‘And,’ she said, feeling for his sensitive shyness, ‘no one else need know it—at least—’
‘I should not wish to conceal it from the children,’ he answered, with his scrupulous candour. He was supine when thought more ill of than he deserved, but he always defended himself from undeserved credit.
‘Whom do you think I have for a candidate?’ said Mr. Dusautoy that evening.
‘Another now! I thought you were talking to Mr. Kendal about the onslaught on the Pringle pew.’
‘What do you think of my churchwarden himself?’
‘You don’t mean that he has never been confirmed!’
‘So he tells me. He went out to India young, and was never in the way of such things. Well, it will be a great example.’
‘Take care what you do. He will never endure having it talked of.’
‘I think he has made up his mind, and is above all nonsense. I am sure it is well that I need not examine him. I should soon get beyond my depth.’
‘And what good did his depth ever do to him,’ indignantly cried Mrs. Dusautoy, ‘till that dear good wife of his took him in hand? Don’t you remember what a log he was when first we came—how I used to say he gave you subscriptions to get rid of you.’