“So you see, Miss Seyton,” he had said, “we have not been quite idle in your absence.”
“Indeed,” said Virginia, smiling, “you seem to have done better without me.”
“No, Miss Seyton, whatever better things we may succeed in doing in Elderthwaite in the future, it is your doing that the wish to improve had been awakened.”
Virginia blushed at this magnificent compliment; but it was true. High principle, recommended by gentleness and humility, must in the end win its way.
These various changes formed a safe subject of conversation in a meeting that could not fail on many accounts to be trying, when Cheriton, as he came up to the vicarage, met Virginia going in there also. He did not want to talk about his own health or home difficulties, she could not fail to be conscious; but the parson was only restrained, or not restrained, by her presence from lamentations over Alvar’s succession, and looked unspeakably wicked when Cherry implied that they were getting on smoothly. So the new school came in handy, and Parson Seyton talked about a “Government grant,” and winked at Cherry over his shoulder.
“It’s all getting beyond me, Cherry,” he said; “I’m not the man for these new lights.”
“You’ll have to get a curate, parson,” said Cherry.
“Nay—nay!” said the parson sharply. “I’ll have no strangers prying into all our holes and corners, and raking out the dust. I don’t like curates—hate their long coats and long faces.”
“You might put in the advertisement ‘round and rosy preferred,’” said Cherry.
“Nay, nay, my lad; no curates for me, unless you will apply for the situation.”