I.

"No, Johnny Ludlow, I shall not stay at home, and have the deeds sent up

and down by post. I know what lawyers are; so will you, some time: this

letter to be read and answered to-day; that paper to be digested and

despatched back to-morrow--anything to enchance their bill of costs. I

intend to be in London, on the spot; and so will you be, Mr. Johnny."

So said Mr. Brandon to me, as we sat in the bay-window at Crabb Cot, at

which place we were staying. _I_ was willing enough to go to London;

liked the prospect beyond everything; but he was not well, and I thought

of the trouble to him.

"Of course, sir, if you consider it necessary we should be there.

But----"

"Now, Johnny Ludlow, I have told you my decision," he interrupted,

cutting me short in all the determination of his squeaky little voice.

"You go with me to London, sir, and we start on Monday morning next; and

I dare say we shall be kept there a week. I know what lawyers are."

This happened when I came of age, twenty-one; but I should not be of age

as to my property for four more years: until then, Mr. Brandon remained

my arbitrary guardian and trustee, just as strictly as he had been.

Arbitrary so far as doing the right thing as trustee went, not suffering

me, or any one else, to squander a shilling. One small bit of property

fell to me now; a farm; and old Brandon was making as much legal

commotion over the transfer of it from his custody to mine, as though it

had been veined with gold. For this purpose, to execute the deeds of

transfer, he meant to take up his quarters in London, to be on the spot

with the lawyers who had it in hand, and to carry me up with him.

And what great events trivial chances bring about! Chances, as they are

called. These "chances" are all in the hands of one Divine Ruler, who

is ever shaping them to further His own wise ends. But for my going to

London that time and staying there--however, I'll not let the cat out of

the bag.

He stayed with us at Crabb Cot until the Monday, when we started for

London; the Squire and Tod coming to the station to see us off. Mr.

Brandon wore a nankeen suit, and had a green veil in readiness. A green

veil, if you'll believe me! The sun was under a cloud just then; had

been for the best part of the morning; but if it came out fiercely--Tod

threw up his arms behind old Brandon's back, and gave me a grin and a

whisper.

"I wouldn't be you for something, Johnny; he'll be taken for a lunatic."

"And mind you take care of yourself, sir," put in the Squire, to me.

"London is a dreadful place; full of temptations; and you are but an

inexperienced boy, Johnny. Be cautious and watchful, lad; don't pick up

any strange acquaintances in the streets; sharpers are on the watch to

get you into conversation, and then swindle you out of all the money in

your pockets. Be sure don't forget the little hamper for Miss Deveen;

and----"

The puffing of the engine, as we started, drowned the rest. We reached

Paddington, smoothly and safely--and old Brandon did not once put on the

veil. He took a cab to the Tavistock Hotel, and I another cab to Miss

Deveen's.

For she had asked me to stay with her. Hearing of my probable visit to

town through a letter of Helen Whitney's, she, ever kind, wrote at once,

saying, if I did go, I must make her house my home for the time, and

that it would be a most delightful relief to the stagnation she and Miss

Cattledon had been lately enjoying. Of course that was just her pleasant

way of putting it.

The house looked just as it used to look; the clustering trees of the

north-western suburb were as green and grateful to the tired eye as of

yore; and Miss Deveen, in grey satin, received me with the same glad

smile. I knew I was a favourite of hers; she once said there were few

people in the world she liked as well as she liked me--which made me

feel proud and grateful. "I should leave you a fortune, Johnny," she

said to me that same day, "but that I know you have plenty of your own."

And I begged her not to do anything of the kind; not to think of it:

she must know a great many people to whom her money would be a Godsend.

She laughed at my earnestness, and told me I should be unselfish to the

end.

We spent a quiet evening. The grey-haired curate, Mr. Lake, who had come

in the first evening I ever spent at Miss Deveen's, years ago, came in

again by invitation. "He is so modest," she had said to me, in those

long-past years, "he never comes without being invited:" and he was

modest still. His hair had been chestnut-coloured once; it was half

grey and half chestnut now; and his face and voice were gentle, and his

manners kindly. Cattledon was displaying her most gracious behaviour,

and thinnest waist; one of the roses I had brought up with the

strawberries was sticking out of the body of her green silk gown.

For at least half-a-dozen years she had been setting her cap at the

curate--and I think she must have been endowed with supreme patience.

"If you do not particularly want me this morning, Miss Deveen, I think

I will go over to service."

It was the next morning, and after breakfast. Cattledon had been

downstairs, giving the orders for dinner--and said this on her return.

Every morning she went through the ceremony of asking whether she was

wanted, before attiring herself for church.

"Not I," cried Miss Deveen, with a half-smile. "Go, and welcome,

Jemima!"

I stood at the window listening to the ting-tang: the bell of St.

Matthew's Church could be called nothing else: and watched her pick her

way across the road, just deluged by the water-cart. She wore a striped

fawn-coloured gown, cut straight up and down, which made her look all

the thinner, and a straw bonnet and white veil. The church was on

the other side of the wide road, lower down, but within view. Some

stragglers went into it with Cattledon; not many.

"Does it pay to hold the daily morning service?"

"Pay?" repeated Miss Deveen, looking at me with an arch smile. And I

felt ashamed of my inadvertent, hasty word.

"I mean, is the congregation sufficient to repay the trouble?"

"The congregation, Johnny, usually consists of some twenty people, a few

more, or a few less, as may chance; and they are all young ladies," she

added, the smile deepening to a laugh. "At least, unmarried ones; some

are as old as Miss Cattledon. Two of them are widows of thirty-five:

they are especially constant in attendance."

"They go after the curate," I said, laughing with Miss Deveen. "One year

when Mr. Holland was ill, down with us, he had to take on a curate, and

the young ladies ran after him."

"Yes, Johnny, the young ladies go after the curates; we have two of

them. Mr. Lake is the permanent curate; he has been here, oh, twelve or

thirteen years. He does the chief work, in the church and out of it; we

have a great many poor, as I think you know. The other curate is changed

at least every year, and is generally a young deacon, fresh from

college. Our Rector is fond of giving young men their title to orders.

The young fellow we have now is a nobleman's grandson, with more money

in his pocket to waste on light gloves and hair-wash than poor Mr. Lake

dare spend on all his living."

"Mr. Lake seems to be a very good man."

"A better man never lived," returned Miss Deveen warmly, as she got

up from the note she was writing, and came to my side. "Self-denying,

anxious, painstaking; a true follower of his Master, a Christian to

the very depths of his heart. He is one of those unobtrusive men whose

merits are kept hidden from the world in general, who are content to

work on patiently and silently in their path of duty, looking for no

promotion, no reward here, because it seems to lie so very far away

from their track."

"Is Mr. Lake poor?"

"Mr. Lake has just one hundred pounds a-year, Johnny. It was what Mr.

Selwyn offered him when he first came, and it has never been increased.

William Lake told me one day," added Miss Deveen, "that he thought the

hundred a-year riches then. He was not a very young man; turned thirty;

but his stipend in the country had been only fifty pounds a-year. To

have it doubled all at once, no doubt did seem like riches."

"Why does not the Rector raise it?"

"The Rector says he can't afford to do it. I believe Mr. Lake once

plucked up courage to ask him for a small increase: but it was of no

use. The living is worth six hundred a-year, out of which the senior

curate's stipend has to be paid; and Mr. Selwyn's family is expensive.

His two sons are just leaving college. So, poor Mr. Lake has just

plodded on with his hundred a-year, and made it do. The Rector wishes

he could raise it; he knows his worth. During this prolonged illness

of Mr. Selwyn's he has been most indefatigable."

"Is Mr. Selwyn ill?"

"Not very ill, but ailing. He has been so for two years. He generally

preaches on a Sunday morning, but that is about all the duty he has been

able to take. Mr. Lake is virtually the incumbent; he does everything,

in the church and out of it."

"Without the pay," I remarked.

"Without the pay, Johnny. His hundred a-year, however, seems to suffice

him. He never grumbles at it, never complains, is always contented and

cheerful: and no doubt will be contented with it to the end."

"But--if he has no more than that, and no expectation of more, how is

it that the ladies run after him? They can't expect him to marry upon

a hundred a-year."

"My dear Johnny, let a clergyman possess nothing but the white surplice

on his back, the ladies would trot at his heels all the same. It comes

naturally to them. They trust to future luck, you see; promotion is

always possible, and they reckon upon it. I'm sure the way Mr. Lake gets

run after is as good as a play. This young lady sends him a pair of

slippers, her own work; that one embroiders a cushion for him: Cattledon

painted a velvet fire-screen for him last year--'Oriental tinting.' You

never saw a screen so gorgeous."

"Do you think he has--has--any idea of Miss Cattledon?"

"Just as much as he has of me," cried Miss Deveen. "He is kind and

polite to her; as he is, naturally, to every one; but you may rely upon

it he never gave her a word or a look that would be construed into

anything warmer."

"How silly she must be!"

"Not more silly than the rest are. It is a mania, Johnny, and they

all go in for it. Jemima Cattledon--stupid old thing!--cherishes hopes

of Mr. Lake: a dozen others cherish the same. Most of them are worse

than she is, for they course about the parish after him all day long.

Cattledon never does that: with all her zeal, she does not forget that

she is a gentlewoman; she meets him here, at my house, and she goes to

church to see and hear him, but she does not race after him."

"Do you think he is aware of all this pursuit?"

"Well, he must be, in a degree; William Lake is not a simpleton. But the

very hopelessness of his being able to marry must in his mind act as a

counterbalance, and cause him to look upon it as a harmless pastime. How

could he think any one of them in earnest, remembering his poor hundred

pounds a-year?"

Thus talking, the time slipped on, until we saw the congregation coming

out of church. The service had taken just three-quarters-of-an-hour.

"Young Chisholm has been reading the prayers to-day; I am sure of that,"

remarked Miss Deveen. "He gabbles them over as fast as a parrot."

The ladies congregated within the porch, and without: ostensibly to

exchange compliments with one another; in reality to wait for the

curates. The two appeared together: Mr. Lake quiet and thoughtful; Mr.

Chisholm, a very tall, slim, empty-headed young fellow, smiling here,

and shaking hands there, and ready to chatter with the lot.

For full five minutes they remained stationary. Some important subject

of conversation had evidently been started, for they stood around Mr.

Lake, listening to something he was saying. The pew-opener, a woman in

a muslin cap, and the bell-ringer, an old man in a battered hat, halted

on the outskirts of the throng.

"One or other of those damsels is sure to invent some grave question

to discuss with him," laughed Miss Deveen. "Perhaps Betty Smith has

been breaking out again. She gives more trouble, with her alternate

repentings and her lapsings to the tap-room, than all the rest of the

old women put together."

Presently the group dispersed; some going one way, some another. Young

Chisholm walked off at a smart pace, as if he meant to make a round of

morning calls; the elder curate and Miss Cattledon crossed the road

together.

"His way home lies past our house," remarked Miss Deveen, "so that he

often does cross the road with her. He lives at Mrs. Topcroft's."

"Mrs. Topcroft's! What a curious name."

"So it is, Johnny. But she is a curiously good woman--in my opinion;

worth her weight in gold. Those young ladies yonder turn up their noses

at her, calling her a 'lodging-letter.' They are jealous; that's the

truth; jealous of her daughter, Emma Topcroft. Cattledon, I know, thinks

the young girl the one chief rival to be feared."

Mr. Lake passed the garden with a bow, raising his hat to Miss Deveen;

and Cattledon came in.

I went off, as quick as an omnibus could take me, to the Tavistock,

being rather behind time, and preparing for a blowing-up from Mr.

Brandon in consequence.

"Are you Mr. Ludlow, sir?" asked the waiter.

"Yes."

"Then Mr. Brandon left word that he was going down to Lincoln's Inn,

sir; and if he is not back here at one o'clock precisely, I was to say

that you needn't come down again till to-morrow morning at ten."

I went into the Strand, and amused myself with looking at the shops,

getting back to the hotel a few minutes after one. No; Mr. Brandon

had not come in. All I could do was to leave Miss Deveen's note of

invitation to dine with her--that day, or any other day that might be

more convenient, or every day--and tell the man to be sure to give it

him.

Then I went into the National Gallery, after getting some Bath buns at

a pastrycook's. It was between five and six when I returned to Miss

Deveen's. Her carriage had just driven up; she and Cattledon were

alighting from it.

"I have a little commission to do yet at one of the shops in the

neighbourhood, and I may as well go about it now," remarked Miss Deveen.

"Will you go with me, Johnny?"

Of course I said I would go; and Miss Cattledon was sent indoors to

fetch a small paper parcel that lay on the table in the blue room.

"It contains the patterns of some sewing silks that I want to get," she

added to me, as we stood waiting on the door-steps. "If----"

At that moment, out burst the ting-tang. Miss Deveen suddenly broke off

what she was saying, and turned to look at the church.

"Do they have service at this hour?" I asked.

"Hush, Johnny! That bell is not going for service. Some one must be

dead."

In truth, I heard that, even as she spoke. Three times three it struck

out, followed by the sharp, quick strokes.

"That's the passing-bell!" exclaimed Cattledon, coming quickly from the

hall with the little packet in her hand. "Who _can_ be dead? It hardly

rings out once in a year."

For, it appeared, the bell at St. Matthew's did not in general toll for

the dead: was not expected to do so. Our bell at Church Dykely rang for

any one who could pay for it.

Waiting there on the steps, we saw Mr. Lake coming from the direction

of the church. Miss Deveen walked down the broad path of her small

front-garden, and stood at the gate to wait for him.

"Who is it?" she asked.

"Oh, it is a grievous thing!" he cried, in answer, his gentle face pale,

his blue eyes suppressing their tears. "It is no other than my dear

Rector; my many years' friend!"

"The Rector!" gasped Miss Deveen.

"Indeed it is. The complaint he suffered from has increased its symptoms

lately, but no one thought of attaching to them the slightest danger. At

two o'clock to-day he sent for me, saying he felt very ill. I found him

so when I got there; ill, and troubled. He had taken a turn for the

worse; and death--death," added Mr. Lake, pausing to command his voice,

"was coming on rapidly."

Miss Deveen had turned as white as her point-lace collar.

"He was troubled, you say?" she asked.

"In such a case as this--meeting death face to face unexpectedly--it is

hardly possible not to be troubled, however truly we may have lived in

preparation for it," answered the sad, soft voice of the curate. "Mr.

Selwyn's chief perplexity lay in the fact that he had not settled his

worldly affairs."

"Do you mean, not made his will?"

"Just so," nodded Mr. Lake; "he had meant to do so, he said to me, but

had put it off from time to time. We got a lawyer in, and it was soon

done; and--and--I stayed on with him afterwards to the end."

"Oh dear, it is a piteous tale," sighed Miss Deveen. "And his wife and

daughters are away!"

"They went to Oxford last Saturday for a week; and the two sons are

there, as you know. No one thought seriously of his illness. Even this

morning, when I called upon him after breakfast, though he said he was

not feeling well, and did not look well, such a thing as danger never

occurred to me. And now he is dead!"

* * * * *

Never did a parson's death cause such a stir in a parish as poor Mr.

Selwyn's did in this. A lively commotion set in. People flew about to

one another's houses like chips in a gale of wind. Not only was the

sorrow to himself to be discussed, but the uncertainty as to what would

happen now. Some six months previously a church not far off, St.

Peter's, which had rejoiced in three energetic curates, and as many

daily services, suddenly changed its incumbent; the new one proved to be

an elderly man with wife and children, who did all the duty himself, and

cut off the curates and the week-day prayers. What if the like calamity

should happen to St. Matthew's!

I was away most of the following day with Mr. Brandon, so was not in the

thick of it, but the loss was made up for in the evening.

"Of course it is impossible to say who will get the living," cried Mrs.

Jonas, one of the two widows already mentioned, who had been dining with

Miss Deveen. "I know who ought to--and that is our dear Mr. Lake."

"'Oughts' don't go for much in this world," growled Dr. Galliard, a

sterling man, in spite of his gruffness. He had recently brought

Cattledon out of a bilious attack, and ran in this evening to see

whether the cure lasted. "They go for nothing in the matter of Church

patronage," continued he. "If Lake had his deserts, he'd be made

incumbent of this living to-morrow: but he is as likely to get it as I

am to get the Lord Chancellor's seals."

"Who would have done as Mr. Lake has done--given himself up solely and

wholly to the duties of the church and the poor, for more years than I

can count?" contended Mrs. Jonas, who was rich and positive, and wore

this evening a black gauze dress, set off with purple grapes, and a

spray of purple grapes in her black hair. "I say the living is due to

him, and the Lord Chancellor ought to present him with it."

Dr. Galliard gave a short laugh. He was a widower, and immensely

popular, nearly as much so as Mr. Lake. "Did you ever know a curate

succeed to a living under the circumstances?" he demanded. "The Lord

Chancellor has enough friends of his own, waiting to snap up anything

that falls; be sure of that, Mrs. Jonas."

"Some dean will get it, I shouldn't wonder," cried Cattledon. For at

this time we were in the prime old days when a Church dignitary might

hold half-a-dozen snug things, if he could drop into them.

"Just so; a dean or some other luminary," nodded the doctor. "It is the

province of great divines to shine like lights in the world, and of

curates to toil on in obscurity. Well--God sees all things: and what is

wrong in this world may be set right in the next."

"You speak of the Lord Chancellor," quietly put in Miss Deveen: "the

living is not in his gift."

"Never said it was--was speaking generally," returned the doctor. "The

patron of the living is some other great man, nobleman, or what not,

living down in the country."

"In Staffordshire, I think," said Miss Deveen, with hesitation, not

being sure of her memory. "He is a baronet, I believe; but I forget his

name."

"All the same, ma'am: there's no more chance for poor Lake with him than

with the Lord Chancellor," returned Dr. Galliard. "Private patrons are

worse beset, when a piece of preferment falls in, than even public

ones."

"Suppose the parish were to get up a petition, setting forth Mr. Lake's

merits and claims, and present it to the patron?" suggested Mrs. Jonas.

"Not, I dare say, that it would be of much use."

"Not the slightest use; you may rely upon that," spoke the doctor, in

his decisive way. "Lake's best chance is to get taken on by the new man,

and stand out for a higher salary."

Certainly it seemed to be his best and only chance of getting any good

out of the matter. But it was just as likely he would be turned adrift.

The next day we met Mrs. Jonas in the King's Road. She had rather a down

look as she accosted Miss Deveen.

"No one seems willing to bestir themselves about a petition; they say

it is so very hopeless. And there's a rumour abroad that the living is

already given away."

"To whom is it given?" asked Miss Deveen.

"Well, not to a Very Reverend Dean, as Miss Cattledon suggested last

night, but to some one as bad--or good: one of the Canons of St. Paul's.

I dare say it's true. How hard it is on Mr. Lake! How hard it must seem

to him!"

"He may stay here as curate, then."

"Never you expect that," contended Mrs. Jonas, her face reddening with

her zeal. "These cathedral luminaries have invariably lots of their own

circle to provide for."

"Do you not think it will seem hard on Mr. Lake?" I said to Miss Deveen,

as we left the little widow, and walked on.

"I do, Johnny Ludlow. I do think he ought to have it; that in right

and justice no one has so great a claim to it as he," she impressively

answered. "But, as Dr. Galliard says, 'oughts' go for nothing in Church

patronage. William Lake is a good, earnest, intellectual man; he has

grown grey in the service of the parish, and yet, now that the living

is vacant, he has no more chance of it than that silly young Chisholm

has--not half as much, I dare say, if the young fellow were only in

priest's orders. It is but a common case: scores of curates who have to

work on, neglected, to their lives' end could testify to it. Here we

are, Johnny. This is Mrs. Topcroft's."

Knocking at the house-door--a small house standing ever so far back from

the road--we were shown by a young servant into a pleasant parlour. Emma

Topcroft, a merry, bright, laughing girl, of eighteen or nineteen, sat

there at work with silks and black velvet. If I had the choice given me

between her and Miss Cattledon, thought I, as Mr. Lake seems to have, I

know which of the two I should choose.

"Mamma is making a rice-pudding in the kitchen," she said, spreading her

work out on the table for Miss Deveen to see.

"You are doing it very nicely, Emma. And I have brought you the fresh

silks. I could not get them before: they had to send the patterns into

town. Is the other screen begun?"

"Oh yes; and half done," answered Emma, briskly, as she opened the

drawer of a-work-table, and began unfolding another square of velvet

from its tissue paper. "I do the sober colours in both screens first,

and leave the bright ones till last. Here's the mother."

Mrs. Topcroft came in, turning down her sleeves at the wrist; a little

woman, quite elderly. I liked her the moment I saw her. She was homely

and motherly, with the voice and manners of a lady.

"I came to bring Emma the silks, and to see how the work was getting

on," said Miss Deveen as she shook hands. "And what a grievous thing

this is about Mr. Selwyn!"

Mrs. Topcroft lifted her hands pityingly. "It has made Mr. Lake quite

ill," she answered; "I can see it. And"--dropping her voice--"they say

there will be little, or nothing, for Mrs. Selwyn and the children."

"Yes, there will; though perhaps not much," corrected Miss Deveen. "Mrs.

Selwyn has two hundred a-year of her own. I happen to know it."

"I am very thankful to hear that: we were fearing the worst. I wonder,"

added Mrs. Topcroft, "if this will take Mr. Lake from us?"

"Probably. We cannot tell yet. People are saying he ought to have the

living if it went by merit: but there's not any hope of that."

"Not any," acquiesced Mrs. Topcroft, shaking her head. "It does seem

unjust: that a clergyman should wear out all his best days toiling for

a church, and be passed over at last as not worth a consideration."

"It is the way of the world."

"No one knows his worth," went on Mrs. Topcroft, "So patient, so good,

so self-denying; and so anxious for the poor and sick, and for all the

ill-doers who seem to be going wrong. I don't believe there are many

men in this world so good as he. All he can scrape and save out of his

narrow income he gives away, denying himself necessaries to be able to

do it: Mr. Selwyn, you know, has given nothing. It has been said he

grudged even the communion money."

That was Mrs. Topcroft's report of Mr. Lake; and she ought to know.

He had boarded with her long enough. He had the bedroom over the best

parlour; and the little den of a back-parlour was given over to his own

use, in which he saw his parishioners and wrote his sermons.

"They come from the same village in the West of England," said Miss

Deveen to me as we walked homewards. "Mr. Lake's father was curate of

the place, and Mrs. Topcroft's people are the doctors: her brothers are

in practice there now. When she was left a widow upon a very slender

income, and settled down in this little house, Mr. Lake came to board

with her. He pays a guinea a-week only; but Mrs. Topcroft has told me

that it pays her amply, and she could not have got along without it.

The housekeeping is, of necessity, economical: and that suits the

pocket on both sides."

"I like Mrs. Topcroft. And she seems quite a lady, though she is poor."

"She is quite a lady, Johnny. Her husband was a civil engineer, very

clever: but for his early death he might have become as renowned as his

master, Sir John Rennie. The son; he is several years older than Emma;

is in the same profession, steady and diligent, and he gains a fair

salary now, which of course helps his mother. He is at home night and

morning."

"Do you suppose that Mr. Lake thinks of Emma?"

Miss Deveen laughed--as if the matter were a standing joke in her mind.

"I do not suppose it, Johnny. I never saw the smallest cause to lead me

to suppose it: she is too much of a child. Such a thing never would have

been thought of but for the jealous suspicions of the parish--I mean of

course our young ladies in it. Because Emma Topcroft is a nice-looking

and attractive girl, and because Mr. Lake lives in her companionship,

these young women must needs get up the notion. And they despise the

Topcrofts accordingly, and turn the cold shoulder on them."

It had struck me that Emma Topcroft must be doing those screens for Miss

Deveen. I asked her.

"She is doing them for me in one sense, Johnny," was the answer. "Being

an individual of note, you see"--and Miss Deveen laughed again--"that

is, my income being known to be a good one, and being magnified by the

public into something fabulous, I have to pay the penalty of greatness.

Hardly a week passes but I am solicited to become the patroness of some

bazaar, not to speak of other charities, or at least to contribute

articles for sale. So I buy materials and get Emma Topcroft to convert

them into nicknacks. Working flowers upon velvet for banner-screens,

as she is doing now; or painting flowers upon cardboard for baskets or

boxes, which she does nicely, and various other things. Two ends are

thus served: Emma makes a pretty little income, nearly enough for her

clothes, and the bazaars get the work when it is finished, and sell it

for their own benefit."

"It is very good of you, Miss Deveen."

"_Good!_ Nay, don't say that, Johnny," she continued, in a reproving

tone. "Those whom Heaven has blessed with ample means must remember that

they will have to render an account of their stewardship. Trifles, such

as these, are but odds and ends, not to be thought of, beside what I

ought to do--and try to do."

That same evening Mr. Lake came in, unexpectedly. He called to say

that the funeral was fixed for Saturday, and that a portion of the

burial-service would be read in the church here, before starting for

the cemetery: Mrs. Selwyn wished it so.

"I hear that the parish began to indulge a hope that you would be

allowed to succeed Mr. Selwyn," Miss Deveen observed to him as he was

leaving; "but----"

"I!" he exclaimed, interrupting her in genuine surprise, a transient

flush rising to his face. "What, succeed to the living! How could any

one think of such a thing for a moment? Why, Miss Deveen, I do not

possess any interest: not the slightest in the world. I do not even know

Sir Robert Tenby. It is not likely that he has ever heard my name."

"Sir Robert Tenby!" I cried, pricking up my ears. "Is Sir Robert Tenby

the patron?"

"Yes. His seat is in Worcestershire?"

"Do you know him, Johnny?" asked Miss Deveen.

"A little; not much. Bellwood is near Crabb Cot. I used often to see his

wife when she was Anne Lewis: we were great friends. She was a very nice

girl."

"A _girl_, Johnny! Is she younger than he is?"

"Young enough to be his daughter."

"But I was about to say," added Miss Deveen to the curate, "that I fear

there can be no chance for you, if this report, that the living is

already given away, be correct. I wish it had been otherwise."

"There could be no chance for me in any case, dear Miss Deveen; there's

no chance for any one so unknown and obscure as I am," he returned,

suppressing a sigh as he shook her hand. "Thank you all the same for

your kind wishes."

How long I lay awake that night I don't care to recall. An extraordinary

idea had taken possession of me. If some one would only tell Sir Robert

Tenby of the merits of this good man, he might be so impressed as to

give him the living. We were not sure about the Canon of St. Paul's: he

might be a myth, as far as our church went.

Yes, these ideas were all very well; but who would presume to do it? The

mice, you know, wanted to bell the cat, but none of them could be got to

undertake the task.

Down I went in the morning to Mr. Brandon as soon as breakfast was over.

I found him in his sitting-room at _his_ breakfast: dry toast, and tea

without milk; a yellow silk handkerchief thrown cornerwise over his

head, and his face looking green. He had a bilious attack coming on, he

said, and thought he had taken a slight cold.

Now I don't want to disparage Mr. Brandon's merits. In some things he

was as good as gold. But when he fell into these fanciful attacks he was

not practically worth a rush. It was hardly a propitious moment for the

scheme I had in my head; but, unfortunately, there was no time to lose:

I must speak then, or not at all. Down I sat, and told my tale. Old

Brandon, sipping his tea by spoonfuls, listened, and stared at me with

his little eyes.

"And you have been getting up in your brain the Utopian scheme that

Sir Robert Tenby would put this curate into the living! and want me to

propose it to him! Is _that_ what you mean, young man?"

"Yes, sir. Sir Robert would listen to you. You are friendly with him,

and he is in town. Won't you, please, do it?"

"Not if I know it, Johnny Ludlow. Solicit Robert Tenby to give the

living to a man I never heard of: a man I know nothing about! What

notions you pick up!"

"Mr. Lake is so good and so painstaking," I urged. "He has been working

all these years----"

"You have said all that before," interrupted old Brandon, shifting the

silk handkerchief on his head more to one side. "_I_ can't answer for

it, you know. And, if I could, I should not consider myself justified

in troubling Sir Robert."

"What I thought was this, sir: that, if he got to know all Mr. Lake is,

he might be _glad_ to give him the living: glad of an opportunity to

do a good and kind act. I did not think of your asking him to give the

living; only to tell him of Mr. Lake, and what he has done, and been. He

lives only in Upper Brook Street. It would not be far for you to go,

sir."

"I should not go if he lived here at the next door, Johnny Ludlow:

should not be justified in going on such an errand. Go yourself."

"I don't like to, sir."

"He wouldn't eat you; he'd only laugh at you. Robert Tenby would excuse

in a silly lad what he might deem impertinence from me. There, Johnny;

let it end."

And there it had to end. When old Brandon took up an idea he was hard as

adamant.

I stood at the hotel door, wishing I could screw up courage to call at

Sir Robert's, but shrinking from it terribly. Then I thought of poor Mr.

Lake, and that there was no one else to tell about him; and at last I

started, for Upper Brook Street.

"Is Lady Tenby at home?" I asked, when I got to the door.

"Yes, sir." And the man showed me into a room where Lady Tenby sat,

teaching her little boy to walk.

She was just the same kind and simple-mannered woman that she had been

as Anne Lewis. Putting both her hands into mine, she said how glad

she was to see me in London, and held out the child to be kissed. I

explained my errand, and my unwillingness to come; saying I could

venture to tell her all about it better than I could tell Sir Robert.

She laughed merrily. "He is not any more formidable than I am, Johnny;

he is not the least bit so in the world. You shall see whether he

is"--opening the door of the next room. "Robert," she called out in

glee, "Johnny Ludlow is here, and is saying you are an ogre. He wants

to tell you something, and can't pluck up courage to do it."

Sir Robert Tenby came in, the _Times_ in his hand, and a smile on

his face: the same kind, rugged, homely face that I knew well. He

shook hands with me, asking if I wanted his interest to be made

prime-minister.

And somehow, what with their kindness and their thorough, cordial

homeliness, I lost my fears. In two minutes I had plunged into the tale,

Sir Robert sitting near me with his elbow on the table, and Anne beside

him, her quiet baby on her knee.

"I thought it so great a pity, sir, that you should not hear about Mr.

Lake: how hard he has worked for years, and what a good and self-denying

man he is," I concluded at last, after telling what Miss Deveen thought

of him, and what Mrs. Topcroft said. "Not, of course, that I could

presume to suggest such a thing, sir, as that you should bestow upon him

the living--only to let you know there was a man so deserving, if--if

it was not given already. It is said in the parish that the living is

given."

"Is this Mr. Lake a good preacher?" asked Sir Robert, when I paused.

"They say he is one of the best and most earnest of preachers, sir. I

have not heard him; Mr. Selwyn generally preached."

"Does he know of your application to me?"

"Why, no, Sir Robert, of course not! I could not have had the face to

tell any one I as much as wished to make it. Except Mr. Brandon. I spoke

to him because I wanted him to come instead of me."