"I cannot think," said the culprit, "why you dislike them so."
"It isn't that I dislike them exactly," said Horatia, considering; "but that there is something about them that I don't like. Even Mr. Keble, although he lives in the country and writes poetry, can't be as harmless as he seems, or they would not all pay him such deference. I have nothing against Mr. Newman and Mr. Froude; in fact I liked Mr. Froude when you brought him out here, which is more than I could ever say about Mr. Dormer. He can make himself very charming, but he's steel underneath, I'm quite certain.... Yes, they are all different, and yet they are alike. They are only clergymen, as Papa is, but at his age they won't be in the least like him. For one thing they won't be half as nice. There is something about them that makes me shiver. They are too absolute. I have the feeling that they will change you, that they are changing you. O, I can't explain it; but I know what I mean—and, Tristram, I could not bear that you should be different from what you are?"
She looked at him directly, earnestly, like a child pleading that something it likes may not be taken away from it, and never noticed her companion turn suddenly rather white.
"Horatia, if you——" he began, and suddenly the Rector's voice cut through his own—"What are you two discussing so warmly that you haven't heard the dinner-bell?" it said, coming before its owner as he emerged through the drawing-room window. "It's long after half-past five. Tristram, my dear fellow, I am very glad to see you. You are staying, of course?"
And after a barely perceptible pause the young man got up and said that he was.
CHAPTER II
(1)
"Papa has really no right to be hungry," observed Miss Grenville as they sat down to table. "Saturday, you know, was our annual village feast, and he acknowledges that he is obliged to eat a great deal on that occasion."
"How did it go off, Rector?" asked the guest.
"Oh, quite successfully," replied Mr. Grenville, carving a leg of mutton. "There was a good deal to eat, I must admit. I left, as I always do, before the dancing; but not before I heard a swain (I think it was one of Farmer Wilson's men) assuring his inamorata that he would kiss her if she wished it."