 stretching up her arms to him. '' How 
 good you are ! I don't deserve such a great 
 man one bit. But I ivill love him. Take 
 me directly, for there's Wynnie listening 
 to every word we say to each other, and
 
 CONNIE. ri3 
 
 laugliing at iis. Slie can laagh without 
 looking like it." 
 
 The fact is I was crying, and the creature 
 knew it. Turner brought her to me, and 
 hekl her down for me to kiss ; then carried 
 her in to her mother. 
 
 I believe the county peojDle round con- 
 sidered our family far gone on the in- 
 clined plane of degeneracy. First, my 
 mother, the heiress, had married a clergy- 
 man of no high family; then they had 
 given theu^ eldest daughter to a poor artist, 
 something of the same standing as — well, I 
 will be rude to no order of humanity, and 
 therefore avoid comparisons; and now it 
 was generally known that Connie was en- 
 gaged to a country practitioner, a man who 
 made up his own prescriptions. We talked 
 and laughed over certain remarks of the 
 kind that reached us, and compared our two 
 with the gentlemen about us — in no way to 
 
 VOL. I. I
 
 114 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 the advantage of any uf tlie latter, you may 
 be sure. It was sill}^ A\'ork ; but we were 
 only two loving girls with tlie best possible 
 reasons for being proud of the men who 
 had honoured us with their love. 
 
 I
 
 CHAPTEE YIII. 
 
 TT is time I told my readers something 
 about the little Theodora. She was now 
 nearly foiu* years old, I think — a dark- 
 skinned, lithe-limbed, wild little creatnre, 
 very pretty — at least most people said so, 
 while others insisted that she had a common 
 look. I admit she was not like a lady's 
 child — only one has seen ladies' children 
 look common enongh ; neither did she look 
 like the child of working people — though 
 amongst such again one sees sometimes a 
 cliild the oldest family in England might be 
 proud of. The fact is, she had a certain
 
 ii6 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 tinge of the savage about lier, specially 
 manifest in a certain furtive look of her 
 black eyes, with Avliich she seemed now and 
 then to be measuring you, and her prospects 
 in relation to you. I have seen the child of 
 cultivated parents sit and stare at a stranger 
 from her stool in the most persistent man- 
 ner, never withdrawing her eyes, as if she 
 would pierce to his soul, and understand by 
 very force of insight whether he was or was 
 not one to be honoured with her confidence ; 
 and I have often seen the sidelong glance of 
 sly merriment, or loving sh}Tiess, or small 
 coquetry ; but I have never, in any other 
 child, seen that look of self -protective specu- 
 lation ; and it used to make me uneasy, for 
 of course, like every one else in the house, 
 I loved the child. She was a wayward, 
 often unmanageable creature, but affection- 
 ate — sometimes after an insane, or, at least, 
 very ape-like fashion. Every now and then
 
 CONNIE'S BABY, 117 
 
 she would take an unaccountable preference 
 for some one of tlie family or liousehold, at 
 one time for the old housekeeper, at another 
 for the stable-boy, at another for one of us ; 
 in which fits of partiality she would alwa3^s 
 turn a blind and deaf side upon every one 
 else, actually seeming to imagine she 
 showed the strength of her love to the 
 one by the paraded exclusion of the others. 
 I cannot tell how much of this was natural 
 to her, and how much the result of the 
 foolish and injurious jealousy of the ser- 
 vants. I say servants^ because I know such 
 an influencing was all but impossible in the 
 family itself. If my father heard any one 
 utter such a phrase as ^^ Don't you love me 
 best" — or, ^'better than" such a one? or, 
 "Ain't I your favourite?" — well, you all 
 know my father, and know him really, for 
 he never wrote a word he did not believe — 
 but you would have been astonished, I
 
 ii8 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER, 
 
 venture to think, and perhaps at first be- 
 wildered as well, by the look of indignation 
 flashed from his eyes. He was not the 
 gentle, all-excusing man some readers, I 
 know, fancy him from his writings. He 
 was gentle even to tenderness when he had 
 time to think a moment, and in any quiet 
 judgment he ahvays took as much the side 
 of the oflender as was possible with any 
 likeliliood of justice ; but in the first mo- 
 ments of contact with what he thought bad 
 in principle, and that in the smallest trifle, 
 he would speak words that made even those 
 who were not included in the condemnation 
 tremble with sympathetic fear. ''There, 
 Harry, you take it — quick, or Charley will 
 have it," said the nurse one day, little 
 thinking who overheard her. '^ Woman ! " 
 cried a voice of wrath fi'om the corridor, 
 '' do you know what you are doing? Would 
 vou make him two-fold more the child of
 
 CONNIE'S BABY. 119 
 
 Jicll than yourself?" An lionr after, she 
 ^vas sent for to the study ; and when she 
 came out her eyes were very red. My 
 father was unusually silent at dinner ; and 
 after the younger ones were gone, he turned 
 to my mother, and said: ^' Ethel, I spoke 
 the truth. All that is of the deviL--liorribly 
 bad ; and yet I am more to blame in my 
 condemnation of them than she for the 
 words themselves. The thought of so pol- 
 luting the mind of a child makes me fierce, 
 and the wrath of man worketh not the 
 righteousness of God. The old Adam is 
 only too glad to get a word in, if even in 
 behalf of his supplanting successor." Then 
 he rose, and taking my mother by the 
 arm, walked away with her. I confess I 
 honoured him for his self-condemnation the 
 most. I must add that the offending nurse 
 had been ten years in the family, and ought 
 to have known l)etter.
 
 I20 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 Eut to return to Theodora. She was 
 subject to attacks of the most furious pas- 
 sion, especially Avhen anything occurred to 
 thwart the indulgence of the ephemeral 
 partiality I have just described. Then, 
 wherever she Avas, she would throw herself 
 down at once — on the floor, on the walk or 
 lawn, or, as happened on one occasion, in 
 the water — and kick and scream. At such 
 times she cared nothing even for my father, 
 of whom generally she stood in considerable 
 awe — a feeling he rather encouraged. '-'- She 
 has plenty of people about her to represent 
 the gospel," he said once ; "I will keep the 
 department of the law, without which she 
 never will appreciate the gospel. My part 
 will, I trust, vanish in due time, and the 
 law turn out to have been, after all, only 
 the imperfect gospel, just as the leaf is the 
 imperfect iiower. Eut the gospel is no 
 gospel till it gets into the heart, and it
 
 CONNIE'S BABY. 121 
 
 sometimes wants a torpedo to blow the gates 
 of that open." For no torpedo or Krupp 
 gun, howeyer, did Theodora care at such 
 times ; and after repeated experience of the 
 inefficacy of coaxing, my father gave orders 
 that, when a fit occuiTcd, every one, with- 
 out exception, shoukl not merely leave her 
 alone, but go out of sight, and if possible 
 out of hearing — at least out of her hear- 
 ing — that she might know she had driven 
 her fi'iends far fi'om her, and be brought to 
 a sense of loneliness and need. I am pretty 
 sure that if she had been one of us, that is^ 
 one of his own, he would have taken sharper 
 measures with her; but he said we must 
 never attempt to treat other people's chil- 
 dren as our own, for they are not our own. 
 We did not love them enough, he said, to 
 make severity safe either for them or for us. 
 The plan worked so far well, that, after a 
 time varied in length according to causes
 
 122 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 inscrutable, she would alwaj^s reappear 
 smiling ; but as to any conscience of 
 AYi'ong, she seemed to have no more 
 than nature herself, who looks out with 
 her smiling face after hours of thunder, 
 lightning, and rain; and, although this 
 treatment brought her out of them sooner, 
 the fits themselves came quite as frequently 
 as before. 
 
 But she had another habit, more alarm- 
 ing, and more troublesome as well : she 
 would not unfrequently vanish, and have to 
 be long sought, for in such case she never 
 reappeared of herself. "W^liat made it so 
 alarming was that there were dangerous 
 places about our house ; but she would 
 generally be found seated, perfectly quiet, 
 in some out-of-the-way nook where she had 
 never been before, playing, not with any of 
 her toys, but with something she had picked 
 up and appropriated, finding in it some
 
 CONNIE'S BABY. 123 
 
 shadowy amusement which no one under- 
 stood but herself. 
 
 She was very fond of bright colours, 
 especially in dress ; and if she found a bril- 
 liant or gorgeous fragment of any substance, 
 would be sure to hide it away in some hole 
 or corner, perhaps known only to herself. 
 Her love of approbation was strong, and her 
 affection demonstrative, but she had not yet 
 learned to speak the truth. In a word she 
 must, we thought, have come of wild parent- 
 age, so many of her ways were like those of 
 a forest animal. 
 
 In our design of training her for a maid 
 to C/onnie, we seemed already likely enough 
 to be frustrated ; at all events there was 
 nothing to encourage the attempt, seeing 
 she had some sort of aversion to Connie, 
 amounting almost to dread. We could 
 rarely persuade her to go near her. Per- 
 haps it was a dislike to her helplessness —
 
 124 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 some vague impression that her lying all 
 day on the sofa indicated an unnatural con- 
 dition of being, with which she could have 
 no sympathy. Those of us who had the 
 highest spirits, the greatest exuberance of 
 animal life, were evidently those whose 
 society was most attractive to her. Connie 
 tried all she could to conquer her dislike, 
 and entice the wayward thing to her heart, 
 but nothing would do. Sometimes she 
 would seem to soften for a moment, but all 
 at once, with a sniggle and a backward 
 spasm in the arms of the person who carried 
 her, she would manifest such a fresh access 
 of repulsion, that for fear of an outburst of 
 fierce and objm-gatory wailing which might 
 upset poor Connie altogether, she would be 
 borne off hurriedly — sometimes, I confess, 
 rather ungently as well. I have seen 
 Connie cry because of the child's treatment 
 of her.
 
 CONNIE'S BABY. 125 
 
 You could not interest her so much in 
 any story but that if the buzzing of a fly, 
 the flutter of a bird, reached eye or ear, 
 away she would dart on the instant, leaving 
 the discomflted narrator in lonely disgrace. 
 External nature and almost nothing else 
 had free access to her mind: at the sud- 
 denest sight or sound, she was alive on the 
 instant. She was a most amusing and 
 sometimes almost bewitching little com- 
 panion, but the delight in her would be not 
 unfrequently quenched by some altogether 
 imforeseen outbreak of heartless petulance 
 or tiu'bulent rebellion. Indeed her resist- 
 ance to authority grew as she grew older, 
 and occasioned my father and mother, and 
 indeed all of us, no little anxiety. Even 
 Charley and Harry would stand with open 
 mouths contemplating aghast the unheard-of 
 atrocity of resistance to the will of the un- 
 questioned authorities. It was w^hat they
 
 126 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 could not understand, being to tliem an 
 impossibility. Such resistance was almost 
 always accompanied by storm and tempest, 
 and the treatment which carried away the 
 latter, generally carried away the former 
 with it : after the passion had come and 
 gone, she would obey. Had it been other- 
 wise — had she been sullen and obstinate as 
 well — I do not know what would have come 
 of it, or how we could have got on at all. 
 Miss Eowdler, I am afraid, would have had 
 a very satisfactory crow over papa. I have 
 seen him sit for minutes in silent contem- 
 plation of the little puzzle, trying no doubt 
 to fit her into his theories, or as my mother 
 said, to find her a three-legged stool and 
 a corner somewhere in the kingdom of 
 heaven; and we were certain sometliing or 
 other would come out of that pondering, 
 though whether the same night or a twelve- 
 month after, no one could tell. I believe the
 
 CONJyiE'S BABY. 127 
 
 main result of his thinking was that he did 
 less and less with her. 
 
 ^' Why do you take so little notice of the 
 child ? " my mother said to him one even- 
 ing. '*' It is all your doing that she is 
 here, you know. You mustn't cast her off 
 now." 
 
 ^' Cast her off!" exclaimed my father: 
 '' what do you mean, Ethel ? " 
 
 '' You never speak to her noAV." 
 
 " Oh yes I do, sometimes." 
 
 " Why only sometimes ? " 
 
 ^'Because — I believe because I am a 
 little afraid of her. I don't knovf how to 
 attack the small enemy. She seems to be 
 bomb-proof, and generally impregnjtble." 
 
 ^^But you mustn't therefore make her 
 afraid of you."''' 
 
 "I don't know that. I suspect it is my 
 only chance with her. She wants a little of 
 Mount Sinai, in order that she may know
 
 128 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 where the maiina comes from. But indeed 
 I am hiying myself out only to catch the 
 little soul. I am but watching and ponder- 
 ing how to reach her. I am biding m}' 
 time to come in with my small stone for the 
 building up of this temple of the Holy 
 Ghost." 
 
 At that very moment — in the last fold of 
 the twilight, with the moon rising above 
 the wooded brow of Gorman Slope — the 
 nurse came through the darkening air, her 
 figure hardly distinguishable from the dusk, 
 saying — 
 
 '^Please, ma'am, have you seen Miss 
 Theodora?" 
 
 '' I don't want you to call her J/m," said 
 my father. 
 
 ^^ I beg your pardon, sir," said the nurse ; 
 "- 1 forgot." 
 
 '^ I have not seen her for an hour or 
 more," said my mother.
 
 CONNIE'S BASF. 
 
 129 
 
 ^' I declare," said my father, '^ I'll get a 
 retriever pup, and train him to find Theo- 
 dora. He will be capable in a few months, 
 and she will be foolish for years." 
 
 L'pon this occasion the truant was found 
 in the apple-loft, sitting in a corner upcm a 
 heap of straw, quite in the dark. She was 
 discovered only by the munching of her 
 little teeth, for she had found some wizened 
 apples, and was busy devouring them. But 
 my father actually did what he had said : a 
 favourite spaniel had pups a few days after, 
 and he took one of them in hand. In an in- 
 credibly short space of time, the long-drawn 
 nose of Wagtail, as the children had named 
 him, in which, doubtless, was gathered the 
 experience of many thoughtful generations, 
 had learned to track Theodora to whatever 
 retreat she might have chosen; and very 
 amusing it was to watch the course of the 
 proceedings. Some one would come run- 
 
 VOL. I. K
 
 130 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 ning to my father witli the news that Theo 
 was in hiding. Then my father would 
 giAT- a peculiar whistle, and "Wagtail, who 
 (I must say ivlio) very seldom failed to 
 respond, would come bounding to his side. 
 It was necessary that my father should lay 
 him on (is that the phrase ?), for he would 
 heed no directions from any one else. It 
 was not necessary to follow him, however, 
 which would have involved a tortuous and 
 fatiguing pursuit; but in a little while a 
 joyous barking would be heard, always kept 
 up until the ready pursuers were guided by 
 the sound to the place. There Theo was 
 certain to be found hugging the animal, 
 without the least notion of the traitorous 
 character of his blandishments : it was long 
 before she began to discover that there was 
 danger in that dog's nose. Thus Wagtail 
 became a very important member of the 
 family — a bond of union, in fact, between
 
 CONNIE'S BABY. 131 
 
 its parts. Tlieo's disappearances, however, 
 became less and less frequent — not that she 
 made fewer attempts to abscond, but that, 
 every one knowing how likely she was to 
 vanish, whoever she was with had come to 
 feel the necessity of keeping both eyes upon 
 her.
 
 CHAPTEE IX. 
 
 THE FOrNDLIXa RE-FOUND. 
 
 OXE evening, during this my first visit 
 to my home, we had gone to take tea 
 with the widow of an okl servant, Avho lived 
 in a cottage on the outskirts of the home 
 farm — Connie and I in the pony carriage, 
 and my father and mother on foot. It was 
 quite dark Avhen we returned, for the moon 
 was late. Connie and I got home first, 
 though we had a good round to make and 
 the path across the fields was hut a third of 
 the distance, for my father and mother were 
 lovers, and sure to be late when left out by 
 themselves. When Ave arrived, there was
 
 THE FOUNDLING RE-FOUND. 133 
 
 no one to take the pony, and wlien I rung 
 the bell, no one answered. I could not 
 leave Connie in the carriage to go and look, 
 so we waited and waited till we were get- 
 ting very tired, and glad indeed we were to 
 hear the voices of my father and mother as 
 they came through the shrubbery. My 
 mother went to the rear to make inquiry, 
 and came back with the news that Theo was 
 missing, and that they had been searching 
 for her in vain for nearly an hour. My 
 father instantl}^ called Wagtail, and sent 
 him after her. We then got Connie in, and 
 laid her on the sofa, where I kept her com- 
 pany while the rest went in diiferent direc- 
 tions, listening from what quarter would 
 come the welcome voice of the dog. This 
 was so long delayed, however, that my 
 father began to get alarmed. At last he 
 whistled very loud, and in a little while 
 Wagtail came creeping to his feet, with his
 
 134 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 tail between his legs — no wag left in it — 
 clearly asliamcd of himself. My father was 
 now thoroughly frightened, and began ques- 
 tioning the household as to the latest know- 
 ledge of the child. It then occurred to one 
 of the servants to mention that a strange- 
 looking woman had been seen about the 
 place in the morning — a tall, dark woman, 
 Avith a gipsy look. She had come begging, 
 but my father's orders were so strict con- 
 cerning such cases that nothing had been 
 given her, and she had gone away in anger. 
 As soon as he heard this my father ordered 
 his horse, and told two of the men to get 
 ready to accompany him. In the mean- 
 time, he came to us in the little drawing- 
 room, trying to look calm, but evidently in 
 much perturbation. He said he had little 
 doubt the woman had taken her. 
 
 *' Could it be her mother?" said my 
 mother.
 
 THE FOUNDLING RE-FOUND. 135 
 
 ^'Wlio can tell?" returned my father. 
 ^' It is the less likely that the deed seems to 
 have been prompted by revenge." 
 
 ^^ If she be a gipsy's child, " said my 
 
 mother. 
 
 '-'- The gipsies/' interrupted my father, 
 ^'have always been more given to taking 
 other people's children than forsaking their 
 own. But one of them might have had 
 reason for being ashamed of her child, and, 
 di-eading the severity of her family, might 
 have abandoned it, with the intention of 
 re-possessing herself of it, and passing it off 
 as the child of gentlefolks she had picked 
 np. I don't know their habits and ways 
 sufficiently ; but, from what I have heard, 
 that seems possible. However, it is not so 
 easy as it might have been once to succeed 
 in such an attempt. If we should fail in 
 finding her to-night, the police all over 
 the country can be apprised of the fact
 
 136 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 in a foAv hours, and the thief can hardly 
 escape." 
 
 '' But if she sJioidd be the mother ? " 
 suggested my mother. 
 
 ''• She will have to prove that." 
 
 '' And then? '- 
 
 ^' What then ?" returned my father, and 
 began pacing up and down the room, stop- 
 ping now and then to listen for the horses' 
 hoofs. 
 
 ^^ Would you give her up?" persisted 
 my mother. 
 
 Still my father made no reply. He was 
 evidently much agitated — more, I fancied, 
 by my mother's question than by the pre- 
 sent trouble. He left the room, and pre- 
 sently his whistle for Wagtail pierced the 
 still air. A moment more, and we heard 
 them all ride out of the paved yard. I had 
 never kno^vTi him leave my mother without 
 an answer before.
 
 THE FO UNDLING RE-FO UND. 1 3 7 
 
 We wlio were left beliind were in evil 
 plight. There was not a diy eye amongst 
 the women, I am certain, while Harry was 
 in floods of tears, and Charley was howling. 
 We conld not send them to bed in such a 
 state, so we kept them with ns in the 
 drawing-room, where they soon fell fast 
 asleep, one in an easy chair, the other on a 
 sheepskin mat. Comiie lay quite still, and 
 my mother talked so sweetly and gently 
 that she soon made me quiet too. But I 
 was haunted with the idea somehow — I 
 think I must have been wandering a little, 
 for I was not well — that it was a child of 
 my own that was lost out in the dark night, 
 and that I could not anyhow reach her. I 
 cannot explain the odd kind of feeling it 
 was — as if a di^eam had wandered out of the 
 region of sleep, and half-possessed my 
 waking brain. Every now and then my 
 mother's voice would bring me back to my
 
 138 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 senses, and I would understand it all per- 
 fectly ; but in a few moments I would be 
 involved once more in a mazy search after 
 my cliild. Perhaps, however, as it was by 
 that time late, sleep had, if such a thing be 
 possible, invaded a part of my brain, leaving 
 another part able to receive the impressions 
 of the external about me. I can recall 
 some of the things my mother said — one in 
 particular. 
 
 ^^ It is more absurd," she said, ^^ to trust 
 God by halves, than it is not to believe in 
 him at all. Your papa taught me that 
 before one of you was born." 
 
 "WTien my mother said anything in the 
 way of teaching us, which was not often, 
 she would generally add, '' Your papa 
 taught me that," as if she would take refuge 
 from the assumption of teaching even her 
 own girls. But we set a good deal of such 
 assertion down to her modesty, and the
 
 THE FO UN D LING RE-FO UND. 1 3 9 
 
 evidently inextricable blending of the 
 thonght of my father with every movement 
 of her mental life. 
 
 ^' I remember qnite well," she went on^ 
 ^'how he made that trnth dawn npon me 
 one night as we sat together beside the old 
 mill. Ah ! you don't remember the old 
 mill ; it was pulled down while Wynnie 
 was a mere baby." 
 
 '-'- No, mamma ; I remember it perfectly," 
 I said. 
 
 ^' Do you really? — Well, we were sitting 
 beside the mill one Sunday evening after 
 service; for we always had a walk before 
 going home from church. You would 
 hardly think it now, but after preaching he 
 was then always depressed, and the more 
 eloquently he had spoken, the more he felt 
 as if he had made an utter failure. At first 
 I thought it came only from fatigue, and 
 wanted him to go home and rest; but he
 
 140 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 would say lie liked nature to come before 
 supper, for nature restored him by telling 
 liim that it was not of the slightest conse- 
 quence if he had failed, whereas his supper 
 only made him feel that he would do better 
 next time. "Well, that night, you will 
 easily believe he startled me when he said, 
 after sitting for some time silent, ^ Ethel, if 
 that yellow-hammer were to drop doT^Ti dead 
 now, and God not care, God would not be 
 God any longer.' Doubtless I showed my- 
 self something between puzzled and shocked, 
 for he proceeded with some haste to explain 
 to me how what he had said was true. 
 ' AYhatever belongs to God is essential to 
 God,' he said. ' He is one pure, clean 
 essence of being, to use our poor words to 
 describe the indescribable. Xothing hangs 
 about him that does not belong to him — 
 that he could part with and be nothing the 
 worse. Still less is there anything he could
 
 THE FOUNDLING RE-FOUND. 141 
 
 part with and be the worse. Whatever 
 belongs to him is of his own kind, is part of 
 himself, so to speak. Therefore there is 
 nothing indifferent to his character to be 
 foimd in him ; and therefore when onr Lord 
 says not a sparrow falls to the ground with- 
 out our Father, that, being a fact with 
 regard to God, must be an essential fact — 
 one, namely, without which he could be no 
 God.' I understood him, I thought; but 
 many a time since, when a fresh light has 
 broken in upon me, I haye thought I under- 
 stood him then only for the first time. I 
 told him so once, and he said he thought 
 that would be the way for ever with all 
 truth — we should never get to the bottom 
 of any truth, because it was a vital portion 
 of the all of truth, which is God." 
 
 I had never heard so much philosophy 
 from my mother before. I believe she was 
 led into it by her fear of the effect our
 
 142 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 anxiety about the child might have uiDon 
 us : with what had quieted her heart in the 
 okl tinie she sought now to quiet ours, 
 helping us to trust in the great love that 
 never ceases to watch. And she did make 
 us quiet. Eut the time glided so slowly 
 past that it seemed immovable. 
 
 When twelve struck, we heard in the 
 stillness every clock in the house, and it 
 seemed as if they would never have done. 
 My mother left the room and came back 
 with three shawls, with which, having first 
 laid Harry on the rug, she covered the boys, 
 and Dora, who also was by this time fast 
 asleep, curled up at Connie's feet. 
 
 Still the time went on, and there was no 
 sound of horses, or anything to break the 
 silence, except the faint murmur which now 
 and then the trees will make in the quietest 
 night, as if they were dreaming, and talked 
 in their sleep ; for the motion does not seem
 
 THE FOUNDLING RE-FOUND. 143 
 
 to pass beyond them, but to swell up and 
 die again in the heart of them. This and 
 the occasional cry of an owl was all that 
 broke the silent flow of the undivided 
 moments — glacier-like flowing none can tell 
 how. We seldom spoke, and at length the 
 house within seemed possessed by the 
 silence from without ; but we were all ear 
 — one hungry ear, whose famine was silence 
 — listening intently. 
 
 We were not so far from the high road 
 but that on a night like this the penetrating 
 sound of a horse's hoofs might reach us. 
 Hence, when my mother, who was keener 
 of hearing than any of her daughters, at 
 length started up, saying, '^ I hear them ! 
 They're coming ! " the doubt remained 
 whether it might not be the sound of some 
 night-trayeller hurrying along that high 
 road that she had heard. But when ive also 
 heard the sound of horses, we knew they
 
 144 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 must belong to our company ; for except 
 tlie riders were within the gates, their noises 
 could not have come nearer to the house. 
 !My mother hurried down to the hall. I 
 would have stayed with Connie ; but she 
 begged me to go too, and come back as soon 
 as I knew the result ; so I followed my 
 mother. As I descended the stairs, not- 
 withstanding my anxiety, I could not help 
 seeing what a picture lay before me, for I 
 had learned already to regard things from 
 the picturesque point of view — the dim 
 light of the low-burning lamp on the 
 forward-bent heads of the listening, 
 anxious group of women, my mother 
 at the open door witli the housekeeper 
 and her maid, and the men-servants 
 visible through the door in the moonlight 
 beyond. 
 
 The first news that reached me was my 
 father's shout the moment he roimded the 
 
 I
 
 THE FOUNDLING RE-FOUND. 145 
 
 sweep that brought him in sight of the 
 house. 
 
 ^' All right ! Here she is ! " he cried. 
 
 And ere I could reach the stair to run up 
 to Connie, Wagtail was jumping upon me 
 and barking furiously. He rushed up be- 
 fore me with the scramble of twenty feet, 
 licked Connie's face all over in spite of her 
 efforts at self-defence, then rushed at Dora 
 and the boys one after the other, and woke 
 them all up. He w^as satisfied enough with 
 himself now ; his tail was doing the wagging 
 of forty ; there was no tucking of it away 
 now — no drooping of the head in mute 
 confession of conscious worthlessness ; he 
 was a dog self-satisfied because his master 
 was well pleased with him. 
 
 But here I am talking about the dog, and 
 forgetting what was going on below. 
 
 My father cantered up to the door, fol- 
 lowed by the two men. My mother hurried 
 
 YOL. I. L
 
 146 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 to meet him, and then only saw the little 
 lost lamb asleep in his bosom. He gave her 
 np, and my mother ran in with her, while 
 he dismounted, and walked merrily but 
 wearily up the stair after her. The &st 
 thing he did was to quiet the dog ; the 
 next, to sit down beside Connie ; the third, 
 to say, ^' Thank God ! " and the next, ^^ God 
 bless Wagtail ! " My mother was abeady 
 undressing the little darling, and her maid 
 was gone to fetch her night things. Tum- 
 bled hither and thither, she did not wake, 
 but was carried off stone-sleeping to her 
 crib. 
 
 Then my father — for whom some supper, 
 of wliich he was in great need, had been 
 brought — as soon as he had had a glass of 
 wine and a mouthful or two of cold chicken, 
 began to tell us the whole story.
 
 CHAPTEE X. 
 
 WAGTAIL COMES TO HONOUR. 
 
 A S they rode out of the gate, one of the 
 men, a trustworthy man, who cared for 
 his horses like his chikben, and knew all 
 their individualities as few men know those 
 of their children, rode up alongside of my 
 father, and told him that there was an en- 
 campment of gipsies on the moor about five 
 miles away, just over Gorman Slope, re- 
 marking that, if the woman had. taken the 
 child, and belonged to them, she would cer- 
 tainly carry her thither. My father thought, 
 in the absence of other indication, they 
 ought to follow the suggestion, and told
 
 148 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 Burton to guide them to the place as 
 rapidly as possible. After half an hour's 
 sharp riding, they came in view of the 
 camp — or rather of a rising ground behind 
 which it lay in the hollow. The other ser- 
 vant was an old man who had been whipper- 
 in to a baronet in the next county, and 
 kne^\' as much of the ways of wild animals 
 as Ijurton did of those of his horses : it was 
 his turn now to address my father, who had 
 halted for a moment to think what ought 
 to be done next. 
 
 ^'She can't well have got here before us, 
 sir, with that child to carry. But it's won- 
 derful what the likes of her can do. I 
 think I had better have a peep over the 
 brow first. She may be there already or 
 she may not ; but if we find out, we shall 
 know better what to do." 
 
 '' I'll go with you," said my father. 
 
 "IS'o, sir; excuse me; that won't do.
 
 WAGTAIL COMES TO HONOUR. 149 
 
 You can't creep like a sarpent. I can. 
 They'll never know I'm a stalking of them. 
 IN'o more you couldn't show fight if need 
 was, you know, sir." 
 
 ^^How did you find that out, Sim?" 
 asked my father, a little amused notwith- 
 standing the weight at his heart. 
 
 "Why, sir, they do say a clergyman 
 mustn't show fight." 
 
 "Who told you that, Sim?" he persisted. 
 
 "Well, I can't say, sir. Only it wouldn't 
 be respectable — would it, sir ?" 
 
 "There's nothing respectable but what's 
 right, Sim, and what's right always is re- 
 spectable, though it mayn't look so one bit." 
 
 " Suppose you was to get a black eye, 
 sir?" 
 
 "Did you ever hear of the martyrs, 
 Sim?" 
 
 "Yes, sii'. I've heerd you talk on 'em 
 in the pulpit, sir."
 
 150 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 ^' Well, they didn't get black eyes only — 
 they got black all over, you know — burnt 
 black ; and what for, do you think, now V 
 
 "Don't know, sir, except it was for doing 
 right." 
 
 " That's just it. "Was it any disgrace to 
 them?" 
 
 "ISTo, sure, sir." 
 
 "Well, if I were to get a black eye for 
 the sake of the child, would that be any 
 disgrace to me, Sim?" 
 
 "None that I loiows on, sir. Only it'd 
 look bad." 
 
 " Yes, no doubt. People might think I 
 had got into a row at the Griffin. And yet 
 I shouldn't be ashamed of it. I should 
 count my black eye the more respectable 
 of the two. I should also regard the evil 
 judgment much as another black eye, and 
 wait till they both came round again. Lead 
 on, Sim."
 
 WAGTAIL COMES TO HONOUR. 151 
 
 They left their horses with Burton, and 
 went towards the camp. But when they 
 reached the slope behind which it lay, much 
 to Sim's discomfiture, my father, instead of 
 lying do\vn at the foot of it, as he expected, 
 and creeping up the side of it, after the 
 doom of the serpent, walked right up over 
 the brow, and straight into the camp, fol- 
 lowed by Wagtail. There was nothing 
 going on — neither tinkering nor cooking; 
 all seemed asleep ; but presently out of two 
 or three of the tents, the dingy squalor of 
 which no moonshine could silver over, came 
 three or foiu^ men, half undressed, who de- 
 manded of my father, in no gentle tones, 
 what he wanted there. 
 
 '-'- I'll tell you all about it," he answered. 
 ^^I'm the parson of this parish, and there- 
 fore you're my own people, you see." 
 
 " We don't go to your church, parson," 
 said one of them.
 
 152 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 " I don't care ; you're my own people for 
 all that, and I want your help." 
 
 ^' Well, what's the matter? Whose cow's 
 dead ?" said the same man. 
 
 ^^This evening," returned my father, 
 ^^ one of my children is missing ; and a 
 woman who might be one of your clan — 
 mind, I say might he ; I don't know, and I 
 mean no offence — but such a woman was 
 seen about the place. All I want is the 
 child, and if I don't find her, I shall have 
 to raise the county. I should be very sorry 
 to disturb you ; but I'm afraid, in that case, 
 whether the woman be one of you or not, 
 the place will be too hot for you. I'm no 
 enemy to honest gipsies, but you know 
 there is a set of tramps that call themselves 
 gipsies who are nothing of the sort — only 
 thieves. Tell me what I had better do to 
 find my child. You know all about such 
 things."
 
 WAGTAIL COMES TO HONOUR. 153 
 
 The men turned to each other, and began 
 talking in undertones, and in a language of 
 which what my father heard he could not 
 understand. At length the spokesman of 
 the party addressed him again. 
 
 '^ We'll give you our word, sir, if that 
 will satisfy you," he said, more respectfully 
 than he had spoken before, '^to send the 
 child home directly if any one should bring 
 her to our camp. That's all we can say." 
 
 My father saw that his best chance lay in 
 accepting the offer. 
 
 '' Thank you," he said. '' Perhaps I may 
 have an opportunity of serving you some 
 day." 
 
 They in their turn thanked him politely 
 enough, and my father and Sim left the 
 camp. 
 
 Upon this side the moor was skirted by 
 a plantation which had been gradually 
 creeping up the hill from the more shel-
 
 154 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 tered hollow. It was here bordered by a 
 deep trench, the bottom of which was Ml 
 of young firs. Through the plantation 
 there was a succession of green rides, by 
 which the outskirts of my father's property 
 could be reached. But, the moon being 
 now up, my father resolved to cross the 
 trench, and halt for a time, watching the 
 moor from the shelter of the firs, on the 
 chance of the woman's making her appear- 
 ance ; for if she belonged to the camp, she 
 would most probably approach it from the 
 plantation, and might be overtaken before 
 she could cross the moor to reach it. 
 
 They had lain ensconced in the firs for 
 about half an hour, when suddenly, without 
 any warning, "Wagtail rushed into the un- 
 derwood and vanished. They listened with 
 all their ears, and in a few moments heard 
 his joyous bark, followed instantly however 
 by a howl of pain ; and before they had got 
 
 I
 
 WAGTAIL COMES TO HONOUR. 155 
 
 many yards in pursuit, he came cowering to 
 my father's feet, who, patting his side, 
 found it bleeding. He bound his handker- 
 chief roimd him, and fastening the lash of 
 Sim's whip to his collar that he might not 
 go too fast for them, told him to find Theo- 
 dora. Instantly he pulled away through 
 the brushwood, giving a little yelp now and 
 then as the stiff remnant of some broken 
 twig or stem hurt his wounded side. 
 
 Eefore he reached the spot for which he 
 was making, however, my father heard a 
 rustling, nearer to the outskirts of the wood, 
 and the same moment Wagtail turned and 
 tugged fiercely in that direction. The 
 figure of a woman rose up against the sky, 
 and began to run for the open space beyond. 
 Wagtail and my father pursued at speed, 
 my father crying out that if she did not 
 stop, he would loose the dog on her. She 
 paid no heed but ran on.
 
 156 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER, 
 
 ^'Moimt and head licr, Sim. Mount, 
 Biu'ton. Plide over eyerything ! " cried my 
 father, as he slipped Wagtail, who shot 
 through the underwood like a bird, just as 
 she reached the trench, and in an instant 
 had her by the gown. My father saw some- 
 thing gleam in the moonlight, and again a 
 howl broke from Wagtail, who Avas evi- 
 dently once more wounded. But he held 
 on. And now the horsemen having crossed 
 the trench, were approaching her in front, 
 and my father was hard upon her behind. 
 She gave a peculiar cry, half a shiiek, and 
 half a howl, clasped the child to her bosom, 
 and stood rooted like a tree, evidently in 
 the hope that her friends, hearing her 
 signal, would come to her rescue. But it 
 was too late. My father rushed upon her 
 the instant she cried out. The dog was 
 holding her by the poor ragged skirt, and 
 the horses were reined snorting on the 
 
 i
 
 WAGTAIL COMES TO HONOUR. 157 
 
 bank above her. Slie heaved up the chikl 
 over her head, but whether in appeal to 
 heaven, or about to dash her to the earth 
 in the rage of frustration, she was not 
 allowed time to show ; for my father caught 
 both her uplifted arms with his, so that she 
 could not lower them, and Burton, having 
 flimg himself from his horse and come be- 
 hind her, easily took Theodora from them, 
 for from their position they were almost 
 powerless. Then my father called off "Wag- 
 tail, and the poor creatui'e sunk down in the 
 bottom of the trench amongst the young firs 
 without a soimd, and there lay. My father 
 went up to her, but she only stared at him 
 with big blank black eyes, and such a lost 
 look on her young, handsome, yet gaunt 
 face, as almost convinced him she was the 
 mother of the child. But whatever might 
 be her rights, she could not be allowed to 
 recover possession, without those who had
 
 158 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 saved and tended tlic child having a word 
 in the matter of her fate. 
 
 As he was thinking what he could say- 
 to her, Sim's voice reached his ear. 
 
 ^' They're coming over the brow, sir — five 
 or six from the camp. We'd better be off." 
 
 ^^ The child is safe," he said, as he turned 
 to leave her. 
 
 ^^ From ^?^^," she rejoined, in a pitiful tone; 
 and this ambiguous utterance was all that 
 fell from her. 
 
 My father mounted hurriedly, took the 
 child from Burton, and rode away, followed 
 by the two men and Wagtail. Through 
 the green rides they galloped in the moon- 
 light, and were soon beyond all danger of 
 pursuit. When they slackened pace, my 
 father instructed Sim to find out all he 
 could about the gipsies — if possible to learn 
 their names and to what tribe or community 
 they belonged. Sim promised to do what
 
 WAGTAIL COMES TO HONOUR. 159 
 
 was in his power, but said he did not expect 
 much success. 
 
 The childi-en had listened to the story 
 wide awake. Wagtail was lying at my 
 father's feet, licking his wounds, which 
 were not very serious, and had stopped 
 bleeding. 
 
 ^^ It's all your doing, "Wagtail," said 
 Harry, patting the dog. 
 
 ^' I think he deserves to be called Mr, 
 Wagtail," said Charley. 
 
 And from that day he was no more called 
 bare Wagtail, but Mr. Wagtail — much to 
 the amusement of visitors, who, hearing 
 the name gravely uttered, as it soon came 
 to be, saw the owner of it approach on all 
 fours, with a tireless pendulum in his rear.
 
 CHAPTEE XI. 
 
 A SirPID CHAPTEE. 
 
 "QEFOEE proceeding with my own story, 
 -^ I must mention that my father took 
 every means in his power to find out some- 
 thing about the woman and the gang of 
 gipsies to which she appeared to belong. I 
 believe he had no definite end in view 
 further than the desire to be able at some 
 future time to enter into such relations with 
 her, for her own and her daughter's sake — 
 if indeed Theodora were her daughter — as 
 might be possible. But the very next day, 
 he found that they had abeady vanished 
 from the place ; and all the inquiries he set
 
 A STUPID CHAPTER. i6t 
 
 on foot, by means of friends and through 
 the country constabulary, were of no 
 avail. I believe he was dissatisfied with 
 himself in what had occurredj thinking he 
 ought to have laid himself out at the time 
 to discover whether she was indeed the 
 mother, and, in that case, to do for her 
 what he could. Probably, had he done so, 
 he would only have heaped difficulty upon 
 difficulty ; but as it was, if he was saved 
 from trouble, he was not delivered from un- 
 easiness. Clearly, however, the child must 
 not be exposed to the danger of the repe- 
 tition of the attempt ; and the whole house- 
 hold was now so fully alive to the necessity 
 of not losing sight of her for a moment, that 
 her danger was far less than it had been at 
 any time before. 
 
 I continued at the Hall for six weeks, 
 during which my husband came several 
 times to see me ; and at the close of that 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 1 62 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 period took me back with him to my dear 
 little home. The rooms, all but the study, 
 looked very small after those I had left; 
 but I felt notwithstanding that the place 
 was my home. I was at first a little 
 ashamed of the feeling ; for why should I 
 be anywhere more at home than in the 
 house of such parents as mine? But I 
 presume there is a certain amount of the 
 queenly element in every woman, so that 
 she cannot feel perfectly at ease without 
 something to govern — however small, and 
 however troublesome her queendom may be. 
 At my father's, I had every ministration 
 possible, and all comforts in profusion ; but 
 I had no responsibilities, and no rule; so 
 that sometimes I could not help feeling as 
 if I was idle, although I knew I was not to 
 blame. Besides, I could not be at all sure 
 that my big bear was properly attended to ; 
 and the knowledge that he was the most
 
 A STUPID CHAPTER. 163 
 
 indepeiideiit of comforts of all the men I 
 had ever come into any relation with, made 
 me only feel the more anxious that he 
 should not be left to his own neglect. For, 
 although my father, for instance, was ready 
 to part with anything, even to a favourite 
 volume, if the good reason of another's need 
 showed itself, he was not at all indifferent 
 in his own person to being comfortable. 
 One with his intense power of enjoying the 
 gentleness of the universe could not be so. 
 Hence it was always easy to make him a 
 little present, whereas I have still to rack 
 my brains for weeks before my bear's birth- 
 day comes round, to think of something that 
 will in itself have a chance of giving him 
 pleasure. Of course it would be compara- 
 tively easy if I had plenty of money to 
 spare, and hadn't ^' to muddle it all away " 
 in paying butchers and bakers, and such 
 like people.
 
 i64 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 So home I went, to be queen again. 
 Friends came to see me, but I returned few 
 of theii' calls. I liked best to sit in my 
 bedi^ooHi. I would have preferred sitting 
 in my wonderful little room off the study, 
 and I tried that first ; but the same morn- 
 ing somebody called on Percivale, and 
 straightway I felt myself a prisoner. The 
 moment I heard the strange voice through 
 the door, I wanted to get out, and could 
 not, of coiu'se. Such a risk I would not 
 run again. And when Percivale asked me 
 the next day if I would not go do^^ii with 
 him, I told him I could not bear the feeling 
 of confinement it gave me. 
 
 '' I did mean," he said, ^Ho have had a 
 door made into the garden for you ; and I 
 consulted an architect friend on the subject ; 
 but he soon satisfied me it would make the 
 room much too cold for you, and so I was 
 compelled to give up the thought."
 
 A STUPID CHAPTER. 165 
 
 ^' You dear !" I said. That was all, but 
 it was enough for Percivale, who never 
 bothered me, as I have heard of husbands 
 doing, for demonstrations either of grati- 
 tude or affection. Such must be of the 
 mole-eyed sort, who can only read large 
 print. So I betook myself to my chamber, 
 and there sat and worked — for I did a good 
 deal of needlework now, although I had 
 never been fond of it as a girl. The con- 
 stant recurrence of similar motions of the 
 fingers, one stitch just the same as another 
 in countless repetition, varied only by the 
 bother when the thread grew short and 
 would slip out of the eye of the needle, and 
 yet not short enough to be exchanged with 
 still more bother for one too long, had been 
 so wearisome to me in former days, that I 
 spent half my pocket-money in getting the 
 needle-work done for me which my mother 
 and sister did for themselves. For this my
 
 1 66 777^ VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 father praised me, and my mother tried to 
 scold me and couldn't. But now it was all 
 so different I Instead of toiling at plain 
 stitching and hemming and sewing, I 
 seemed to be working a bit of lovely 
 tapestry all the time — so many thoughts 
 and so many pictures went weaving them- 
 selves into the work ; while every little bit 
 finished appeared so much of the labour' of 
 the universe actually done — accomplished, 
 ended : for the first time in my life, I 
 began to feel myself of consequence enough 
 to be taken care of. I remember once lay- 
 ing down the little — what I was working 
 at — but I am growing too communicative 
 and important. 
 
 My father used often to say that the 
 commonest things in the world were the 
 loveliest — sky and water and grass and 
 such; now I found that the commonest 
 feelings of humanity — for what feelings
 
 A STUPID CHAPTER. 167 
 
 could be commoner tlian those wMcli now 
 made me blessed amongst women? — are 
 those that are fullest of the divine. Surely 
 this looks as if there were a God of the 
 whole earth — as if the world existed in the 
 very foundations of its history and continu- 
 ance by the immediate thought of a causing 
 thought. For, simply because the life of 
 the world was moving on towards its un- 
 seen goal, and I knew it, and had a helpless 
 share in it, I felt as if God was with me. I 
 do not say I always felt like this — far from 
 it ; there were times when life itself seemed 
 vanishing in an abyss of nothingness, when 
 all my consciousness consisted in this — that 
 I knew I was not^ and when I could not 
 believe that I should ever be restored to the 
 well-being of existence. The worst of it 
 was that, in such moods, it seemed as if I 
 had hitherto been deluding myself with 
 rainbow fancies as often as I had been
 
 1 68 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 aware of blessedness, as if there was in fact 
 no wine of life apart from its effervescence. 
 Eut when one clay I told Percivale — not 
 while I was thns oppressed, for then I could 
 not speak, but in a happier moment whose 
 happiness I mistrusted — something of what 
 I felt, he said one thing which has com- 
 forted me ever since in such circumstances : 
 
 " Don't grumble at the poverty, darling, 
 by which another is made rich." 
 
 I confess I did not see all at once what 
 he meant, but I did after thinking over it 
 for a while. And if I have learned any 
 valuable lesson in my life, it is this, that no 
 one's feelings are a measure of eternal facts. 
 
 The winter passed slowly away — fog, 
 rain, frost, snow, thaw, succeeding one 
 another in all the seeming disorder of the 
 season. A good many things happened, I 
 believe ; but I don't remember any of them. 
 My mother wrote offering me Dora for a
 
 A STUPID CHAPTER. 169 
 
 companion, but somehow I preferred being 
 without her. One great comfort was good 
 news about Connie, who was getting on 
 famously. But even this moved me so 
 little that I began to think I was turning 
 into a crab, utterly encased in the shell of 
 my own selfishness. The thought made me 
 cry. The fact that I could cry consoled me, 
 for how could I be heartless so long as I 
 could cry? Eut then came the thought it 
 was for myself, my own hard-heartedness I 
 was crying — not certainly for joy that 
 Connie was getting better. '' At least, 
 however," I said to myself, ^' I am not con- 
 tent to be selfish. I am a little troubled 
 that I am not good." And then I tried to 
 look up, and got my needlework, wliich 
 always did me good by helping me to re- 
 flect. It is, I can't help thinking, a great 
 pity that needlework is going so much out 
 of fashion, for it tends more to make a
 
 170 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 woman — one who thinks, that is — ac- 
 quainted with herself than all the sermons 
 she is ever likely to hear. 
 
 My father came to see me several times, 
 and was all himself to me ; but I could not 
 feel quite comfortable with him — I don't in 
 the least know why. I am afraid, much 
 afraid, it indicates something very wrong in 
 me somewhere. Eut he seemed to understand 
 me ; and always, the moment he left me, 
 the tide of confidence began to flow afresh 
 in the ocean that lay about the little island 
 of my troubles. Then I knew he was my 
 own father — something that even my hus- 
 band could not be, and would not wish to 
 be to me. 
 
 In the month of March my mother came 
 to see me, and that was all pleasui-e. Mj^ 
 father did not always see when I was not 
 able to listen to him, though he was most 
 considerate when he did ; but my mother — 
 
 I
 
 A STUPID CHAPTER. i']i 
 
 wliy, to be with lier was like being with 
 one's own — mother^ I was actually going to 
 write. There is nothing better than that 
 when a woman is in such trouble, except it 
 be — what my father knows more about than 
 I do : I wish I did know all about it. 
 
 She brought with her a young woman to 
 take the place of cook, or rather general 
 servant, in our little household. She had 
 been kitchen-maid in a small family of my 
 mother's acquaintance, and had a good 
 character for honesty and plain cooking. 
 Percivale's more experienced ear soon dis- 
 covered that she was Irish. This fact had 
 not been represented to my mother, for the 
 gu4 had been in England from childhood, 
 and her mistress seemed either not to have 
 known it, or not to have thought of men- 
 tioning it. Certainly my mother was far 
 too just to have allowed it to influence 
 her choice, notwithstanding the prejudices
 
 172 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 against Irishwomen in English families — 
 prejudices not without a general foundation 
 in reason. For my part, I should have 
 been perfectly satisfied with my mother's 
 choice, even if I had not been so indifferent 
 at the time to all that was going on in the 
 lower regions of the house. But while my 
 mother was there, I knew well enough that 
 nothing could go wrong, and my house- 
 keeping mind had never been so much at 
 ease since we were married. It was very 
 delightful not to be accountable ; and for 
 the present I felt exonerated from all re- 
 sponsibilities.
 
 CHAPTEE XII. 
 
 AX INTRODrCTION. 
 
 T WOKE one morning after a sound sleep 
 ^ — not so sound however but that I had 
 been dreaming, and that when I awoke I 
 couki recall my dream. It was a very odd 
 one. I thought I was a hen strutting about 
 amongst ricks of corn, picking here and 
 scratching there, followed by a whole brood 
 of chickens, towards which I felt exceed- 
 ingly benevolent and attentive. Suddenly 
 I heard the scream of a hawk in the air 
 above me, and instantly gave the proper 
 cry to fetch the little creatures under my 
 wings. They came scurrying to me as fast
 
 174 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 as tlieii' legs could carry tliem — all but one, 
 which wouldn't mind my cry, although I 
 kept repeating it again and again. Mean- 
 time the hawk kept screaming, and I felt as 
 if I didn't care for any of those that were 
 safe imder my wings, but only for the 
 solitary creature that kept pecking away as 
 if nothing was the matter. About it I grew 
 so terribly anxious that at length I woke 
 with a cry of misery and terror. 
 
 The moment I opened my eyes there was 
 my mother, standing beside me. The room 
 was so dark that I thought for a moment 
 what a fog there must be; but the next 
 I forgot everything at hearing a little cry, 
 which I verily believe in my stupid dream 
 I had taken for the voice of the hawk, 
 whereas it was the cry of my first and only 
 chicken, which I had not yet seen, but 
 which my mother now held in her grand- 
 motherly arms, ready to hand her to me.
 
 AN INTRODUCTION. 175 
 
 I dared not speak, for I felt very weak, and 
 was afraid of crying from delight. I 
 looked in my mother's face, and she folded 
 back the clothes, and laid the baby down 
 beside me, with its little head resting on my 
 arm. 
 
 " Draw back the curtain a little bit, 
 mother dear," I whispered, ^^and let me see 
 what it is like." 
 
 I believe I said ^Y, for I was not quite a 
 mother yet. My mother did as I requested ; 
 a ray of clear spring light fell upon the face 
 of the little white thing by my side — for 
 white she was, though most babies are red 
 — and if I dared not speak before, I couldn't 
 now. My mother went away again, and 
 sat down by the fireside, leaving me with 
 my baby. J^ever shall I forget the unut- 
 terable content of that hour. It Avas not 
 gladness, nor was it thankfulness that filled 
 my heart, but a certain absolute content-
 
 176 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 ment — just on the point, but for my "want of 
 strength, of blossoming into unspeakable 
 gladness and thankfulness. Somehow too 
 there was mingled with it a sense of dignity, 
 as if I had vindicated for m^'self a right to 
 a part in the creation, for was I not proved 
 at least a link in the marvellous chain of 
 existence, in carrying on the designs of the 
 great Mak-er ? Xot that the thought was 
 there — only the feeling which afterwards 
 found the thought in order to account for its 
 own being. Besides, the state of perfect 
 repose after what had passed was in itself 
 bliss ; the very sense of weakness was de- 
 lightful, for I had earned the right to be 
 weak, to rest as much as I pleased, to be 
 important and to be congratulated. 
 
 Somehow I had got through. The trouble 
 lay behind me ; and here, for the sake of 
 any who will read my poor words, I record 
 the conviction, that, in one way or other,
 
 AN INTRODUCTION. 
 
 11 
 
 special individiial lielp is giyen to every 
 creature to endure to the end. I tliink I 
 have heard my father say, and hitherto it 
 has been my own experience, that always 
 when suffering, whether mental or bodily, 
 approached the point where further endur- 
 ance appeared impossible, the pulse of it 
 began to ebb, and a lull ensued. I do not 
 yenture to found any general assertion upon 
 this : I only state it as a fact of my own 
 experience. He who does not allow any 
 man to be tempted above that he is able to 
 bear, doubtless acts in the same way in all 
 kinds of trials. 
 
 I was listening to the gentle talk about 
 me in the darkened room — not listening, 
 indeed, only aware that loving words were 
 spoken. Whether I was dozing I do not 
 know, but something touched my lips. I 
 did not start. I had been dreadfully given 
 to starting for a long time — so much so that 
 
 VOL. I. N
 
 178 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 I was quite ashamed sometimes, for I would 
 even cry out — I who had always been so 
 sharp on feminine affectations before ; but 
 now it seemed as if nothing could startle 
 me. I only opened my eyes — and there 
 was my great big huge bear looking down 
 on me with something in his eyes I had 
 never seen there before. But even his 
 presence could not ripple the waters of my 
 deep rest. I gave him half a smile — I 
 knew it was but half a smile, but I thought 
 it would do — closed my eyes, and sunk 
 again — not into sleep, but into that same 
 blessed repose. I remember wondering if I 
 should feel anything like that for the first 
 hour or two after I was dead. May there 
 not one day be such a repose for all— onl}' 
 the heavenly counterpart, coming of perfect 
 activity instead of weary success ? 
 
 This was but the beginning of endlessly 
 varied pleasures. I dare say the mothers
 
 AN INTRODUCTION. 179 
 
 would let me go on for a good while in this 
 direction ; perhaps even some of the fathers 
 could stand a little more of it ; but I must 
 remember that if anybody reads this at all, 
 it will have multitudes of readers in whom 
 the chord which could alone respond to such 
 experiences hangs loose over the sounding- 
 board of their being. 
 
 Ey slow degrees the daylight, the light 
 of work, that is, began to penetrate me, 
 or rather to rise in my being from its own 
 hidden sun. First I began to wash and 
 dress my baby mj^self. One who has not 
 tried that kind of amusement cannot know 
 what endless pleasure it affords. I do not 
 doubt that to the paternal spectator it ap- 
 pears monotonous, unproductive, unprogres- 
 sive ; but then, he looking upon it from the 
 outside, and regarding the process with a 
 speculative compassion, and not with sym- 
 pathy, cannot know the communion into
 
 i8o THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 which it brings you with the baby. I 
 remember well enough what my father has 
 written about it in the Seaboard Parish ; 
 but he is all wrong — I mean him to confess 
 that before this is printed : if things were 
 done as he proposes, the tenderness of 
 mothers would be far less developed, and 
 the moral training of chikben would be 
 postponed to an indefinite period. There, 
 papa ! there's something in your own style ! 
 [N'ext I began to order the dinners ; and 
 the very day on which I first ordered the 
 dinner, I took my place at the head of the 
 table. A happier little party — well, of 
 course, I saw it all through the rose-mists 
 of my motherhood, but I am nevertheless 
 bold to assert that my husband was happy, 
 and that my mother w^as happy ; and if 
 there was one more guest at the table con- 
 cerning whom I am not prepared to assert 
 that he was happy, I can confidently affirm
 
 AN INTRODUCTION. i8i 
 
 that he was merry, and gracious, and 
 talkative, originating three parts of the 
 laughter of the evening. To watch him 
 with the baby was a pleasure even to the 
 heart of a mother, anxious as she must be 
 when any one, especially a gentleman, more 
 especially a bachelor, and most especially a 
 young bachelor, takes her precious little 
 wax-doll in his arms, and pretends to know 
 all about the management of such. It was 
 he indeed who introduced her to the dining- 
 room ; for, leaving the table during dessert, 
 he returned bearing her in his arms, to my 
 astonishment, and even mild maternal in- 
 dignation at the liberty. Eesuming his 
 seat, and pouring out for his charge, as he 
 pretended, a glass of old port, he said in the 
 soberest voice : — 
 
 ^^ Charles Percivale, with all the solem- 
 nity suitable to the occasion, I, the old 
 moon with the new moon in my arms, pro-
 
 1 82 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 pose the health of Miss Percivale on her 
 first visit to this boring bullet of a world. 
 By the way, what a mercy it is that she 
 carries her atmosphere with her ! " 
 
 Here I, stupidly thinking he reflected 
 on the atmosphere of baby, rose to take her 
 from him with suppressed indignation — 
 for why should a man who assimies a baby 
 unbidden, be so very much nicer than a 
 woman who accepts her as given, and 
 makes the best of it ? But he declined 
 giving her up. 
 
 "I'm not pinching her," he said. 
 
 "Xo; but I am afraid you find her dis- 
 agreeable." 
 
 " On the contrary, she is the nicest of 
 little ladies ; for she lets you talk all the 
 nonsense you like, and never takes the least 
 offence.^' 
 
 I sat down again directly. 
 
 " I propose her health," he repeated,
 
 AN INTRODUCTION. 183 
 
 '^ coupled with that of her mother, to whom 
 I, for one, am more obliged than I can ex- 
 plain — for at length convincing me that I 
 belong no more to the yonth of my country, 
 but am an uncle with a homuncle in hi>s 
 arms." 
 
 '^ Yv^iiie, your health ! Baby, yours too ! " 
 said my husband ; and the ladies drank the 
 toast in silence. 
 
 It is time I explained who this fourth — 
 or should I say fifth ? — person in our family 
 party was. He was the younger brother 
 of my Percivale, by name Eoger — still more 
 unsuccessful than he ; of similar trustworthi- 
 ness but less equanimity, for he was subject 
 to sudden elevations and depressions of the 
 inner barometer. I shall have more to tell 
 about him by and by. Meantime it is 
 enough to mention that my daughter — how 
 grand I thought it when I first said my 
 daughter! — now began her acquaintance with
 
 1 8+ THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER, 
 
 liim. Eefore long he was lier cliief favourite 
 next to her mother and — I am sorry I can- 
 not conscientionsly add father ; for, at a 
 certain early period of her history, the 
 child showed a decided i^reference for her 
 nncle over her father. 
 
 But it is time I put a stop to this ooze 
 of maternal memories. Having thus intro- 
 duced my baby and her uncle Eoger, I close 
 the chapter.
 
 CHAPTEE XIII. 
 
 A NEGATIVED PROPOSAL. 
 
 TT may well be believed tbat we had not 
 -*- yet seen mncli company in our little 
 bouse. To parties my husband had a great 
 dislike ; evening parties he eschewed 
 utterly, and never accepted an invitation 
 to dinner, except it were to the house of a 
 friend, or to that of one of my few relatives 
 in London, whom, for my sake, he would 
 not displease. There were not many even 
 among his artist-acquaintances whom he 
 cared to visit, and, altogether, I fear he 
 passed for an unsociable man. I am certain 
 he would have sold more pictures if he had
 
 i86 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 accepted what invitations came in his 
 way. But to hint at such a thing, would, 
 I knew, crystallize his dislike into a 
 resolve. 
 
 One day after I had got quite strong 
 again, as I was sitting by him in the study 
 with my baby on my ktiee, I proposed that 
 we should ask some friends to dinner. In- 
 stead of objecting to the procedure upon 
 general principles, which I confess I had 
 half anticipated, he only asked me whom I 
 thought of inviting. When I mentioned 
 the Morleys, he made no reply, but went on 
 with his painting as if he had not heard me, 
 whence I knew of course that the proposal 
 was disagreeable to him. 
 
 ^'You see we have been twice to dine 
 with them," I said. 
 
 ^^ Well, don't you thinlv that enough for a 
 while?" 
 
 '^ I'm talking of asking them here now."
 
 A NEGATIVED PROPOSAL. 187 
 
 " Couldn't you go and see yonr cousin 
 some morning instead ? " 
 
 ^' It's not that I want to see my cousin 
 particidarly. I want to ask them to dinner." 
 
 '' Oh I " he said, as if he^ couldn't in the 
 least make out what I was after, ^^I thought 
 peoj)le asked people because they desired 
 their company." 
 
 '^ But, you see, we owe them a dinner." 
 
 ^* Owe them a dinner ! Did you borrow 
 one then ? " 
 
 '-Perciyale, why will you pretend to be 
 so stupid ? " 
 
 '-'• Perhaps I'm only pretending to be the 
 other thing." 
 
 '-'- Do you consider yourself under no 
 obligation to people who ask you to din- 
 ner ? " 
 
 " Xone in the least — if I accept the invi- 
 tation. That is the natural acknowledgment 
 of their kindness. Surely my company is
 
 1 88 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 wortli my dinner. It is far more trouble to 
 me to put on black clothes and a white 
 choker and go to their house, than it is for 
 them to ask me, or, in a house like theirs, to 
 have the necessary preparations made for 
 receiving me in a manner befitting their 
 dignity. I do violence to my own feelings 
 in going — is not that enough ? You know 
 how much I prefer a chop with my wife 
 alone to the grandest dinner the grandest of 
 her grand relations could give me." y 
 
 '^ j^ow, don't you make game of my grand 
 relations. I'm not sure that you haven't 
 far grander relations yourself, only 3'ou say 
 so little about them, they might all have 
 been transported for housebreaking. Tell 
 me honestly, don't you think it natui'al if a 
 friend asks you to dinner that you should 
 ask him again ? " 
 
 ^' Yes ; if it would give him any pleasure. 
 But just imagine your cousia Morley dining
 
 A NEGATIVED PROPOSAL. i8g 
 
 at our table. Do you think he would enjoy 
 it?'' 
 
 '^ Of course we must have somebody in to 
 help Jemima." 
 
 '-'- And somebody to wait, I suppose ?" 
 
 '' Yes, of course, Percivale." 
 
 " And what Thackeray calls cold balls 
 handed about ? " 
 
 '-'• "Well, I wouldn't have them cold." 
 
 ''But they would be." 
 
 I was by this time so nearly crying, that 
 I said nothing here. 
 
 '' My love," he resumed, '' I object to the 
 whole thing. It's all false together. I 
 haA^e not the least disinclination to asking a 
 few friends who would enjoy being received 
 in the same style as your father or my 
 brother — namely, to one of our better din- 
 ners, and perhaps something better to drink 
 than I can afford every day ; but just think 
 with what uneasy compassion Mr. Morley
 
 1 90 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 would regard our poor ambitions — cveu if 
 you had an occasional cook and an under- 
 taker's man. And what would he do with- 
 out his glass of dry sherry after his soup, 
 and his hock and champagne later, not to 
 mention his fine claret or tawny port after- 
 wards? I don't knov*^ how to get these 
 things good enough for him, without laying 
 in a stock, and that you know would bo as 
 absurd as it is impossible." 
 
 '-'- Oh, you gentlemen always think so 
 much of the wine ! " 
 
 ^^ Believe me, it is as necessary to Mr. 
 Morley's comfort as the dainties you would 
 provide him with. Indeed it would be a 
 cruelty to ask him. He would not, could 
 not enjoy it." 
 
 ^^ If he didn't like it, he needn't come 
 again," I said, cross with the objections of 
 which I could not but see the justice. 
 
 '-'- Well, I must say you have an odd notion
 
 A NEGATIVED PROPOSAL. igi 
 
 of hospitality J " said my bear. — '' You may 
 be certain," lie resumed after a moment's 
 pause, '^ tliat a man so well aware of his own 
 importance, will take it far more as a com- 
 j)liment that you do not presume to invite 
 him to your house, but are content to enjoy 
 his society when he asks you to his." 
 
 " I don't choose to take such an inferior 
 position," I said. 
 
 '^ You can't help it, my dear," he returned. 
 '^ Socially considered, you are his inferior. 
 You cannot give dinners he would regard 
 with anything better than a friendly con- 
 tempt, combined with a certain mild indig- 
 nation at your having presumed to ask Mm — 
 used to such different ways. It is far more 
 graceful to accept the small fact and let him 
 have his whim, which is not a subversive 
 one, or at all dangerous to the community — 
 being of a sort easy to cure. Ha ! ha ! 
 ha!"
 
 192 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER, 
 
 ^' May I ask what you are laugliiug at ? " 
 I said with severity. 
 
 ^' I was only fancying how such a man 
 must feel — if what your blessed father be- 
 lieves be true — when lie is stripped all at 
 once of every possible source of conse- 
 quence — stripped of position, funds, house, 
 including cellar — clothes, body, including 
 stomach " 
 
 '-'- There, there ! don't be vulgar. It is 
 not like you, Percivale." 
 
 '' My love, there is far greater vulgarity 
 in refusing to acknowledge the inevitable, 
 either in society or in physiology. Just ask 
 my brother his experience in regard of the 
 word to which you object." 
 
 '^ I will leave that to you." 
 
 ^' Don't be vexed with me, my wife," he 
 said. 
 
 ^' I don't like not to be allowed to pay my 
 debts."
 
 A NEGATIVED PROPOSAL, 193 
 
 ^^ Back to the starting-point, like a hunted 
 hare ! A woman's way," he said merrily, 
 hoping to make me laugh, for he could not 
 doubt I should see the absurdity of my posi- 
 tion with a moment's reflection. But I was 
 out of temper, and chose to pounce upon the 
 liberty taken with my sex, and regard it as 
 an insult. Without a word I rose, pressed 
 my baby to my bosom as if her mother had 
 been left a widow, and swept away. Perci- 
 vale started to his feet ; I did not see, but I 
 knew he gazed after me for a moment ; then 
 I heard him sit down to his painting as if 
 nothing had happened, but, I knew, with a 
 sharp pain inside his great chest. For me, 
 I found the precipice, or Jacob's ladder, I 
 had to climb, very subversive of my 
 dignity ; for when a woman has to hold a 
 baby in one arm, and with the hand of 
 the other lift the front of her skirt in 
 order to walk up an almost perpendicular 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 194 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 staircase, it is quite impossible for her to 
 sweep any more. 
 
 When I reached the top — I don't know 
 how it was, but the picture he had made of 
 me, with the sunset-shine coming through 
 the window, flashed upon my memory. All 
 dignity forgotten, I bolted through the door 
 at the top, flung my baby into the arms of 
 her nurse, turned, almost tumbled headlong 
 down the precipice, and altogether tumbled 
 down at my husband's chau\ I couldn't 
 speak, I could only lay my head on his 
 knees. 
 
 '' Darling," he said, '^ you shall ask the 
 great Pan Jan with his button atop, if you 
 like. I'll do my best for him." 
 
 Betweea crying and laughing, I nearly 
 did what I have never really done yet — I 
 nearly went off. There ! I am sure that 
 phrase is quite as objectionable as the word 
 I wrote a little while ago, and there it shall
 
 A NEGATIVED PROPOSAL. 195 
 
 stand, as a penance for having called any 
 word my hnsband used vulgar, 
 
 '' I was very naughty, Percivale," I said. 
 '' I will give a dinner-party, and it shall be 
 such as you shall enjoy, and I won't ask 
 Mr. Morley." 
 
 ^^ Thank you, my love," he said; ''and 
 the next time Mr. Morley asks us I will go 
 without a grumble, and make myself as 
 agreeable as I can."
 
 CHAPTEE XIY. 
 
 MY FIEST DINNER-PAETY. 
 
 T T may have seemed to some of my readers 
 -■- occasion for surprise that the mistress of 
 a household shoukl have got so far in the 
 construction of a book without saying a 
 word about her own or other people's ser- 
 vants — without even a remark on servants 
 in general. Such occasion shall no longer be 
 afforded them, for now I am going to say 
 several things about one of mine, and thereby 
 introduce a few results of much experience 
 and some thought. I do not pretend to 
 have made a single discovery — but only to 
 have achieved what I count a certain measure
 
 MY FIRST DINNER-PARTY. 197 
 
 of success, wliicli, however, I owe largely to 
 my own poverty, and the stupidity of my 
 cook. 
 
 I have had a good many servants since, 
 but Jemima seems a fixture. How this has 
 come about, it would be impossible to say 
 in ever so many words. Over and over I 
 have felt, and may feel again before the 
 day is ended, a profound sympathy with 
 Sindbad the sailor, when the old man of 
 the sea was on his back, and the hope of 
 ever getting him off it had not yet begun to 
 dawn. She has by turns every fault under 
 the Sim — I say fault only — will struggle 
 with one for a day, and succumb to it for 
 a month ; while the smallest amount of 
 praise is sufficient to render her incapable 
 of deserving a word of commendation for a 
 week. She is intensely stupid, with a 
 remarkable genius — yes, genius — for cook- 
 ing. My father says that all stupidity is
 
 igS THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 caused, or at least maintained, by conceit. 
 I cannot quite accompany him to his con- 
 clusions, but I have seen plainly enough 
 that the stupidest people are the most con- 
 ceited, which in some degree favours them. 
 It was long an impossibility to make her 
 see, or at least own, that she was to blame 
 for anything. If the dish she had last 
 time cooked to perfection made its appear- 
 ance the next time uneatable, she Avould 
 lay it all to the dlly oven, which was too 
 hot or too cold; or the silly pepper-pot, 
 the top of which fell off as she was using 
 it. She had no sense of the value of pro- 
 portion — would insist for instance that she 
 had made the cake precisely as she had 
 been told, but suddenly betray that she 
 had not weighed the flour, which could be 
 of no consequence, seeing she had weighed 
 everything else. 
 
 '' Please, 'm, could you eat youi' dinner
 
 MF FIRST DINNER-PARTY. 
 
 199 
 
 now, for it's all ready ? " she came saying 
 an hour before dinner-time, the very first 
 day after my mother left. Even now her 
 desire to be punctual is chiefly evidenced 
 by absurd precipitancy, to the danger of 
 d.oing everything either to a pulp or a 
 cinder. Yet here she is, and here she is 
 likely to remain, as far as I see, till death, 
 or some other catastrophe, us do part. The 
 reason of it is, that, with all her faults — 
 and they are innumerable — she has some 
 heart ; yes, after deducting all that can be 
 laid to the account of a certain cunnin^: 
 perception that she is well off, she has yet 
 a good deal of genuine attachment left ; 
 and after setting down the half of her 
 professions to the blarney which is the 
 natural weapon of the weak-witted Celt^ 
 there seems yet left in her of the vanishing 
 clan instinct enough to render her a jealous 
 partizan of her master and mistress.
 
 200 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 Those wlio care only for being well- 
 served, -will of course feel contemptuous 
 towards any one wlio would put up with 
 such a woman for a single moment after 
 she could find another; but both I and 
 my husband have a strong preference for 
 living in a family, rather than in a hotel. 
 I know many houses in which the master 
 and mistress are far more like the lodgers 
 on sufferance of their own servants. I have 
 seen a worthy lady go about wringing her 
 hands because she could not get her orders 
 attended to in the emergency of a slight 
 accident, not daring to go down to her own 
 kitchen, as her love prompted, and expedite 
 the ministration. I am at least mistress in 
 my own house ; my servants are, if not yet 
 so much members of the family as I could 
 wish, gradually becoming more so ; there 
 is a circulation of common life through the 
 household, rendering us an organization,
 
 MY FIRST DINNER-PARTY. 201 
 
 although as yet perhaps a low one ; I am 
 sure of being obeyed, and there are no 
 underhand out-of-door connections. When 
 I go to the houses of my rich relations, and 
 hear what they say concerning their ser- 
 yants, I feel as if they were living over a 
 mine, which might any day be sprung, and 
 blow them into a state of utter helplessness ; 
 and I return to my house blessed in the 
 knowledge that my little kingdom is my 
 own, and that, although it is not free from 
 internal upheavings and stormy commotions, 
 these are such as to be within the control 
 and restraint of the general family influ- 
 ences ; while the blunders of the cook seem 
 such trifles beside the evil customs esta- 
 blished in most kitchens of which I know 
 anything, that they are turned even into 
 sources of congratulation as securing her 
 services for ourselves. More than once my 
 husband has insisted on raising her wages
 
 202 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 on the ground of the endless good he gets 
 in his painting from the merriment her 
 oddities afford him — namely, the clear in- 
 sight, which, he asserts, is the invariable 
 consequence. I must in honesty say, how- 
 ever, that I have seen him something else 
 than merry with her behaviour many a 
 time. 
 
 But I find the things I have to say so 
 crowd upon me, that I must either proceed 
 to arrange them under heads — which would 
 immediately deprive them of any right to 
 a place in my story — or keep them till they 
 are naturally swept from the bank of my 
 material by the slow wearing of the current 
 of my narrative. I prefer the latter because 
 I think my readers will. 
 
 What with one thing and another, this 
 thing to be done and that thing to be 
 avoided, there was nothing more said about 
 the dinner-party, until my father came to
 
 MF FIRST DINNER-PARTY. 203 
 
 see us in the month of July. I was to 
 have paid them a visit before then, but 
 things had come in the way of that also, 
 and now my father came commissioned by 
 my mother to arrange for my going the 
 next month. 
 
 As soon as I had shown him to his little 
 room, I ran down to Percivale. 
 
 ^^Papa is come,'' I said. 
 
 '^ I am delighted to hear it," he an- 
 swered, laying down his palette and 
 brushes. '^ Where is he ? " 
 
 '' Gone up stairs," I answered. ^' I 
 wouldn't disturb you till he came down 
 again." 
 
 He answered with that world-wide Eng- 
 lish phrase, so suggestive of a hopeful 
 disposition — '^ All right I " And with all 
 its grumbling, and the tristesse which the 
 Erench consider its chief characteristic, I 
 think my father is right, who says that.
 
 204 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 more tlian any other nation, England has 
 been, is, and will be, saved by hope. Ee- 
 suming his implements, my husband added : 
 
 ^' I haven't quite finished my pipe — I 
 will go on till he comes down." 
 
 Although he laid it on his pipe, I knew 
 well enough it was just that little bit of 
 paint he wanted to finish, and not the re- 
 sidue of tobacco in the black and red bowl. 
 
 ''And now we'll have our dinner-party," 
 I said. 
 
 I do believe that, for all the nonsense 
 I had talked about returning invitations, 
 the real thing at my heart even then was 
 an impulse towards hospitable entertain- 
 ment, and the desire to see my husband 
 merry with his friends, under — shall I say 
 it ? — the protecting wing of his wife. For, 
 as mother of the family, the wife has to 
 mother her husband also, to consider him 
 as her first-born, and look out for what will
 
 MF FIRST DINNER-PARTY. 205 
 
 not only give him pleasure but be good for 
 him. And I may just add here, that for a 
 long time my bear has fully given in to this. 
 
 "And who are you going to ask?" he 
 said. " Mr. and Mrs. Morley to begin 
 with, and " 
 
 "1^0, no," I answered. " We are going 
 to have a jolly evening of it, with nobody 
 present who will make you either anxious 
 or annoyed. Mr. Blackstone " — he wasn't 
 married then — "Miss Clare, I think — 
 and " 
 
 "What do you ask her for?" 
 
 " I won't if you don't like her, but " 
 
 " I haven't had a chance of lildng or 
 disliking her yet." 
 
 " That is partly why I want to ask her — 
 I am so sure you would like her if you 
 knew her." 
 
 "Where did you tell me you had met 
 her ?"
 
 2o6 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 '^ At Cousin Judy's. I must have one 
 lady to keep me in countenance witK so 
 many gentlemcUj you know. I have 
 another reason for asking her, which I 
 would rather you should find out than I 
 tell you. Do you mind V 
 
 '' IN'ot in the least, if you don't think she 
 will sj^oil the fun." 
 
 "I am sure she won't. — Then there's 
 your brother Eoger." 
 
 " Of course. Who more ? " 
 
 ^'I think that will do. There will be six 
 of us then — quite a large enough party for 
 our little dining-room." 
 
 ''Why shouldn't we dine here? It 
 wouldn't be so hot, and we should have 
 more room." 
 
 I liked the idea. The night before, 
 Percivale arranged everything, so that 
 not only his paintings, of which he had 
 far too many, and which were huddled
 
 MF FIRST DINNER-PARTY. 207 
 
 about the room, but all bis loroiderties as 
 ■well, sboulcl be accessory to a picturesque 
 effect. And when the table was covered 
 with the glass and plate — of which latter 
 my mother had taken care I should not 
 be destitute, and adorned with the flowers 
 which Eoger brought me from Coyent 
 Garden, assisted by some of our own, I 
 thought the bird's-eye view from the top 
 of Jacob's ladder a very pretty one 
 indeed. 
 
 Eesolved that Percivale should have no 
 cause of complaint as regarded the simpli- 
 city of my arrangements, I gave orders 
 that our little Ethel, who at that time of 
 the evening was always asleep, should be 
 laid on the couch in my room off the study, 
 with the door ajar, so that Sarah, who was 
 now her nurse, might wait with an easy 
 mind. The dinner was brought in by the 
 outer door of the study, to avoid the
 
 2o8 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 aAYkwardness and possible disaster of the 
 private precipice. 
 
 The principal dish — a small sirloin of 
 beef — was at the foot of the table, and a 
 couple of boiled fowls, as I thought, be- 
 fore me. But when the cover was re- 
 moved, to my surprise I found they were 
 roasted. 
 
 "What have you got there, Percivale?" 
 I asked. " Isn't it sirloin ?" 
 
 " I'm not an adept in such matters," he 
 replied. " I should say it was." 
 
 My father gave a glance at the joint. 
 Something seemed to be wrong. I rose 
 and went to my husband's side. Powers of 
 cuisine ! Jemima had roasted the fowls, 
 and boiled the sirloin ! My exclamation 
 was the signal for an outbreak of laughter, 
 led by my father. I was trembling in the 
 balance between mortification on my own 
 account and sympathy with the evident
 
 MF FIRST' DINNER-PARTY 
 
 209 
 
 amusement of my father and Mr. Black- 
 stone. But the thought that Mr. Morley 
 might have been and was not of the party, 
 came with such a pang and such a relief, 
 that it settled the point, and I burst out 
 laughing. 
 
 ^'I dare say it's all right," said Eoger. 
 ^^Why shouldn't a sirloin be boiled as well 
 as roasted ? I yenture to assert that it is 
 all a whim, and we are on the verge of a 
 new discovery to swell the number of those 
 which already owe their being to blun- 
 ders." 
 
 '-'" Let us all try a slice, then," said Mr 
 Blackstone, ^^and compare results." 
 
 This was agreed to, and a solemn silence 
 followed, during which each sought ac- 
 quaintance with the new dish. 
 
 '' I am sorry to say," remarked my father, 
 speaking first, ''that Eoger is all wrong, 
 and we have only made the discovery that 
 
 VOL. I. p
 
 210 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 custom is right. It is plain enough why 
 sirloin is always roasted." 
 
 " I yield myself convinced," said Eoger. 
 
 "And I am certain," said Mr. Black- 
 stone, " that if' the loin set before the king, 
 whoever he was, had been boiled, he would 
 never have knighted it." 
 
 Thanks to the loin, the last possible touch 
 of constraint had vanished, and the party 
 grew a very merry one. The apple-pudding 
 which followed, was declared perfect, and 
 eaten up. Percivale produced some good 
 wine from somewhere, v^iich evidently 
 added to the enjoyment of the gentlemen, 
 my father included, who likes a good glass 
 of wine as well as anybody. But a tiny 
 little whimper called me away, and Miss 
 Clare accompanied me, the gentlemen in- 
 sisting that we should return as soon as 
 possible, and bring the homuncle, as Eoger 
 called the baby, with us. 
 
 I
 
 Mr FIRST DINNER-PARTY, 211 
 
 When we returned, tlie two clergymen 
 were in close conversation, and the other 
 two gentlemen were chiefly listening. My 
 father was saying : 
 
 ^'My dear sii', I don't see how any man 
 can do his duty as a clergyman who doesn't 
 visit his parishioners." 
 
 '^ In London it is simply impossible," re- 
 turned Mr. Blackstone. '^ Besides — in the 
 country you are welcome wherever you go ; 
 any visit I might pay, would most likely be 
 regarded either as an intrusion, or as giving 
 the right to pecuniary aid, of wdiich evils 
 the latter is the worse. There are portions 
 of every London parish which clergymen 
 and their coadjutors have so degraded by 
 the practical teaching of beggary, that they 
 have blocked up every door to a healthy 
 spiiitual relation between them and a pos- 
 sible pastor." 
 
 "Would you not give alms at all, then?"
 
 212 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 '' One tiling, at least, I have made np my 
 mind nj^on — that alms from any but tlie 
 liand of personal friendship tend to evil, 
 and will, in the long run, increase misery." 
 
 '^ What, then, do you suppose the proper 
 relation between a London clergyman and 
 his parishioners ?" 
 
 ^' One, I am afraid, which does not at 
 jn-esent exist — one which it is his first busi- 
 ness perhaps to bring about. I confess I 
 regard with a repulsion amounting to horror 
 the idea of walking into a poor man's house, 
 except either I have business with him, or 
 desire his personal acquaintance." 
 
 ^^But your office " 
 
 ''Makes it my business to serve — not to 
 assume authority over them — especially to 
 the degree of forcing service upon them. 
 I will not say how far intimacy may not 
 justify you in immediate assault upon a 
 man's conscience ; but I shrink from any
 
 Mr FIRST DIXNER-PARTV. 213 
 
 plan tliat seems to take it for granted that 
 the poor are more wicked than the rich. 
 "Why don't we send missionaries to Bel- 
 gravia ? The outside of the cup and 
 platter may sometimes be dirtier than the 
 inside." 
 
 " Your missionary could hardly force his 
 way through the servants to the boudoir or 
 di*a wing-room." 
 
 ^^ And the poor have no servants to defend 
 them." 
 
 I have recorded this much of the conver- 
 sation chiefly for the sake of introducing 
 Miss Clare, who now spoke. 
 
 ''Don't you think, sir," she asked, ad- 
 dressing my father, "that the help one can 
 give to another must always depend on the 
 measure in which one is free oneself?" 
 
 My father was silent — thinking. We 
 were all silent. I said to myself, '^ There, 
 papa ! that is something after your own
 
 214 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 heart." With marked deference and solem- 
 nity he answered at length — 
 
 " I have little doubt yon are right, Miss 
 Clare. That puts the question upon its own 
 eternal foundation. The mode used must 
 be of infinitely less importance than the per- 
 son who uses it." 
 
 As he spoke, he looked at her with a far 
 more attentiye regard than hitherto. In- 
 deed, the eyes of all the company seemed to 
 be scanning the small woman ; but she bore 
 the scrutiny well, if indeed she was not im- 
 conscious of it ; and my husband began to 
 find out one of my reasons for asking her, 
 which was simply that he might see her 
 face. At this moment, it was in one of its 
 higher phases. It was, at its best, a grand 
 face — at its worst, a sufi'ering face ; a little 
 too large, perhaps, for the small body which 
 it crowned with a flame of soul ; but while 
 you saw^her face you never thought of the
 
 Mr FIRST DINNER-PARTF. 215 
 
 rest of her, and lier attire seemed to court 
 an escape from all observation. 
 
 ''But," my father went on, looking at 
 Mr. Blackstone, '' I am anxious, from the 
 clergyman's point of view, to know what my 
 friend here thinks he must try to do in his 
 very difficult position." 
 
 '■' I think the best thing I could do," re- 
 turned Mr. Blackstone, laughing, '' would 
 be to go to school to Miss Clare." 
 
 '' I shouldn't wonder," my father re- 
 sponded. 
 
 " But, in the meantime, I should prefer 
 the chaplaincy of a suburban cemetery." 
 
 " Certainly your charge would be a less 
 troublesome one. Your congregation would 
 be quiet enough, at least," said Eoger. 
 
 '''Then are they glad because they be 
 quiet,' " said my father, as if unconsciously 
 uttering his own reflections. But he was a 
 little cimning, and Vv^ould say things like
 
 2i6 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 tliat when, fearful of irreverence, lie wanted 
 to turn the current of the conversation. 
 
 "But, surely," said Miss Clare, "a more 
 active congregation would be quite as de- 
 sirable." 
 
 She had one fault — no, defect : she was 
 slow to enter into the humour of a thing. It 
 seemed almost as if the first as23ect of any 
 bit of fun presented to her was that of some- 
 thing wrong. A moment's reflection, how- 
 ever, almost always ended in a sunny laugh, 
 partly at her own stupidity, as she called it. 
 
 '' You mistake my meaning," said Mr. 
 Elackstone. " My chief, almost sole, attrac- 
 tion to the regions of the grave is the sex- 
 ton, and not the placidity of the inhabitants ; 
 though perhaps Miss Clare might value that 
 more highly if she had more experience of 
 how noisy human nature can be." 
 
 Miss Clare gave a little smile, which after- 
 knowledge enabled me to interpret as mean- 
 
 J
 
 MV FIRST DINNER-PARTY. 2 1 7 
 
 ing — ^'Perhaps I do know a trifle about 
 it;" — but she said notbing. 
 
 ^' My fii'st inquiry J " be went on, ^^ before 
 accepting sucb an appointment, would be as 
 to tbe character and mental habits of the 
 sexton. If I found him a man capable of 
 regarding human nature from a stand-point 
 of his own, I should close with the offer at 
 once. If, on the contrary, he was a com- 
 mon-place man, who made faultless re- 
 sponses, and cherished the friendship of the 
 undertaker, I should decline. In fact, I 
 should regard the sexton as my proposed 
 master ; and whether I should accept the 
 place or not would depend altogether on 
 Avhether I liked him or not. Think what 
 revelations of human nature a real man in 
 such a position could give me. ' Hand me 
 the shovel. You stop a bit — you're out of 
 breath. Sit down on that stone there, and 
 light your pipe ; here's some tobacco. ISTow
 
 2i8 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 tell mc the rest of the story. How did the 
 old fclloAV get on after he had buried his 
 termagant wife V That's how I shonid 
 treat him ; and I should get in return such 
 a succession of peeps into human life, and 
 intent, and aspiration, as, in the course of a 
 few years, would send me to the next 
 vicarage that turned up, a sadder and wiser 
 man, Mr. Walton." 
 
 ^' I don't doubt it," said my father; but 
 whether in sympathy with Mr. Blackstone, 
 or in latent disapproval of a tone judged 
 unbecoming to a clergyman, I cannot tell. 
 Sometimes, I confess, I could not help sus- 
 pecting the source of the deficiency in 
 humour which he often complained of in 
 me ; but I always came to the conclusion 
 that what seemed such a deficiency in him 
 was only occasioned by the presence of a 
 deeper feeling. 
 
 Miss Clare was the first to leave.
 
 J/r FIRS2' DINNER-PARTY. 219 
 
 ''What a lovely countenanco tliat is!'^ 
 said my husband, the moment she was out 
 of hearing. 
 
 '' She is a very remarkable woman," said 
 my father. 
 
 '' I suspect she knows a good deal more 
 than most of us," said Mr. Blackstone. 
 " Did you see how hor face lighted up 
 always before she said anything ? You can 
 never come nearer to seeing a thought than 
 in her face just before she speaks." 
 
 '' What is she ?" asked Eogor. 
 
 ''Can't you see what she is?" returned 
 his brother. "She's a saint — Saint 
 Clare." 
 
 "If you had been a Scotchman now," 
 said Eoger, " that fine name would liave 
 sunk to SinJder in your mouth." 
 
 "Xot a more vulgar corruption, however, 
 than is common in the mouths of English 
 lords and ladies, when they turn St. John
 
 220 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 into Sing en ^ romiuding one of nothing bnt 
 the French for an ape," said my father. 
 
 " Ent what does she do?" persisted 
 Eoger. 
 
 ^^Why shonld yon think she does any- 
 thing ?" I asked. 
 
 ^^ She looks as if she had to earn her own 
 living." 
 
 '^ She does. She teaches mnsic." 
 
 ^' Wliy didn't yon ask her to play ?" 
 
 '' Becanse this is the first time she has 
 been to the honse." 
 
 ^' Does she go to chnrch, do yon suppose?" 
 
 '' I have no doubt of it ; bnt why do yon 
 ask?" 
 
 ^^ Becanse she looks as if she didn't want 
 it. I never saw such an angelic expression 
 npon a countenance." 
 
 ''You must take me to call upon her," 
 said my father. 
 
 '' I will with pleasure," I answered.
 
 J/r FIRST DINNER-PARrr. 221 
 
 I found, liowever, that tliis was easier 
 promised tliau performed, for I had asked 
 her by word of mouth at Cousin Judy's, 
 and had not the slightest idea where she 
 lived. Of course I applied to Judy, but she 
 had mislaid her address, and promising to 
 ask her for it, forgot more than once. My 
 father had to return home without seeing 
 her again.
 
 CIIAPTEE XV. 
 
 A PICTUEE. 
 
 r|1HIXGS went on very quietly for some 
 time. Of course I Avas fully occupied, 
 as well I might be, with a life to tend and 
 cultivate which must blossom at length into 
 the human flowers of love and obedience 
 and faith. The smallest service I did the 
 w^onderful thing that lay in my lap, seemed 
 a something in itself so well worth doing, 
 that it was worth living to do it. As I 
 gazed on the new creation, so far beyond 
 my understanding, yet so dependent upon 
 me while asserting an absolute and divine 
 right to all 1 did for her, I marvelled that
 
 A PICTURE. 223 
 
 God should entrust me with such a charge, 
 that he did not keep the lovely creature in 
 his own arms and refuse her to any others. 
 Then I would bethink myself that in giving 
 her into mine, he had not sent her out of 
 his own ; for I, too, was a child in his arms, 
 holding and tending my live doll, until it 
 should grow something like me, only ever 
 so much better. "Was she not given to me 
 that she might learn what I had begun to 
 learn — namely, that a willing childliood was 
 the flower of life ? How can any mother 
 sit with her child on her lap and not know 
 that there is a God over all — know it by 
 the rising of her own heart in prayer to 
 him V Eut so few have had parents like 
 mine ! If my mother felt thus when I lay 
 in her arms, it vras no wonder I should feel 
 thus when my child lay in mine. 
 
 Before I had children of my own, I did 
 not care about children, and therefore did
 
 224 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 not imderstand them ; but I had read 
 somewhere — and it clung to me although I 
 did not understand it — that it was in laying 
 hold of the heart of his mother that Jesus 
 laid his first hold on the world to redeem 
 it ; and now at length I began to under- 
 stand it. What a divine way of saving us 
 it was — to let her bear him, carry him in 
 her bosom, wash him and dress him and 
 nurse him and sing him to sleep — oflPer him 
 the adoration of mother's love, misunder- 
 stand him, chide him, forgive him even for 
 fancied wrong ! Such a love might well 
 save a world in which were mothers enough. 
 It was as if he had said, '-'- Ye shall no more 
 offer vain sacrifices to one who needs them 
 not, and cannot use them. I will need 
 them, so requke them at your hands. I 
 will hunger and thii'st and be naked and 
 cold, and ye shall minister to me. Sacrifice 
 shall be no more a symbol but a real giving
 
 A PIC TURK 225 
 
 unto God; and when I return to the 
 Father, inasmuch as ye do it to one of the 
 least of these, ye do it unto me." So all 
 the world is henceforth the temple of God ; 
 its worship is ministration ; tlie commonest 
 service is divine service. 
 
 I feared at first that the new strange love 
 I felt in my heart came only of the fact that 
 the child was Percivale's and mine ; but I 
 soon found it had a far deeper source — that 
 it sprung from the very humanity of the 
 infant woman, yea, from her relation in 
 virtue of that humanity to the Eather of 
 all. The fountain appeared in my heart : 
 it arose from an infinite store in the unseen. 
 
 Soon, however, came jealousy of my love 
 for my baby. I feared lest it should make 
 me — nay, was making me neglect my 
 husband. The fear first arose in me one 
 morning as I sat with her half dressed on 
 my knees. I was dawdling over her in my 
 
 VOL. I. Q
 
 226 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 fondness, as I used to dawdle over the 
 dressing of my doll, wlien suddenly I be- 
 came aware that never once since her arrival 
 had I sat with my husband in his study. 
 A pang of dismay shot through me. ''Is 
 this to be a wife?" I said to myself; — 
 '' To play with a live love like a dead doll, 
 and forget her husband I " I caught up a 
 blanket from the cradle — I am not going to 
 thi'ow away that good old word for the ugly 
 outlandish name they give it now, remind- 
 ing one only of a helmet — I caught up a 
 blanket from the cradle, I say, wrapped it 
 round the treasure, which was shooting its 
 arms and legs in every direction like a 
 polypus feeling after its food — and rushed 
 down-stairs, and do\\m the precipice into 
 the study. Percivale started up in terror, 
 thinking something fearful had happened, 
 and I was bringing him all that was left of 
 the child.
 
 A PICTURE. 227 
 
 '' What— what— what's the matter ?" he 
 gasped. 
 
 I could not while he was thus frightened 
 explain to him what had driven me to him 
 in such alarming haste. 
 
 "I've brought you the baby to 
 kiss," I said, unfolding the blanl^et 
 and holding up the S23rawling little god- 
 dess towards the face that towered above 
 me. 
 
 "Was it dying for a kiss then?" he 
 said, taking her, blanket and all, from my 
 arms. 
 
 The end of the blanket swept across his 
 easel, and smeared the face of the baby in a 
 picture of the Three Kings^ at which he was 
 working. 
 
 " Oh, Percivale ! " I cried, " you've 
 smeared your baby ! " 
 
 " But this is a real live baby ; she may 
 smear anything she likes."
 
 228 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 ^^ Except her own face and hands, please, 
 then, Percivale." 
 
 ^^ Or her blessed frock," said Percivale. 
 ^' She hasn't got one, though. Why 
 hasn't the little angel got her feathers on 
 yet?" 
 
 '' I was in such a hurry to bring her." 
 
 ^^ To be kissed?" 
 
 ^' Xo, not exactly. It wasn't her I was 
 in a hurry to bring; it was myself." 
 
 '-'- Ah ! you wanted to be kissed, did 
 you?" 
 
 ''Ko, sir. I didn't want to be kissed; 
 but I did so want to kiss you, Percivale." 
 
 '-'• Isn't it all the same, though, darling ?" 
 lie said. '•'' It seems so to me." 
 
 " Sometimes, Percivale, you are so very 
 stupid ! It's not the same at all. There's a 
 world of diflference between the two ; and 
 you ought to know it, or be told it, if you 
 don't."
 
 A PICTURE. 229 
 
 '^I shall think it over as soon as you 
 leave me," he said. 
 
 '^ But I'm not going to leave you for a 
 long time. I haven't seen you j^aint for 
 weeks and weeks — not since this little 
 troublesome tiling came poking in between 
 us." 
 
 ''But she's not di-essed yet." 
 
 '' That doesn't signify. She's well 
 wrapped up, and quite warm." 
 
 He put me a chair where I could see his 
 picture without catching the shine of the 
 paint. I took the baby from him, and he 
 went on with his work. 
 
 "You don't think I'm going to sacrifice 
 all my privileges to this little tyrant — do 
 you?" I said. 
 
 " It would be rather hard for me, at 
 least," he rejoined. 
 
 "You did think I was neglecting you, 
 then, Percivale?"
 
 230 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER, 
 
 " Not for a moment." 
 
 " Then you didn't miss me ? " 
 
 ^' I did — very much." 
 
 " And you didn't grumble ? " 
 
 '' No." 
 
 '^ Do I distm-b you?" I asked, after a 
 little pause. '^ Can you paint just as well 
 when I am here as when you are alone ? " 
 
 '^Better. I feel warmer to my work 
 somehow." 
 
 I was satisfied, and held my peace. 
 When I am best pleased I don't want to 
 talk. But Percivale, perhaps not having 
 found this out yet, looked anxiously in my 
 face ; and, as at the moment my eyes were 
 fixed on his picture, I thought he wanted to 
 find out whether I liked the design. 
 
 ^^ I see it now I " I cried. ^' I could not 
 make out where the Magi Avere." 
 
 He had taken for the scene of his picture 
 an old farm kitchen, or yeoman's hall, with
 
 A PICTURE, 231 
 
 its ricli broAvn rafters, its fire on the hearth, 
 and its red brick-floor. A tub half full of 
 bright "water stood on one side, and the 
 mother was bending over her baby, which, 
 undressed for the bath, she was holding out 
 for the admiration of the Magi. Imme- 
 diately behind the mother stood, in the garb 
 of a shepherd, my father, leaning on the 
 ordinary shepherd's crook ; my mother, like 
 a peasant-woman in her Sunday-best, with 
 a white handkerchief crossed upon her 
 bosom, stood beside him, and both were 
 gazing with a chastened yet profound plea- 
 sure on the lovely child. 
 
 In front stood two boys and a girl — 
 between the ages of ^ye and nine — gazing 
 each with a peculiar wondering delight on 
 the baby. The youngest boy, with a great 
 spotted wooden horse in his hand, was 
 approaching to embrace the infant in such 
 fashion as made the toy look dangerous,
 
 232 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 and the left hand of the mother was lifted 
 with a motion of warning and defence. The 
 little girl, the next youngest, had, in her 
 absorption, dropped her gaudily dressed doll 
 at her feet, and stood sucking her thumb, 
 her big blue eyes wide Avith contemplation. 
 The eldest boy had brought his white rab- 
 bit to give the baby, but had forgotten all 
 about it, so full was his heart of his new 
 brother. An expression of mingled love 
 and wonder and perplexity had abeady 
 begun to dawn upon the face, but it 
 was as yet far from finished. He stood 
 behind the other two, peeping over their 
 heads. 
 
 ^'Were you thinking of that Titian in 
 the Louvre, with the wliite rabbit in it ? " 
 I asked Pcrcivale. 
 
 •' I did not think of it until after I had 
 put in the rabbit," he replied. ^^And it 
 shall remain, for it suits my purpose, and
 
 A PICTURE. 233 
 
 Titian would not claim all the white rabbits 
 because of that one." 
 
 ^'Did you think of the black lamb in it, 
 then, when you laid that black pussy on the 
 hearth ? " I asked. 
 
 '^ Black lamb ? " he returned. 
 
 ^^ Yes," I insisted, ^'a black lamb, in the 
 dark background — such a very black lamb, 
 and in such a dark background, that it 
 seems you never discovered it." 
 
 '' Ai'e you sure ? " he jDcrsisted. 
 
 ''Absolutely certain," I replied. ''I 
 pointed it out to papa in the picture itself 
 in the Louvre : he had not observed it 
 before either." 
 
 '' I am very glad to know there is such a 
 thing there. I need not answer your 
 question, you see. It is odd enough I 
 should have put in the black puss. Upon 
 some grounds I might argue that my puss 
 is better than Titian's lamb."
 
 234 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 '^ What grounds — tell me." 
 
 ^^ If the painter wanted a contrast, a 
 lamb, be he as black as ever paint could 
 make him, must still be a more Christian 
 animal than a cat as white as snow. Under 
 what pretence could a cat be used for a 
 Clmstian symbol ? " 
 
 '-'- What do 3^ou make of her playful- 
 ness ? " 
 
 ^' I should count that a virtue, were it 
 not for the fatal objection that it is always 
 exercised at the expense of other creatures." 
 
 ^'A ball of string, or a reel, or a bit of 
 paper, is enough for an uncorrupted kitten." 
 
 ^'But you must not forget that it serves 
 only in virtue of the creature's imagination 
 representing it as alive. If you do not 
 make it move, she will herself set it in 
 motion as the initiative of the game. If 
 she cannot do that, she will take no notice 
 of it."
 
 A PICTURE. 235 
 
 ^^ Yes, I see. I give in." 
 
 All this time lie had been painting 
 diligently. He could now combine talking 
 and painting far better than he nsed. But 
 a knock came to the study door, and 
 remembering baby's unpresentable condi- 
 tion, I huddled her w^^ climbed the stair 
 again, and finished the fledging of my little 
 angel in a very happy frame of mind.
 
 CHAPTEE XYI. 
 
 RUMOURS. 
 
 TTAEDLY was it completed, when Cousin 
 Judy called, and I went down to see 
 her, carrying my baby with me. As I 
 went, something put me in mind that I 
 must ask her for Miss Clare's address. Lest 
 I should again forget, as soon as she had 
 kissed and admired the baby, I said — 
 
 ^' Have you found out yet where Miss 
 Clare lives, Judy ? " 
 
 ^' I don't choose to find out," she 
 answered. ^^ I am sorry to say I have had 
 to give her up. It is a disappointment, I 
 confess."
 
 RUMOURS. 237 
 
 ^^ What do you mean?" I said. ^' I 
 thouglit you considered her a very good 
 teacher." 
 
 '' I have no fault to find with her on 
 that score. She was always punctual, and 
 I must allow both played well and taught 
 the children delightfully. But I have 
 heard such questionable things about her ! 
 — very strange things indeed ! " 
 
 " What are they ? " 
 
 ^^ I can't say I've been able to fix on 
 more than one thing directly against her 
 character, but — " 
 
 ^' Against her character ! " I exclaimed. 
 
 ^^Yes, indeed. She lives by herself in 
 lodgings, and the house is not at all a 
 respectable one." 
 
 '^But have you made no further in- 
 quiry?" 
 
 '^ I consider that quite enough. I had 
 already met more than one person, however.
 
 238 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 who seemed to think it very odd that I shouki 
 have her to teach music in my family." 
 
 ^^ Did they give any reason for thinking 
 her unfit?" 
 
 ^^ I did not choose to ask them. One 
 was Miss Clarke — you know her. She 
 smiled in her usual supercilious manner, but 
 in her case I believe it was only because 
 Miss Clare looks so dowdy, l^obody knows 
 anything about her, though, except what 
 I've just told you." 
 
 ^' And who told you that V " 
 
 '^ Mrs. Jeffreson." 
 
 ^^But you once told me she was a great 
 gossip." 
 
 "• Else she wouldn't have heard it. Eut 
 that doesn't make it untrue. In fact, she 
 convinced me of its truth, for she knows the 
 place she lives in, and assured me it was at 
 great risk of infection to the children that I 
 allowed her to enter the house ; and so, of
 
 RUMOURS. 239 
 
 course, I felt compelled to let lier know that 
 I didn't require her services any longer." 
 
 ^' There must be some mistake, surely ! '' 
 I said. 
 
 '^ Oh ! no — not the least — I am sorry to 
 say." 
 
 '' How did she take it ? " 
 
 " Very sweetly indeed. She didn't even 
 ask me why, which was just as well, seeing 
 I should have found it awkward to tell her. 
 But I suppose she knew too many grounds 
 herself to dare the question." 
 
 I was dreadfully sorry, but I could not 
 say much more then. I ventured only to 
 express my conviction that there could not 
 be any charge to bring against Miss Clare 
 herself; for that one who looked and spoke 
 as she did, could have nothing to be ashamed 
 of. Judy however insisted that what she 
 had heard was reason enough for at least 
 ending the engagement ; indeed, that no
 
 240 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 one was fit for such a situation of whom 
 such things could be said, whether they 
 were true or not. 
 
 "When she left me, I gave baby to her 
 nui'se, and went straight to the study, peep- 
 ing in to see if Percivale was alone. 
 
 He caught sight of me, and called to 
 me to come down. 
 
 ^'It's only Eoger," he said. 
 
 I was always pleased to see Eoger. He 
 was a strange creature — one of those gifted 
 men who are capable of anything, if not of 
 everything, and yet carry nothing within 
 sight of proficiency. He whistled like a 
 starling, and accompanied his whistling on 
 the piano, but never played. He could 
 also do a little on the violin, and diu^ing 
 the first few months after my marriage, 
 I often accompanied him. He could copy 
 a drawing to a hair's-breadth, but never 
 drew\ He could engrave well on wood,
 
 RUMOURS, 241 
 
 but although lie had often been employed 
 in that way, he had always got tired 
 of it after a few weeks. He was for ever 
 wanting to do something other than what 
 he was at ; and the moment he got tired of 
 a thing, he would work at it no longer; for 
 he had never learned to make himself. He 
 would come every day to the study for a 
 week to paint in backgrounds, or make a 
 duplicate ; and then, perhaps, we wouldn't 
 see him for a fortnight. At other times he 
 would work, say for a month, modelling, or 
 carving marble, for a sculptor friend, from 
 whom he might have had constant employ- 
 ment if he had pleased. He had given 
 lessons in various branches, for he was an 
 excellent scholar, and had the finest ear for 
 verse, as well as the keenest appreciation of 
 the loveliness of poetry, that I have ever 
 known. He had stuck to this longer than 
 to anything else, strange to say; for one 
 VOL. I. R
 
 242 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 would have thought it the least attractive 
 of employments to one of his volatile dis- 
 position. For some time indeed he had 
 supported himself comfortably in this way ; 
 for through friends of his family he had had 
 good introductions, and, although he wasted 
 a good deal of money in buying nick-nacks 
 that promised to be useful and seldom were, 
 he had no objectionable habits except in- 
 ordinate smoking. But it happened that a 
 pupil — a girl of imaginative disposition, I 
 presume — fell so much in love with him 
 that she betrayed her feelings to her 
 countess-mother, and the lessons were of 
 course put an end to. I suspect he did not 
 escape heart-whole himself, for he immedi- 
 ately dropped all his other lessons, and took 
 to writing poetry for a new magazine, 
 which proved of ephemeral constitution, 
 and vanished after a few months of hectic 
 existence.
 
 RUMOURS. 243 
 
 It was remarkable that with such insta- 
 bility his moral nature should continue 
 uncorruptecl ; but this I believe he owed 
 chiefl}^ to his love and admiration of his 
 brother. For my part, I could not help 
 liking him much. There was a half- 
 plaintive playfulness about him, alternated 
 with gloom, and occasionally with wild 
 merriment, which made him interesting 
 even when one felt most inclined to quarrel 
 with him. The worst of ]iim was that he 
 considered himself a generally misunder- 
 stood, if not ill-used man, who could not 
 only distinguish himself, but render valu- 
 able service to society, if only society would 
 do him the justice to give him a chance. 
 Were it only, however, for his love to my 
 baby, I could not but be ready to take up 
 his defence. 
 
 When I mentioned what I had just heard 
 about Miss Clare, Percivale looked both
 
 24.+ THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 astonished and tronbled ; but before he 
 conkl speak, Eoger, with the air of a man 
 of the -workl whom experience enabled 
 to come at once to a decision, said — 
 
 ^'Depend npon it, Wynnie, there is false- 
 hood there somewhere. Yon will always be 
 nearer the truth if you believe nothing, 
 than if yon believe the half of what you 
 hear." 
 
 "That's very much what papa says," I 
 answered. "He affirms that he never 
 searched into an injurious report in his own 
 parish without finding it so nearly false as 
 to deprive it of all right to go about." 
 
 " Besides," said Eoger, " look at that 
 face ! How I should like to model it ! 
 She's a good woman that, depend npon it I " 
 
 I was delighted with his enthusiasm. \ 
 
 " I wish you would ask her again, as 
 soon as you can," said Percivale, who \ 
 always tended to embody his conclusions in
 
 RUMOURS. 245 
 
 acts ratlier than in words. ^^Your cousin 
 Jncly is a jolly good creatniOj but from your 
 father's description of her as a girl, she 
 must have grown a good deal more worldly 
 since her marriage. Eespectability is an 
 awful snare." 
 
 '^Yes," said Eoger ; ^' one ought to be 
 very thankful to be a Bohemian and have 
 nothing expected of him, for respectability 
 is a most fruitful mother of stupidity and 
 injustice." 
 
 I could not help thinking that lie might, 
 however, have a little more and be none the 
 worse. 
 
 '^ I should be very glad to do as you 
 desire, husband," I said, ''but how can 
 I ? I haven't yet learned where she lives. 
 It was asking Judy for her address once 
 more that brought it all out. I certainly 
 didn't insist, as I might have done, not- 
 withstanding what she told me ; but if she
 
 246 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 didn't remember it before, yon may be sure 
 she could not have given it me then." 
 
 ^^It's very odd/' said Eoger, stroking his 
 long moustache, the sole ornament of the 
 kind he wore. — ^^It's very odd," he repeated 
 thoughtfully, and then paused again. 
 
 ^'"What's so very odd, Eoger?" asked 
 Percivale. 
 
 ''The other evening," answered Eoger, 
 after yet a short pause, '' happening to be 
 in Tottenham Court Eoad, I walked for 
 some distance behind a young woman 
 carrying a brown beer-jug in her hand — for 
 I sometimes amuse myself in the street by 
 walking persistently behind some one, devis- 
 ing the unseen face in my mind, until the 
 recognition of the same step following causes 
 the person to look round at me, and give 
 me the opportunity of comparing the two 
 — I mean the one I had devised and the 
 real one. "When the young woman at 

 
 RUMOURS. 247 
 
 length turned her head, it was only my 
 astonishment that kept me from address- 
 ing her as Miss Clare. My surprise how- 
 ever gave me time to see how absurd it 
 would have been. Presently she turned 
 down a yard and disappeared." 
 
 ^' Don't tell my cousin Judy," I said. 
 *^ She would believe it ivas Miss Clare." 
 
 '-'• There isn't much danger," he returned. 
 "Even if I knew your cousin, I should 
 not be likely to mention such an incident 
 in her hearing." 
 
 "Could it have been she?" said Perci- 
 vale thoughtfully. 
 
 "Absurd," said Eoger. "Miss Clare is 
 a lady, wherever she may live." 
 
 "I don't know," said his brother, still 
 thoughtfully ; " who can tell ? It mightn't 
 have been beer she was carrying." 
 
 " I didn't say it was beer," returned 
 Eoger. "I only said it was a beer-jug—
 
 248 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 one of those brown, squat, stone jugs — the 
 best for beer that I kno^v, after all — brown, 
 you know, with a clash of grey." 
 
 '' BroA\Ti jug or not, I wish I could get 
 a few sittings from her. She would make 
 a lovely St. Cecilia," said my husband. 
 
 ^' Brown jug and all ?" asked Eoger. 
 
 ''If only she were a little taller," I 
 objected. 
 
 " And had an aureole," said my husband. 
 ''But I might succeed in omitting the jug 
 as well as in adding the aureole and 
 another half foot of stature, if only I could 
 get that lovely countenance on the canvas 
 — so full of life and yet of repose." 
 
 "Don't you think it a little hard?" I 
 ventured to say. 
 
 " I think so," said Eoger. 
 
 "I don't," said my husband. "I know 
 what in it looks like hardness; but I 
 think it comes of the repression of feeling."
 
 RUMOURS. 249 
 
 ^^Yoii have studied lier well for your 
 opportunities," I said. 
 
 " I have ; and I am sure, whatever Mrs. 
 Morley may say, that, if there be any 
 truth at all in those reports, there is some 
 satisfactory explanation of whatever has 
 given rise to them. I wish we knew 
 anybody else that knew her. Do try to 
 find some one that does, Wyiuiie." 
 
 ^' I don't know how to set about it," I 
 said. ^' I should be only too glad." 
 
 ^'I will try," said Eoger. ^^ Does she 
 sing?" 
 
 '^ I have heard Judy say she sang divine- 
 ly ; but the only occasion on which I met 
 her — at their house, that time you couldn't 
 go, Percivale — she was never asked to sing." 
 
 ^' I suspect," remarked Eoger, ^'it will 
 turn out to be only that she's something of 
 a Bohemian like ourselves." 
 
 "Thank you, Eoger; but for my part
 
 250 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 I don't consider myself a Eohemian at 
 all," I said. 
 
 ^^ I am afraid you must rank with your 
 husband, wifie," said mine^ as the wives of 
 the working people of London often call 
 their husbands. 
 
 '-'- Then you do count yourself a Bohe- 
 mian : pray what significance do you attach 
 to the epithet ? " I asked. 
 
 ^' I don't know, except it signifies our 
 resemblance to the gipsies," he answered. 
 
 ^^ I don't understand you quite." 
 
 ^' I believe the gipsies used to be con- 
 sidered Bohemians," interposed Eoger, 
 ^^ though they are doubtless of Indian origin. 
 Their usages being quite different from those 
 amongst which they live, the name Bohe- 
 mian came to be applied to painters, musi- 
 cians, and such like generally, to whom, 
 save by courtesy, no position has yet been 
 accorded by society — so called." 
 
 I
 
 RUMOURS. Ill 
 
 ^'But why have they not yet vindicated 
 for themselves a social position — and that 
 a high one ? " I asked. 
 
 ^^ Because they are generally poor, I- 
 suppose/' he answered; "and society is 
 generally stupid." 
 
 "May it not be because they are so 
 often, like the gipsies, lawless in their 
 behaviour, as well as peculiar in their 
 habits?" I suggested. 
 
 " I understand you, perfectly, Mrs. Per- 
 civale," rejoined Eoger, with mock offence. 
 " But how would that apply to Charlie ?" 
 
 " Not so well as to you, I confess," I 
 answered. "But there is ground for it 
 with him too." 
 
 " I have thought it all over many a 
 time," said Percivale, "and I suppose it 
 comes in part from inability to understand 
 the worth of our calling, and in part from 
 the difficulty of knowing where to put us."
 
 252 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER, 
 
 ^^ I suspect/' I said, ^^ one thing is that 
 so many of them are content to be received 
 as painters merely, or whatever they may 
 be by profession. Many, for instance, you 
 have told me, accept invitations Avliich do 
 not include their Avivcs." 
 
 ^^They often go to parties, of course, 
 where there are no ladies," said Eoger. 
 
 " That is not what I mean," I replied. 
 ^' They go to dinner-parties where there 
 are ladies, and evening parties, too, without 
 their wives." 
 
 ^' Whoever does that," said Percivale, 
 ^'has at least no right to complain that he 
 is regarded as a Bohemian ; for in accepting 
 such invitations, he accepts insult, and 
 himself insults his wife." 
 
 l^Tothing irritated my bear so much as ^ 
 to be asked to dinner without me. He 
 would not even offer the shadow of a 
 reason for declining the invitation. ^' For,"
 
 RUMOURS. 253 
 
 he would say, ^4f I give the real reason, 
 namely, that I do not choose to go where 
 my wife is excluded, they will set it down 
 to her jealous ambition of entering a sphere 
 beyond her reach; I will not give a false 
 reason, and indeed have no objection to 
 their seeing that I am offended; therefore, 
 I assign none. If they have any chivalry 
 in them, they may find out my reason 
 readily enough." 
 
 I don't think I ever displeased him so 
 much as once when I entreated him to 
 accept an invitation to dine with the Earl 
 
 of H . The fact was, I had been 
 
 fancying it my duty to persuade him 
 to get over his offence at the omission of 
 my name, for the sake of the advantage 
 it would be to him in his profession. I 
 laid it before him as gently and coaxingly 
 as I could, representing how expenses in- 
 creased, and how the children would be
 
 254 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 requiring education by-and-by — reminding 
 him that the reputation of more than one 
 of the most popular painters had been 
 brought about in some measure by their 
 social qualities and the friendships they 
 made. 
 
 ^' Is it likely your children will be ladies 
 and gentlemen," he said, ^^if you prevail 
 on their father to play the part of a sneak- 
 ing parasite?" 
 
 I was frightened. He had never spoken 
 to me in such a tone, but I saw too well 
 how deeply he was hurt to take offence 
 at his roughness. I could only beg him 
 to forgive me, and promise never to say 
 such a word again, assuring him that I 
 believed as strongly as himself that the 
 best heritage of children was their father's 
 honour. 
 
 Free from any such clogs as the posses- 
 sion of a wife encumbers a husband withal,
 
 RUMOURS. 255 
 
 Eoger could of course accept wliat invita- 
 tions his connection with an okl and 
 honourabk' family procured him. One 
 evening he came in late from a dinner at 
 Lady Bernard's. 
 
 "Whom do you think I took down to 
 dinner?" he asked, almost before he was 
 seated. 
 
 '^ Lady Bernard ?" I said, flying high. 
 
 " Her dowager aunt?" said Percivale. 
 
 "ISTo, no — Miss Clare." 
 
 "Miss Clare!" we both repeated, with 
 mingled question and exclamation. 
 
 "Yes, Miss Clare — incredible as it may 
 appear," he answered. 
 
 " Did you ask her if it was she you saw 
 carrying the jug of beer in Tottenham 
 Court Eoad?" said Percivale. 
 
 "Did you ask her address?" I said. 
 " That is a question more worthy of an 
 answer."
 
 2S6 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 ^' Yes, I did. I believe I did. I tliink 
 I did." 
 
 ^' What is it, then?" 
 
 ^'XJpon my word, I haven't the slightest 
 idea." 
 
 '-^ So, Mr. Eoger ! You have had a per- 
 fect opportunity, and have let it slip ! You 
 are a man to be trusted indeed !" 
 
 '^ I don't know how it could have been. 
 I distinctly remember approaching the sub- 
 ject more than once or twice ; and now 
 first I discover that I never asked the 
 question. Or if I did, I am certain I got 
 no answer." 
 
 ^'Bewitched." 
 
 ''Yes — I suppose so." 
 
 ''Or," suggested Percivale, "she did not 
 choose to tell you — saw the question com- 
 ing, and led you away from it — never let 
 you ask it." 
 
 " I have heard that ladies can keep one 
 
 I
 
 RUMOURS. 257 
 
 from saying what tliey don't want to hear. 
 Eut she shan't escape me so a second 
 time." 
 
 ^' Indeed, you don't deserve another 
 chance," I said. "You're not half so 
 clever as I took you to be, Eoger." 
 
 " When I think of it, though — it wasn't 
 a question so easy to ask, or one you would 
 like to be overheard asking." 
 
 " Clearly bewitched," I said. " But for 
 that I forgive you. Did she sing?" 
 
 " ^0. I don't su]3pose any one there ever 
 thought of asking such a dingy-feathered 
 bii'd to sing." 
 
 " You had some music ?" 
 
 " Oh, yes. Pretty good, and very bad. 
 Miss Clare's forehead Avas crossed by no end 
 of flickering shadows as she listened." 
 
 " It wasn't for want of interest in her 
 you forgot to find out where she lived I 
 You had better take care, Master Eoger." 
 
 VOL. I. S
 
 258 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 ^^ Take care of what?" 
 
 '-'' Why, you don't know her acldi^ess." 
 
 ^' What has that to do with taking care?'' 
 
 ^' That yon won't kcow where to find 
 yonr heart if yon should happen to want it." 
 
 '^ Oh ! I'm past that kind of thing long 
 ago. You've made an uncle of me." 
 
 And so on, with a good deal more non- 
 sense, but no news of Miss Clare's retreat. 
 
 I had before this remarked to my hus- 
 band that it was odd she had never called 
 since dining with us ; but he made little of 
 it, saying that people who gained theii' own 
 livelihood ought to be excused from attend- 
 ing to rules which had their origin with 
 another class ; and I had thought no more 
 about it, save in disappointment that she 
 had not given me that oj^portunity of im- 
 proving my acquaintance with her.
 
 CHAPTER XYII. 
 
 A DISCOVERY. 
 
 /AXE Saturday night, my husband hap- 
 ^^ pening to be out, an eyent of rare 
 occurrence, Eoger called ; and as there were 
 some things I had not been able to get 
 during the day, I asked him to go with me 
 to Tottenham Coui't Eoad. It was not far 
 from the region where we lived, and I did a 
 great part of my small shopping there. The 
 early closing had, if I remember rightly, 
 begun to show itself — anyhow several of the 
 shops were shut, and we walked a long way 
 down the street, looking for some place 
 likely to supply what I required. •
 
 26o THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 '' It "was just here I came up with the 
 girl and the brown jug," said Eoger, as we 
 reached the large dissenting chapel. 
 
 •' That adventure seems to have taken a 
 great hold of you, Eoger," I said. 
 
 '> She was so like Miss Clare!" he re- 
 turned. " I can't get the one face clear 
 of the other. When I met her at Lady 
 Bernard's, the first thing I thought of was 
 the brown jug." 
 
 ^' Were you as much pleased with her 
 conversation as at our house ?" I asked. 
 
 ^' Even more," he answered. '' I found 
 her ideas of art so wide, as well as just and 
 accurate, that I was puzzled to think where 
 she had had opportunity of developing them. 
 I questioned her about it, and found she 
 was in the habit of going, as often as she 
 could spare time, to the !N"ational Gallery, 
 where her custom was, she said, not to pass 
 from picture to pictui^e, but keep to one
 
 A DISCOVERY. 261 
 
 nil til it formed itself in her mind — that is 
 the expression she nsed — explaining herself 
 to mean — nntil she seemed to know what 
 the painter had set himself to do, and Avhy 
 this was and that Avas which she conld not 
 at first nnderstand. Clearly, withont ever 
 having taken a pencil in her hand, she has 
 educated herself to a keen perception of 
 what is demanded of a true picture. Of 
 course the root of it lies in her musical de- 
 velopment. — There," he cried suddenly, as 
 we came opposite a paved passage, "• that is 
 the place I saw her go down." 
 
 '•'• Then you do think the girl with the 
 beer-jug was Miss Clare after all ?" 
 
 ^^^N'ot in the least. I told you I could 
 not separate them in my mind." 
 
 ^'"Well, I must say, it seems odd. A girl 
 like that and Miss Clare ! Why, as often 
 as you speak of the one, you seem to think 
 of the other."
 
 262 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 '^In fact," lie returned, ^' I am, as I say, 
 unable to dissociate them. But if you had 
 seen the girl, you would not wonder. The 
 likeness was absolutely complete." 
 
 '-'- 1 believe you do consider them one and 
 the same ; and I'm more than half inclined 
 to think so myself, remembering what Judy 
 said." 
 
 ^^ Isn't it possible some one who knew 
 Miss Clare, may have seen this girl, and 
 been misled by the likeness." 
 
 '^ But where, then, does Miss Clare live ? 
 Nobody seems to know." 
 
 ^'You have never asked any one but 
 Mrs. Morley." 
 
 "You have yourself, however, given me 
 reason to think she avoids the subject. If 
 she did live anywhere hereabout, she would 
 have some cause to avoid it." 
 
 I had stopped to look down the passage. 
 
 "Suppose," said Eoger, "some one were
 
 A DISCOVERY. 2^3 
 
 to come past now and see Mrs. Percivale, 
 the wife of the celebrated painter, standing 
 in Tottenham Conrt Eoad, beside the swing- 
 door of a corner pnblic-honse, talking to a 
 young man" — 
 
 "Yes; it might give occasion for scan- 
 dal," I said. "To avoid it, let us go down 
 the court and see what it is like." 
 
 "It's not a fit place for you to go into." 
 
 " If it were in my father's parish, I should 
 have kno^vn everybody in it." 
 
 "You haven't the slightest idea what 
 you are saying." 
 
 " Come anyhow, and let us see what the 
 place is like," I insisted. 
 
 Without another word, he gave me his 
 arm, and do^ni the court we went, past the 
 flaring gin-shop, and into the gloom be- 
 yond. It was one of those places of which 
 while the general effect remains vivid in 
 one's mind, the salient points are so few
 
 264 ^'^^ VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 that it is difficult to say much by way of 
 description. The houses had once been 
 occupied by people in better circumstances 
 than its present inhabitants, and indeed they 
 looked all decent enough until turning two 
 right angles we came upon another sort. 
 They were still as large, and had plenty of 
 windows, but in the light of a single lamp 
 at the corner, they looked very dirty and 
 wretched and dreary. A little shop, with 
 dried herrings and bulPs-eyes in the 
 window, was lighted by a tallow candle 
 set in a ginger-beer bottle, with a card 
 of '^ Kinahan's LL Wliisky " for a re- 
 flector. 
 
 "They can't have many customers to the 
 extent of a bottle," said Eoger. " But no 
 doubt they have some privileges from the 
 public-house at the corner for hanging up 
 the card." 
 
 The houses had sunk areas, just wide
 
 A DISCOVERY. 265 
 
 enoiigli for a stair, and the basements 
 seemed fnll of tenants. There was a little 
 wind blowing, so that the atmosphere was 
 tolerable, notwithstanding a few stray leaves 
 of cabbage, snggestive of others in a more 
 objectionable condition not far off. 
 
 A confused noise of loud voices, calling 
 and scolding, hitherto drowned by the 
 tumult of the street, now reached our ears. 
 The place took one turn more, and then the 
 origin of it became apparent. At the 
 further end of the passage was another 
 lamp, the light of which shone upon a 
 group of men and women, in altercation, 
 which had not yet come to blows. It 
 might, including children, have numbered 
 twenty, of which some seemed drunk and 
 all more or less excited. Eoger turned to 
 go back the moment he caught sight of 
 them, but I felt inclined, I hardly knew 
 why, to linger a little. Should any danger
 
 266 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 offer, it would be easy to gain tlic open 
 thorouglifare. 
 
 ^' It's not at all a fit place for a lady," 
 he said. 
 
 '^ Certainly not," I answered; '-^ it hardly 
 seems a fit place for human beings. These 
 are human beings, though. Let us go 
 through it." 
 
 He still hesitated; but as I went on, he 
 could but follow me. I wanted to see what 
 the attracting centre of the little crowd was ; 
 and that it must be occupied with some 
 affair of more than ordinary interest, I 
 judged from the fact that a good many 
 super-terrestrial spectators looked down 
 from the windows at various elevations upon 
 the disputants, whose voices now and then 
 lulled for a moment only to break out in 
 fresh objurgation and dispute. 
 
 Drawing a little nearer, a slight parting 
 of the crowd revealed its core to us. It was
 
 A DISCOVERY. 267 
 
 a little woman, without bonnet or sliawl, 
 whose back was towards us. She turned 
 from side to side, now talking to one, and 
 now to another of the surrounding circle. 
 At first I thought she was setting forth her 
 grievances, in the hope of sympathy, or 
 perhaps of justice ; but I soon perceived 
 that her motions were too calm for that. 
 Sometimes the crowd would speak all 
 together, sometimes keep silent for a full 
 minute wliile she went on talking. Wlien 
 she turned her face towards us, Eoger and 
 I turned ours, and stared at each other. 
 The face was disfigured by a swollen eye, 
 evidently from a blow ; but clearly enough, 
 if it was not Miss Clare, it was the young 
 woman of the beer jug. ISTeither of us 
 spoke, but turned once more to watch the 
 result of what seemed to have at length 
 settled down into an almost amicable con- 
 ference. After a few more grumbles and
 
 268 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 protestations, the group began to break up 
 into threes and fours. These the young 
 woman seemed to set herself to break up 
 again. Here, however, an ill-looking fellow 
 like a costermonger, with a broken nose, 
 came up to us, and, with a strong Irish 
 accent and offensive manner, but still with 
 a touch of Irish breeding, requested to know 
 what our business was. Eoger asked if the 
 place wasn't a thoroughfare. 
 
 ^'Not for the likes o' you," he answered, 
 ^' as comes pryin' after the likes of us. We 
 manage our o^\TL affairs down here — we do. 
 'You'd better be off, my lady." 
 
 I have my doubts what sort of reply 
 Eoger might have returned if he had been 
 alone, but he certainly spoke in a very con- 
 ciliatory manner, which, however, the man 
 did not seem to appreciate, for he called it 
 blarney ; but the young woman, catching 
 sight of our little group, and supposing, I
 
 A DISCOVERY. 269 
 
 presume, that it also required dispersion, ap- 
 proached us. She had come within a yard 
 of us, when suddenly her face brightened, 
 and she exclaimed, in a tone of surprise, — 
 
 '-'- Mrs. Percivale ! You here ! '■ 
 
 It was indeed Miss Clare. Without the 
 least embarrassment, she held out her hand 
 to me, but I am afraid I did not take it 
 very cordially. Eoger, however, behaved 
 to her as if they stood in a drawing-room, 
 and this brought me to a sense of propriety. 
 
 " I don't look very respectable, I fear," 
 she said, putting her hand over her eye. 
 '' The fact is, I have had a blow, and it will 
 look worse to-morrow. Were you coming 
 to find me ? " 
 
 I forget what lame answer either of us 
 gave. 
 
 '' Will you come in ? " she said. 
 
 On the spar of the moment, I declined. 
 For all my fine talk to Eoger, I shrunk
 
 270 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 from the idea of entering one of those 
 houses. I can only say, in excuse, that my 
 whole mind was in a condition of bewilder- 
 ment. 
 
 ^' Can I do anything for you, then?" she 
 asked, in a tone slightly marked with dis- 
 appointment, I thought. 
 
 ^^ Thank you, no," I answered, hardly 
 knowing what my words were. 
 
 ^'- Then good night," she said, and, nod- 
 ding kindly, turned, and entered one of the 
 houses. 
 
 We also turned in silence, and walked 
 out of the court. 
 
 f^ Why didn't you go with her ? " said 
 Eoger, as soon as we were in the street. 
 
 ^^I'm sorry I didn't if you wanted to go, 
 Eoger; but — " 
 
 ^'I think you might have gone, seeing I 
 was with you," he said. 
 
 '•'- 1 don't think it would have been at all
 
 A DISCOVERY, 271 
 
 a proper thing to do, without knowing 
 more about her," I answered, a little 
 hurt. ^'You can't tell what sort of a 
 place it may be." 
 
 "•^ It's a good place wherever she is, or I 
 am much mistaken," he returned. 
 
 ^'' You may be much mistaken, Eoger." 
 
 ^^ True. I have been mistaken more than 
 once in my life. I am not mistaken this 
 time though." 
 
 "I presume you would have gone if I 
 hadn't been with you ? " 
 
 ^'Certainly, if she had asked me, which 
 is not very likely." 
 
 ^' And you lay the disappointment of 
 missing a glimpse into the sweet privacy of 
 such a home to my charge ? " 
 
 It was a spiteful speech, and Eoger' s 
 silence made me feel it was, which, with 
 the rather patronizing opinion I had of 
 Eoger, I found not a little galling. So I
 
 272 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 too kept silence, and notliiug beyond a 
 platitude had passed between us when I 
 foimd myself at my own door, my shopping 
 utterly forgotten, and something acid on my 
 mind. 
 
 ^' Don't you mean to come in?'' I said, 
 for he held out his hand at the top of the 
 stairs to bid me good night. '^ My husband 
 will be home soon, if he has not come 
 already. You needn't be bored with my 
 company — you can sit in the study." 
 
 '^ I think I had better not," he answered. 
 
 '•'' I am very sorry, Eoger, if I was rude 
 to you," I said; ^'but how could you wish 
 me to be hand-and-glove with a woman 
 who visits people who she is well aware 
 would not think of inviting her if they 
 had a notion of her surroundings? That 
 oan't be right, I am certain. I protest I 
 feel just as if I had been reading an ill- 
 invented story — an unnatural fiction. I
 
 A DISCOVERY. 273 
 
 cannot get these things together in my 
 mind at all, do what I will." 
 
 '-'- There must be some way of accounting 
 for it," said Eoger. 
 
 ^'No doubt," I returned; ''but who 
 knows what that way may be ? " 
 
 '' You may be wrong in supposing that 
 the people at whose houses she visits know 
 nothing about her habits." 
 
 ''Is it at all likely they do, Eoger? Do 
 you think it is ? I know at least that my 
 cousin dispensed with her services as soon 
 as she came to the knowledge of certain 
 facts concerning these very points." 
 
 "Excuse me — certain rumours — very un- 
 certain facts." 
 
 When you are cross, the slightest play 
 upon words is an offence. I knocked at the 
 door in dudgeon, then turned and said — 
 
 " My cousin Judy, Mr. Eoger — " 
 
 But here I paused, for I had nothing 
 
 VOL. I. T
 
 27+ THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 ready. Anger makes some people cleverer 
 for the moment, but when I am angry I am 
 always stupid. Eoger finished the sentence 
 for me. 
 
 '^ — Yoiu' cousin Judy is, you must allow, 
 a very conventional woman,'' he said. 
 
 ^' She is very good-natured anyhow. And 
 what do you say to Lady Bernard ? " 
 
 ^'She hasn't repudiated Miss Clare's ac- 
 quaintance, so far as I know." 
 
 '^ But, answer me — do you believe Lady 
 Bernard would invite her to meet her 
 friends if she knew all ? " 
 
 '' Depend upon it, Lady Bernard knows 
 what she is about. People of her rank 
 can afford to be unconventional." 
 
 This irritated me yet more, for it implied 
 that I was influenced by the conventionality 
 which both he and my husband despised, 
 and Sarah opening the door that instant, I 
 stepped in, without even saying good night
 
 A DISCOVERY. 275 
 
 to him. Before slie closed it, however, I 
 heard my husband's voice, and ran out 
 again to welcome him. 
 
 He and Eoger had already met in the 
 little front garden. The}^ did not shake 
 hands — they never did — they always met as 
 if they had parted only an hour ago. 
 
 ^' What were you and my wife quarrelling 
 about, Eodge ? " I heard Percivale ask, and 
 paused on the middle of the stair to hear his 
 answer. 
 
 ^^ How do you know we wore quarrelling ?" 
 returned Eoger gloomily. 
 
 '' I heard you from the very end of the 
 street," said my husband. 
 
 ^'That's not so far," said Eoger; for 
 indeed one house, with, I confess, a good 
 space of garden on each side of it, and the 
 end of another house finished the street. 
 But notwithstanding the shortness of the 
 distance, it stung me to the quick. Here
 
 276 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 had I been regarding, not even with con- 
 tempt, only with disgust, the quarrel in 
 which Miss Clare was mixed up ; and half 
 an hour after, my own voice was heard in 
 dispute with my husband's brother, from 
 the end of the street in which we lived ! I 
 felt humiliated, and did not rush down the 
 remaining half of the steps to implore 
 my husband's protection against Eoger's 
 crossness. 
 
 ^'Too far to hear a wife and a brother 
 though," returned Percivale jocosely. 
 
 ''Go on," said Eoger ; " pray go on. 
 Let dogs delight comes next. I beg Mrs. 
 Percivale's pardon. I Avill amend the quo- 
 tation : ' Let dogs delight to worry ' " 
 
 ''Cats," I exclaimed; and rushing down 
 the steps, I kissed Eoger before I kissed my 
 husband. 
 
 " I meant — I mean — I was going to say 
 lambs ^'^^ said Eoger.
 
 A DISCOVERY. 277 
 
 ^'^ow, Eoger, don't add to your vices 
 flattery and " 
 
 *^ And fibbing," he subjoined. 
 
 '^ I didn't say so." 
 
 '-^ You only meant it." 
 
 "Don't begin again," interposed Perci- 
 vale. '' Come in, and refer the cause ic 
 dispute to me." 
 
 We did go in, and we did refer the 
 matter to him. By the time we had 
 between us tokl him the facts of the case, 
 however, the point in dispute between us 
 appeared to have grown hazy, the fact being 
 that neither of us cared to say anything 
 more about it. Percivale insisted that 
 there was no question before the court. At 
 length Eoger, turning from me to his 
 brother, said — 
 
 " It's not worth mentioning, Charley, but 
 what led to our irreconcilable quarrel was 
 this : I thought Wynnie might have ac
 
 278 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 cepted Miss Clare's invitation to walk in 
 and pay licr a visit ; and Wynnie thought 
 moj I suppose, too ready to sacrifice her 
 dignity to the pleasure of seeing a little 
 more of the object of oui* altercation. 
 There ! " 
 
 My husband turned to me and said : 
 
 '-'• Mrs. Percivale, do you accept this as a 
 correct representation of your difference ? " 
 
 ^^ Well/' I answered, hesitating — ''yes, 
 on the whole. All I object to is the word 
 dignity P 
 
 '' I retract it," cried Eoger, ''and accept 
 any substitute you prefer." 
 
 ^' Let it stand," I returned. " It will do 
 as well as a better. I only wish to say that 
 it was not exactly my dignity " 
 
 " No, no ; your sense of propriety," said 
 my husband ; and then sat silent for a 
 minute or two, pondering like a judge. At 
 length he spoke :
 
 A DISCOVERY. i-jc^ 
 
 '' Wife," lie saidj ^'you might have gone 
 with your brother, I think; but I quite 
 understand your disinclination. At the same 
 time, a more generous judgment of Miss 
 Clare might haye prevented any difference 
 of feeling in the matter." 
 
 '-'- But," I said, greatly inclined to cry, 
 '•'' I only postponed my judgment concerning 
 her." 
 
 And I only postponed my crying, for I 
 was very much ashamed of myself.
 
 CHAPTEE XYIII. 
 
 MISS CLAEE. 
 
 d\F course my liusband and I talked a 
 good deal more about what I ought to 
 have done, and I saw clearly enough that I 
 ought to have run any risk there might be 
 in accepting her invitation. I had been 
 foolishly taking more care of myself than 
 was necessary. I told him I would write to 
 Eoger and ask him when he could take me 
 there again. 
 
 " I will tell you a better plan," he 
 said. '^ I will go with you myself. 
 And that will get rid of half the awk- 
 wardness there would be if you went 
 
 I
 
 MISS CLARE. 28 1 
 
 with Eoger, after having with him re- 
 fused to go in." 
 
 '^ But would that be fail' to Eoger ? She 
 would think I didn't like going with him, 
 and I would go with Eoger anywhere. It 
 was I who did not want to go. He did." 
 
 ^^My plan, however, will pave the way 
 for a full explanation — or confession rather, 
 I suppose it will turn out to be. I know 
 you are burning to make it — with your 
 mania for confessing your faults." 
 
 I knew he did not like me the worse for 
 that mania though. 
 
 ^' The next time," he added, '^ you can go 
 with Eoger, always supposing you should 
 feel inclined to continue the acquaintance, 
 and then you will be able to set him right 
 in her eyes." 
 
 The plan seemed unobjectionable. But 
 just then Percivale was very busy, and I 
 being almost as much occupied with my
 
 282 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 baby as he with his, day after day and 
 week after week passed, during which oui' 
 duty to Miss Clare was, I will not say 
 either forgotten or neglected, but unful- 
 filled. 
 
 One afternoon, I was siu'prised by a visit 
 from my father. He not unfrequently sur- 
 prised us. 
 
 " "Why didn't you let us knoAV, papa ? " I 
 said. '^ A surprise is very nice, but an ex- 
 pectation is much nicer, and lasts so much 
 longer." 
 
 '^ I might have disappointed you." 
 
 '^ Even if you had, I should have abeady 
 enjoyed the expectation. That would be 
 safe." 
 
 ''There's a good deal to be said in excuse 
 of surprises," he rejoined, '' but in the pre- 
 sent case, I have a special one to offer. I 
 was taken with a sudden desii'c to see you. 
 It was very foolish no doubt, and you are
 
 MISS CLARE. 283 
 
 quite right in wishing I weren't here, only- 
 going to come to-morrow.'' 
 
 " Don't be so cruel, papa. Scarcely a day 
 passes in which / do not long to see you. 
 My baby makes me think more about my 
 home than ever." 
 
 ^' Then she's a very healthy baby, if 
 one may judge by her influences. But you 
 know, if I had to give you warning, I 
 could not have been here before to-morrow, 
 and surely you will aclvnowledge that how- 
 ever nice expectation may be, presence is 
 better." 
 
 " Yes, papa. We will make a compro- 
 mise, if you please. Every time you think 
 of coming to me, you must either come at 
 once, or let me know you are coming. Do 
 you agree to that ? " 
 
 '^ I agree," he said. 
 
 So I have the pleasure of a constant ex- 
 pectation. Any da}^ he may walk in un-
 
 2 84 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 heralded ; or by any post I may receive a 
 letter with the news that he is coming at 
 such a time. 
 
 As we sat at dinner that evening, he 
 asked if we had lately seen Miss Clare. 
 
 '' I've seen her only once, and Percivale 
 not at all, since you were here last, papa,'' 
 I answered. 
 
 "How's that?" he asked again, a little 
 surprised. " Haven't you got her address 
 yet ? I want very much to know more of 
 her." 
 
 "So do we. I haven't got her address, 
 but I know where she lives." 
 
 " What do you mean, "Wynnie ? Has she 
 taken to dark sayings of late, Percivale ? " 
 
 I told him the whole story of my adven- 
 ture with Eoger, and the reports Judy had 
 prejudiced my judgment withal. He heard 
 me through in silence, for it was a rule with 
 him never to interrupt a narrator. He used
 
 MISS CLARE. 285 
 
 to say, '^You will generally get at more, 
 and in a better fashion, if yon let any narra- 
 tive take its own devions conrse, without 
 the interruption of requested explanations. 
 Ey the time it is over, you will find the 
 questions you wanted to ask mostly 
 A^anished." 
 
 ''- Describe the place to me, Wynnie," he 
 said, when I had ended. '-'- 1 must go and 
 see her. I have a suspicion amounting 
 almost to a conviction that she is one whose 
 acquaintance ought to be cultivated at any 
 cost. There is some grand explanation of 
 all this contradictory strangeness." 
 
 '' I don't think I could describe the place 
 to you so that you would find it. But if 
 Percivale wouldn't mind my going with you 
 instead of with him, I should be only too 
 happy to accompany you. May I, Perci- 
 vale?" 
 
 ^' Certainly. It will do just as well to go
 
 2 86 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 with your father as with me. I only stipu- 
 late that, if you are both satisfied, you take 
 Eoger with you next time." 
 
 '-^ Of course I will.'- 
 
 " Then we'll go to-morrow morning," said 
 my father. 
 
 '-'- 1 don't think she is likely to he at home 
 in the morning," I said. ^^ She goes out 
 giving lessons, you know; and the proba- 
 bility is that at that time we should not find 
 her." 
 
 " Then why not to-night ? " he rejoined. 
 
 " Why not, if you wish it ? " 
 
 ^^ I do wish it, then." 
 
 " If you knew the place, though, I think 
 you would prefer going a little earlier than 
 we can to-night." 
 
 " Ah well, we will go to-morrow evening. 
 We could dine early, couldn't we ? " 
 
 So it was arranged. My father went 
 about some business in the morning.
 
 MISS CLARE. 287 
 
 We dined early, and set out about six 
 o'clock. 
 
 My father was getting an old man, and if 
 any protection had been required, he could 
 not have been half so active as Eoger ; and 
 yet I felt twice as safe with him. I am 
 satisfied that the deepest sense of safetjs 
 even in respect of physical dangers, can 
 spring only from moral causes ; neither do 
 you half so much fear evil happening to you, 
 as fear evil happening which ought not to 
 happen to you. I believe what made me so 
 courageous was the undeveloped fore-feeling 
 that if any evil should overtake me in my 
 father's company, I should not care; it 
 would be all right then, anyhow. The 
 repose was in my father himself, and neither 
 in his strength nor his wisdom. The former 
 might fail, the latter might mistake ; but 
 so long as I was with him in what I did, no 
 haini worth counting harm could come to
 
 288 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER, 
 
 mc — only sncli as I should neither lament 
 nor feel. Scarcely a shadow of danger, 
 however, showed itself. 
 
 It was a cold evening in the middle of 
 ISTovember. The light, which had been 
 scanty enough all day, had vanished in a 
 thin penetrating fog. Eound every lamp in 
 the street was a coloured halo ; the gay 
 shops gleamed like jewel-caverns of Aladdin 
 hollowed out of the darkness; and the 
 people that hurried or sauntered along 
 looked inscrutable. Where could they live ? 
 Had they anybody to love them ? Were 
 their hearts quiet under their dingy cloaks 
 and shabby coats ? 
 
 " Yes," returned my father, to whom I 
 had said something to this effect, " what 
 would not one give for a peep into the 
 mysteries of all these worlds that go crowd- 
 ing past us ! If we could but see through 
 the opaque husk of them, some would 
 
 I
 
 MISS CLARE, 289 
 
 glitter and glow like diamond mines ; others 
 perhaps "would look mere earthy holes ; some 
 of them forsaken quarries, with a great pool 
 of stagnant water in the bottom ; some like 
 vast coal pits of gloom, into which you 
 dared not carry a lighted lamp for fear of 
 explosion. Some would be mere lumber- 
 rooms ; others ill-arranged libraries, without 
 a poet's corner anywhere. But what a 
 wealth of creation they show, and what 
 infinite room for hope it affords ! " 
 
 ^^ But don't you think, papa, there may 
 be something of worth lying even in the 
 earth pit, or at the bottom of the stagnant 
 water in the forsaken quarry ? " 
 
 ^' Indeed I do ; though I have met more 
 than one in my lifetime concerning whom 
 I felt compelled to say that it wanted 
 keener eyes than mine to discover the 
 hidden jewel. But then there are keener 
 eyes than mine, for there are more loving 
 
 VOL. I. TJ
 
 290 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 eyes. Myself I have been able to see good 
 very clearly where some could see none ; and 
 shall I doubt that God can see good where 
 my mole-eyes can see none ? Be sure of 
 this that as he is keen-eyed for the evil in 
 his creatures to destroy it, he would, if it 
 were possible, be yet keener-eyed for the 
 good to nourish and cherish it. If men 
 would only side with the good that is in 
 them — will that the seed should grow and 
 bring forth fruit I " 
 
 END or VOL. T. 
 
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