“He is very much out of place as a parson.”
“Granted. I suspect he thinks so himself.”
“Men usually feel that they cannot take orders without some stronger impulse than a mere desire to gain a livelihood.”
“I have never talked to him on the matter; but perhaps he had no great choice of a career.”
“He might have gone into the army, I suppose? He'd have found scores of creatures there with about his own measure of intelligence.”
“I fancied you liked George, Marion,” said the other. And there was something half tender, half reproachful, in her tone.
“I liked him so far, that it was a boon to find anything so like a gentleman in this wild savagery; but if you mean that I would have endured him in town, or would have noticed him in society, you are strangely mistaken.”
“Poor George!” and there was something comic in her glance as she sighed these words out.
“There; you have won,” said Marion, throwing down her mallet. “I must go and hear what Temple is going to do. It would be a great blessing to see a man of the world and a man of mark in this dreary spot, and I hope papa will not lose the present opportunity to secure him.”
“Are you alone, Nelly?” said her eldest brother, some time after, as he came up, and found her sitting, lost in thought, under a tree.