|Away over in London, the winter had passed far less happily for poor
little Minna than it had passed at Rome for Colin Churchill. While
he had been writing home enthusiastically of the blue skies and
invigorating air of that delicious Italy, the fogs in London had been
settling down with even more than their customary persistency over
the great grey gloomy winter city. While he had been filled with the
large-hearted generosity of that noble fellow Maragliano--'May I not be
proud, Minna,' he wrote, 'to have known such a man, to have heard his
soft Genoese accents, to have watched his wonderful chisel at its work,
to have listened to his glorious sentiments on art?'--she, poor girl,
had found prim, precise, old-maidish Miss Woollacott harder to endure
and more pernicketty to live with than ever. Now that Colin was gone,
she had nobody to sympathise with her; nobody to whose ear she might
confide those thousand petty daily personal annoyances which are to
women (with all sympathetic reverence be it written) far more serious
hindrances to the pursuit of happiness than the greatest misfortunes
that can possibly overtake them. Worst of all, Colin, she was afraid,
didn't even seem to miss her. She was so miserable in London without
him; so full of grief and loneliness at his absence; while he was
apparently enjoying himself in Rome quite as much without her as if she
had been all the time within ten minutes' walk of his attic lodging.
How perfectly happy he seemed to be in his intercourse with this
Signor Maragliano that he wrote to her about! How he revelled in the
nymphs, and the Apollos, and the Niobes! How his letters positively
overflowed with life and enthusiasm! She was glad of it, of course, very
glad of it. It was so nice to think that dear Colin should at last be
mingling in the free artistic life for which she knew he was so well
fitted: should be moving about among those splendid Greek and Roman
things he was so very fond of. But still... well, Minna did wish that
there was just a _little_ more trace in his letters of his being sorry
to be so very, very far away from her.
Besides, what dreadful note of warning was this that sounded so
ominously on Sunday mornings, when she had half an hour later to lie
in bed and read over all Colin's back letters--for she kept them
religiously? What dreadful note of warning was this that recurred so
often?--'Miss Howard-Russell, a niece of the old vicar's, and a cousin
of Lord Beaminster's, who, I told you, came with me from Paris to Rome
in the same carriage'... And then again, 'Miss Howard-Russell, whose
name I daresay you remember'--oh, didn't she?--'came into the studio
this morning and was full of praise of my figure in the clay from
the living model.' And now here once more, in to-day's letter, 'Miss
Howard-Russell was at the picnic, looking very pretty,' (oh, Colin,
Colin, how could you!) 'and I took her round through a beautiful gallery
of oaks' (Italianisai for avenue, already, but uncritical little Minna
never spotted it) 'to an old Roman archway where Winthrop was painting
a clever water-colour. I believe Winthrop admires her very much' (Minna
fervently hoped his admiration would take a practical form:) 'but she
doesn't seem at all to notice him.' Why, how closely Colin must have
watched her! Minna wasn't by any means satisfied with the habits and
manners of this Miss Howard-Russell. And the insolence of the woman too!
to go and be a cousin to the Earl of Beaminster! Unless you happen to
have lived in the western half of Dorsetshire yourself, you can have no
idea how exalted a personage a cousin of the Earl of Beaminster appeared
in the eyes of the Wootton Mande-ville fisherman's daughter.
'Minna Wroe,' Miss Woollacott observed in her tart voice, as the little
pupil-teacher came down to breakfast on the Sunday morning after the
picnic, 'you're nearly seven minutes late--six minutes and forty-nine
seconds, to be precisely accurate: and I've been all that time sitting
here with my hands before me waiting prayers for you. And, Minna Wroe,
I've noticed that since that young man you describe as your cousin went
to Rome, you've had a letter with a foreign stamp upon it every Sunday.
And when those letters arrive I observe that you're almost invariably
late for breakfast. Now, Minna Wroe, I should advise you to write to
your _cousin_'--with a strong emphasis of sarcastic doubt upon the last
word--'asking him to make his communications a little less frequent:
or else not to lie in bed quite so late in the morning reading your
_cousin's_ weekly effusions. Family affection's an excellent thing
in its way, no doubt, but it may go a little too far in the table of
affinities.'
Instead of answering, to Miss Woollacott's great surprise, poor little
Minna burst suddenly into an uncontrollable flood of tears.
Now Miss Woollacott wasn't really cruel or ill-natured, but merely
desiccated and fossilised, after the fashion of her kind, by the long
drying-up process incidental to her unfortunate condition and unhappy
calling: and moreover, she shared the common and pardonable inability of
all women (I say 'all' this time advisedly) to see another woman crying
without immediately kneeling down beside her, and taking her hands in
hers, and trying with all her heart to comfort and console her.
[Illustration: 0244]
So in a few minutes, what with Miss Woollacott saying 'There, there,
dear, I didn't mean to hurt your feelings,' and smoothing Minna's hair
tenderly with her skinny old fingers (worn to the bone in the hard
struggle), and muttering to herself audibly, 'I hadn't the least idea
that _that_ was what was really the matter,'--Minna was soon restored
to equanimity for the present at least, and Miss Woollacott, forgetting
even to read prayers in her discomposure ['Which it's the only time,
mum,' said Anne the slavey to the landlady, 'as ever I know'd the ole
cat to miss them since fust she come here') went on with the breakfast,
beaten all along the line, and trying to pass off 'this unpleasantness'
by pretending to talk as unconcernedly as possible about every
distracted idea that happened to come uppermost in her poor old
scantily-furnished and disconnected cranium. But when breakfast was
over, and Minna had positively kissed Miss Woollacott (an unheard-of
liberty), and begged her not to trouble herself any more about the
matter, for she wasn't really offended, and didn't in the least mind
about it she went off upstairs to her own room alone, and sat down, and
had a good cry all by herself with Colin's letters, and sent down word
by Anne the slavey, that if Miss Woollacott would kindly excuse her she
didn't feel equal to going to church that morning. 'And the ole cat,
she acshally up and says, you'd hardly believe it, mum, says she, “Well,
Anne, an' if Miss Wroe doesn't feel equal to it,” says she, “I think as
how she'd better lie down a bit and rest herself, poor thing,” says she:
and when she said it, mum, you could 'a knocked me down with a feather,
a'most, I was that took aback at the ole cat's acshally goin' and
sayin' it. Which I do reely think she must be goin' to be took ill or
somethin', or else what for should she go an' answer one back so kind
and chrischun-like, mum, if she didn't feel her end was a comin'?'
And old Miss Woollacott, putting on her thin-worn thread gloves for
Church upon her thin-worn skinny fingers, felt softened and saddened,
and remembered with a sigh that though she had never positively had a
lover herself--not a declared one, that is to say--for who knows how
many hearts she may have broken in silence?--she was once young herself,
and fancied she might some day have one of her own, just as well as her
sister Susan, who married the collector of water-rates; and if so, she
was dimly conscious in her own poor old shrivelled feminine heart,
much battered though it was in its hard struggle for life till it
had somewhat hardened itself on the strictest Darwinian principles in
adaptation to the environment, that she too under the same circumstances
would have acted very much as Minna Wroe did.
But as Minna lay on her bed alone through that Sunday morning, only for
a short time disturbed by the obtrusive sympathy of Anne the slavey, she
began to think to herself that it was really very dangerous after all to
let Colin remain at Rome without her; and that she ought to try sooner
or later to go over and join him there. And as she turned this all but
impossible scheme over in her head (for if even Cohn found it hard to
get over to Italy, how could she, poor girl, ever expect to find the
money for such a long journey, or subsistence afterwards?), a sudden
glorious and brilliant possibility flashed all unexpectedly upon her
bewildered mental vision:--
Why not try to go to Rome as a governess?
It was a wild and impossible idea--too impossible to be worth discussing
almost--and yet, the more she thought about it, the more feasible did it
seem to become to her excited imagination. Not immediately, of course:
not all at once and without due preparation. Minna Wroe had learnt the
ways of the world in too hard a school of slow self-education not to
know already how deep you must lay your plans, and how long you must be
prepared to work them, if you hope for success in any difficult earthly
speculation. But she might at least make a beginning and keep her eyes
open. The first thing was to get to be a governess; the next was, to
look out for openings in the direction of Italy.
It seems easy enough at first sight to be a governess; the occupation is
one open to any woman who knows how to spell decently, which is far from
being a rare or arduous accomplishment; and yet Minna Wroe felt at once
that in her case the difficulties to be got over were practically almost
insuperable. If she had only been a man, now, nobody would have asked
who she was, or where she came from: they would have been satisfied with
looking at her credentials and reading over the perfunctory testimonials
of her pastors and masters to her deserts and merits. But as she was
only a woman, they would of course want to inquire all about her; and if
once they discovered that she had been in a place as a servant, it would
be all up with her chances of employment for ever. The man who rises
makes for himself his own position; but the woman who rises has to fight
all her life long to keep down the memory of her small beginnings. That
is part and parcel of our modern English Christian conception of the
highest chivalry.
Little Minna Wroe, however, with her round gipsy face and pretty black
eyes, was not the sort of person to be put down in what she proposed to
do by any amount of initial difficulty. If the thing was possible, she
would stoutly fight her way through to it. So the very next morning,
during recess time, she determined to strike while the iron was hot, and
went off bravely through the rain to a neighbouring Governesses' Agency.
It was one of the wretched places where some lazy hulking agent fellow,
assisted by his stout wife, makes a handsome living by charging poor
helpless girls ten per cent, on their paltry pittance of a first year's
salary, in return for an introduction to patrons too indolent to hunt
up a governess for themselves by any more humane and considerate method.
These are the relatively honest and respectable agencies: the dishonest
and disreputable ones make a still simpler livelihood by charging an
entrance-fee beforehand, and never introducing anybody anywhere.
Minna put her name down upon the agent's list, but was wise enough
not to be inveigled into paying the preliminary two-and-sixpence.
The consequence was that the agent, seeing his only chance of making
anything out of her lay in the result of getting her a situation,
sent her from time to time due notice of persons in want of a nursery
governess. Minna applied to several of these in rotation, her idea
being, first to get herself started in a place anyhow, and then to look
out for another in a family who were going to Italy. But as she made it
a matter of principle to tell inquiring employers frankly that she had
once been out at service, before she went to the North London Birkbeck
Girls' School, she generally found that they, one and all, made short
shrift of her. Of course it's quite impossible (and in a Christian land,
too,) to let one's children be brought up by a young person who has once
been a domestic servant.
One day, however, before many weeks, Minna received a note from the
agency, asking her whether she could call round at half-past eleven,
to see two persons who were in want of nursery governesses. It was
recess-hour, luckily, so she buttoned up her neat plain cloth jacket,
and put on her simple straw hat, and went round to meet the inquiring
employers.
The first inquiry, the agent said, was from a clergyman--Reverend Walton
and wife, now waiting in the ante-room. Reverend Walton, Miss Wroe: Miss
Wroe, Reverend Walton and Mrs. Walton.
Minna bowed. The Reverend Walton (as the agent described him with
official brevity), without taking the slightest notice of Minna,
whispered audibly to his wife: 'This one really looks as if she'd do,
Amelia. Dress perfectly respectable. No ribbons and laces and fal-lal
tomfoolery. Perfectly presentable, perfectly.'
Minna coloured violently; but the Reverend Walton's wife answered in the
same stage aside: 'Quite a proper young woman as far as appearance goes,
certainly, Cyril. _And_ fifteen pounds a year, Mr. Coppinger said, would
probably suit her.'
Minna coloured still more deeply. It couldn't be called a promising
beginning. (She had sixteen pounds already, by the way, when she had
been a parlour-maid. Such are the prizes of the higher education for
women in the scholastic profession.)
They whispered together for a little while longer, less audibly,
and then Mrs. Walton began closely to cross-question the little
pupil-teacher. Minna answered all her questions satisfactorily--she had
been baptised, confirmed, was a member of the Church of England, played
the piano, could teach elementary French, had an excellent temper,
didn't mind dining with the children, would go to early communion, could
mend dresses and tuckers, wasn't particular about her food, never read
books of an irreligious tendency, and would assist in the housework of
the nursery whenever necessary.
'In fact,' Minna said, with as much quiet dignity as she could command,
'I'm not at all afraid of house-work, because (I think I ought to tell
you) I was out at service for some years before I went to the Birkbeck
Schools.' Reverend Walton lifted his eyebrows in subdued astonishment.
Mrs. Walton coughed drily. Then they held another whispered
confabulation for a few minutes, and at the end of it Mrs. Walton
suggested blandly, in a somewhat altered tone of voice, 'Suppose in that
case we were to say fourteen pounds and all found, and were to try to do
altogether without the nursemaid?'
Though Minna saw that this was economy with a vengeance--cutting her
down another pound, and saving the whole of the nursemaid's wages--she
was so anxious to find some chance of rejoining Colin that she answered
somewhat reluctantly, 'If you think that would be best, I shouldn't
mind trying it.'
'Oh, if it comes to that,' Mrs. Walton said loftily, 'we don't want
anybody to come to us by way of a favour. Whoever accepts our post must
accept it willingly, thankfully, and in a truly religious spirit, as a
door thrown open to them liberally for doing good in.'
Minna bowed faintly. 'I would accept the situation,' she said as well
as she was able, though the words stuck in her throat (for was she not
taking it as a horrid necessity, for Colin's sake only?) 'in just that
spirit.'
Mrs. Walton nodded her triumph. 'That'll do then,' she said 'What
did she say her name was, Cyril? We'll inquire about you of this Miss
Jigamaree.'
Reverend Walton took out a pencil and note-book ostentatiously to put
down the address.
'My name is Minna Wroe,' the poor girl said, colouring once more
violently.
'Minna!' Reverend Walton said, biting the end of his pencil with a
meditative frown. 'You must mean Mary. You can't have been christened
Minna, you know, can you?'
'Yes, I was,' Minna answered defiantly.
'I was christened Minna, quite simply. M-I-N-N-A, Minna.'
Reverend Walton entered it in his notebook under protest. 'M-I-N-N-A,'
he said, 'Minna; R-O-W-E, Rowe, I suppose.'
'No,' Minna answered, 'not R-O-W-E: W-R-O-E, Wroe.'
Reverend Walton sucked the other end of his pencil in evident
hesitation. 'Never heard of such a name in all my life,' he said,
dubitatively. 'Must be some mistake somewhere.
All the Rowes I ever heard of were R-O-W-E's.'
Minna didn't tell him that the names Rowe and Wroe are perfectly
distinct in origin and meaning, because she wasn't aware of that
interesting fact in the history and etymology of English nomenclature:
but she did answer stoutly, with some vehemence, 'My family have always
spelt the name as I spell it.'
Reverend Walton sneered visibly. 'Probably,' he said, 'your family
didn't know any better. Nothing's more common in country parishes than
to find that people don't know even how to spell their own names. At any
rate, while you remain a member of our household, you'd better arrange
to call yourself Mary Bowe, R-O-W-E, spelt in the ordinary proper
civilised manner.'
Poor Minna's smothered indignation could restrain itself no longer.
'No,' she said firmly, with flashing eyes (in spite of her guaranteed
good temper), 'I'll call myself nothing of the sort. I'm not ashamed of
my name, and I won't change it.' (A rash promise that, on the part of
a young lady.) 'And you needn't take the trouble to apply to Miss
Woollacott, thank you, for on further consideration I've come to the
conclusion that your place won't suit me. And so good morning to you.'
Reverend Walton and wife conferred together in a loud whisper with one
another for a few minutes more, and then with a profound salutation
walked with dignity in perfect silence out of the ante-room. 'And I
think, Cyril,' Mrs. Walton observed in a stage aside as they held the
door ajar behind them, 'we're very lucky indeed to have seen the young
woman in one of her exhibitions of temper, for besides her unfortunate
antecedents, dear, I'm quite convinced, in my own mind, that she isn't a
really Christian person.'
'Won't do, that lot?' the agent said, popping his head in at the door
to where Minna stood alone and crimson; 'ah, I thought not. Too much in
this line, aren't they?'--and the agent cleverly drove in an imaginary
screw into the back of his left hand with a non-existent screw-driver in
his right. 'Well, well, one down, t'other come on. You'll see Reverend
O'Donovan, now, miss, won't you?' 'What, another clergyman?' Minna
cried a little piteously. 'Oh, no, not now, if you please, Mr.
Coppinger. I feel so flurried and frightened and agitated.'
'Bless your heart, miss,' the agent said, not unkindly, 'you needn't
be a bit afraid, you know, of Reverend O'Donovan. He's a widower, he
is--four children--nice old fatherly person--you needn't be a bit afraid
of seeing him. Besides, he's waiting for you.' Thus reassured, Minna
consented with some misgivings to go through the ordeal of a further
interview with the Reverend O'Donovan.
In a minute the agent returned, ushering into the room a very
brutal-looking old gentleman, the most surprising that Minna remembered
ever to have seen in the whole course of her experience. In spite of
his old-fashioned clerical dress, she could hardly believe that he could
really be a clergyman. He seemed to her at first sight the exact model
of the Irish villain of Mr. Tenniel's most distorted fancy in the
'Punch' cartoons. She couldn't make out all his features at once, she
was so much afraid of him; but she saw immediately that what made his
face so especially ugly was the fact that he had a broken nose, just
like a prizefighter. Minna quite shrank from him as he came in, and felt
she should hardly have courage to get through the interview.
But the old clergyman put a chair for her with old-fashioned politeness,
and then said in a gentle musical voice which quite astonished her
coming from such a person, 'Pray be seated, Miss Wroe; I learned your
name from Mr. Coppinger. We may have to talk over matters at a little
length--I'm an old man and prosy--so we may as well make ourselves
comfortable together beforehand. That's my name, you see, Cornelius
O'Donovan; a very Irish one, isn't it? but we don't live in Ireland;
in fact I've never been there. We live at a very quiet little country
village in the weald of Surrey. Do you like the country?'
There was something so sweet and winning in the old clergyman's
cultivated voice, in spite of his repulsive appearance, that Minna
plucked up heart a little, and answered timidly, 'Oh, yes, I'm a country
girl myself, and I'm awfully fond of the country, though I've had to
live for some years in London. I come from Dorsetshire.'
'From Dorsetshire!' Mr. O'Donovan answered in the same charming gentle
accent.
'Why, that's quite delightful--indeed, almost providential. I was born
in Dorsetshire myself, Miss Wroe; my father had a parish there, a sweet
little fisher village parish--Moreton Freshwater: do you happen to know
it?'
'Moreton!' Minna repeated warmly. 'Moreton! oh yes, of course I do. Why,
it's just close to our home. My folks live at Wootton Mandeville.'
'God bless my soul!' exclaimed the old clergyman with a little start.
'This is really providential, quite providential. I knew Wootton
Mandeville when I was a boy--every stone in it. Dear me! and so you come
from Wootton Mandeville, do you? Ah, well, I'm afraid all the people
I knew at Wootton must be dead long ago. There was old Susan who sold
apples at the corner by the Buddie, where the coach used to stop to set
down passengers; she must have been dead, well, before you were born, I
should say, certainly. And old Jack Legge that drove the coach; a fine
old fellow, he was, with a green patch on the eye that Job Puddicombe
blinded; I can remember his giving me a lift, as what we used to call
a super--defrauding his employers, I'm sorry to say; but in the West
Country, you know, in the old days, people did those things and thought
no harm of them. And Ginger Radford, the smuggler; I'm afraid he was a
bad lot, poor man, but by Jove, what a fine, hearty, open, manly fellow.
Ah yes, capital people, even the worst of them, those good old-fashioned
West Country folks.'
The old clergyman paused a moment to wipe his glasses, and looked at
Minna pensively. Minna began to notice now that, though his face was so
very dreadful to look at, his eyes were tender and bright and fatherly.
Perhaps after all he wasn't really quite so terrible as she at first
imagined him.
'Ah,' Mr. O'Donovan went on, replacing his spectacles, 'and there was
Dick Churchill and his son Fiddler Sam, too, who used to draw pictures.
You might have known Fiddler Sam; though, bless my heart, even Sam must
be an old man nowadays, for he was older than I was. And then there was
Fisherman Wroe, and his son Geargey; fine young fellow, Geargey, with a
powerful deal of life and spirit in him--why.... God bless my soul, they
said your name was Miss Wroe, didn't they? If I may venture to ask you,
now--excuse me if I'm wrong--you don't happen to be a daughter of George
Wroe's of Wootton, do you?'
'Yes,' Minna answered, warming a little towards the old gentleman, in
spite of his repulsive countenance (it didn't look half so bad already,
either, and she noticed that when once you got accustomed to the broken
nose, it began to beam with courtesy and benevolence.) 'I'm George
Wroe's daughter.'
Mr. O'Donovan's face lighted up at once with a genial smile of friendly
recognition. 'George Wroe's daughter!' he cried, with much animation.
'George Wroe's daughter! Why, this is really most providential, my dear.
God bless my soul, we don't need any introduction to one another. I knew
your father well: many's the time we've been out fishing for whiting
pollock on the Swale Daze together; a fine young fellow as ever
lived, my dear, your father. When you see him again--he's living, I
trust--that's well; I'm glad to hear it--whenever you see him again, my
child, just you ask him whether he remembers Con O'Donovan (that's
my name, you see, Cornelius; fifty years ago they used to call me Con
O'Donovan). And just you ask him, too, whether he remembers how we got
chased by the revenue cutter from Portland Roads mistaking us for the
gig of the French smack, that brought over brandy (smuggled, I'm sorry
to say--ah, dear me, dear me!) to tranship into old Gingery Radford's
“Lively Sally “; and how we ran, and the cutter chased us, and we put on
all sail, and made for Golden Cap, and the cutter went fifteen miles out
of her way bearing down upon us, and caught us at last, and overhauled
us, and found after all we'd nothing aboard but a small cargo of
lob-worms and launces! Ah, bless my soul, that was a splendid run, that
was! Oh, ho, ho! a splendid run, that one!' and Mr. O'Donovan laughed
to himself a big, gentle, good-humoured laugh at the recollection of the
boisterous jokes of fifty years ago, and of the captain of the cutter,
who swore at them most terribly, in a varied and extensive assortment
of English profanity, after the fashion of the United Service at the
beginning of the present century.
'And now, my dear,' he went on, after another short pause--'I won't
call you Miss Wroe any longer, if you're my old friend Geargey's
daughter--excuse our plain old Dorsetshire dialect. So you want to be
a governess? Well, well, tell me all about it, now. How did it all
happen?'
By this time Minna had got so far accustomed to the old gentleman, that
she began her whole story from the very beginning, and told it without
shame or foolish hesitation. When Mr. O'Donovan had heard it through
with profound attention, he looked at the little gipsy face with a look
of genuine admiration, and then murmured to himself quite softly, 'God
bless my soul, what a very remarkable plucky young lady! Quite a worthy
daughter of my dear brave old friend Geargey! Went out to service to
begin with; perfectly honourable of her; the Wroes were always a fine,
manly, honest, courageous, self-respecting lot, but never above doing
a turn of decent work either, whenever it was offered to them. And
then turned schoolmistress; and now wants to better herself by being
a governess. Most natural, most natural; and very praiseworthy. A most
excellent thing, honest domestic service--too many of our girls nowadays
turn up their noses at it--but not of course at all suitable for a young
lady of your attainments and natural refinement, my dear; oh no, no--far
from it, far from it.' 'Well, my dear,' he continued, looking at her
gently once more, 'this is just what the matter is. We want a
nursery governess for four little ones--girls--the eldest nine;
motherless--motherless.'
As Mr. O'Donovan repeated that word pathetically, as if to himself,
Minna saw that his face would have been quite handsome but for the
broken nose which disfigured it for the first twenty minutes of an
acquaintance only. 'Are they your daughters, sir?' she ventured to ask,
with a sympathetic tinge of feeling in her voice.
'No, my dear, no,' Mr. O'Donovan answered, with the tears standing in
the corners of his bright eyes. 'Granddaughters, granddaughters. I never
had but one child, their mother; and she, my dear----' he pointed above,
and then, turning his hand vaguely eastward, muttered softly, 'India.'
There was a moment's silence, before Minna went on to ask further
particulars; and as soon as the old clergyman had answered all her
questions to her perfect satisfaction, he asked in a quiet, assured sort
of tone, 'Then I may take it for granted, may I, that you'll come to
us?'
'Why, certainly,' Minna answered, her heart throbbing a little, 'if
you'll take me, sir.' 'Take you!' Mr. O'Donovan echoed. 'Take you! God
bless my soul, my dear, why, of course we'll be only too glad to get my
old friend Geargey's daughter. And when you're writing to your father,
my child, just you mention to him that you're going to Con O'Donovan's,
and ask him if he remembers----'
But the remainder of Mr. O'Donovan's reminiscence about how that
astonishingly big conger-eel bit the late vicar in the hand ['I never
laughed so much in my life, my dear, as to see the astonishment and
indignation of that pompous self-satisfied old fellow--a most exemplary
man in every respect, of course, but still, we must admit, an absurdly
pompous old fellow ') has no immediate connection with the general
course of this history.
However, before Minna finally closed with the old rector's offer, she
felt it incumbent upon her to tell him the possibility of her leaving
her situation in the course of time, in order to go to Rome; and the
rector's face had now grown so peculiarly mild in her eyes, that Minna
even ventured to hint indirectly that the proposed visit was not wholly
unconnected with the story of her cousin Colin, which story she was
thereupon compelled to repeat forthwith to the patient old man with
equal minuteness. Mr. O'Donovan smiled at her that placid gentle smile,
devoid of all vulgar innuendo or nonsense, with which an old gentleman
can sometimes show that he reads the secret of a young girl's bosom.
'And are you engaged to your cousin Colin, my dear?' he asked at last,
quite innocently and simply.
'Not exactly engaged, you know,' Minna answered, blushing, 'but----'
'Ah, yes, quite so, quite so; I know all about it,' Mr. O'Donovan
replied with a kindly gesture. 'Well, my dear, I don't see why you
shouldn't come and live with us for the present, at least as a stop-gap;
and meanwhile, I'll try my best to look out for some family who are
going to Rome for you. We might advertise in the _Guardian_; capital
paper for advertisements of that sort, the _Guardian_. Anyhow,
meanwhile, you'll come and take us as we are; and very providential,
too, very providential. To think I should have been lucky enough, quite
by accident (as the world says), to hit upon a daughter of my old friend
Geargey! And I'm so glad you're not afraid of me, either, because of my
misfortune. A great many people are, just at first, especially. But
it wears off, it wears off with habituation. A cricket-ball, my dear,
that's all--when I was under twenty; off Sam Churchill's bat, too; but
no fault of his, of course--I was always absurdly short-sighted. You'll
get accustomed to it in time, my child, as I myself have.'
But Minna didn't need time to get accustomed to it, for she could now
see already that old Mr. O'Donovan's face was really a very handsome,
gentle, and cultivated one; and that even in spite of the broken nose,
you felt at once how handsome it was, as soon as it was lighted up by
his genial smile and the pleasant flash of his bright old eyes. And in
one month from that morning, she was comfortably installed, under Mr.
O'Donovan's guidance, in the delightful ivy-covered parsonage of a
remote and beautiful little Surrey village.