“You do the like of us great honour, Mr. Dale; take a chair. You call upon business?”
“Of which I apprised Mr. Avenel by letter.”
“My husband is very poorly.”
“A poor creature!” said John, feebly, and as if in compassion of himself. “I can’t get about as I used to do. But it ben’t near election time, be it, sir?”
“No, John,” said Mrs. Avenel, placing her husband’s arm within her own. “You must lie down a bit, while I talk to the gentleman.”
“I’m a real good Blue,” said poor John; “but I ain’t quite the man I was;” and leaning heavily on his wife, he left the room, turning round at the threshold, and saying, with great urbanity, “Anything to oblige, sir!”
Mr. Dale was much touched. He had remembered John Avenel the comeliest, the most active, and the most cheerful man in Lansmere; great at glee club and cricket (though then somewhat stricken in years), greater in vestries; reputed greatest in elections.
“Last scene of all,” murmured the parson; “and oh, well, turning from the poet, may we cry with the disbelieving philosopher, ‘Poor, poor humanity!’”
In a few minutes Mrs. Avenel returned. She took a chair at some distance from the parson’s, and resting one hand on the elbow of the chair, while with the other she stiffly smoothed the stiff gown, she said,—
“Now, sir.”