'Then what do you think right?'
'What is best for you and Gerald?' he answered, with the hardness of tone that was only pain; 'you are my trust.'
'Never so as to fetter a priest from higher duties,' said Cherry. 'Suppose this was Albertstown.'
Somehow her odd tone of consternation was a pleasure to Clement; he smiled and said, 'Never mind, that's not the question; though I suppose this is a more perplexing one, as it leaves a choice, or the semblance of one,' and he sighed.
'You know Dr. May said Gerald ought to have constant attention from a London surgeon. Would the house be healthy for him? Do you know it?'
'O yes! We choir boys used often to be entertained there. We could play at cricket in the garden, and thought it paradise. It is an island of the old London before the fire, in a quiet street all warehouses; nothing newer than Queen Anne's time; delightful to us, but I don't know how it would seem to you after this place.'
'This place! I liked it when he was here, but now it is only a vast desolation. Everything is that indeed; but you see, I never had roots here, like him. What should you do with it?'
'I don't see why Bill Harewood should not take the living. He is older than I was when first I came here; he makes good way with the people—better than I do with many—and he ought to have a parish that would leave him a margin of leisure—besides Robina.'
Cherry clapped her hands. 'Well done, Bobbie! She has actually earned her promotion. Even you, reluctantly as it came out, allow that she is cut out for a clergyman's wife.'
He smiled. 'Well, I allow that she is worth the most to the parish of all of you, and that it would be a cruel pity to take her away.'