Concerning Isabel Carnaby

by Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler

"Oh, Paul, how good you are!"

"You see, even if I stayed on at Oxford and took my degree and went to the Bar, it would be ages before I could earn anything; and I feel I mustn't waste any more time. But I shall write articles and things for magazines in the intervals of teaching young Esdaile his A,B,C, and I hope in time to make a good thing out of my pen."

"But do you think you will like teaching?" asked Joanna.

"I can't say anything about that at present. Just now my idea of teaching anybody anything is to say it over and over again in the same words, but louder and louder each time, with the addition of a few epithets hurled at the stupidity of the pupil. But I daresay I shall warm to the work in time; and as what must be must be, there is no good talking any more about it."

So Paul Seaton renounced his heart's desire, and gave up his youthful dreams. It was no light matter to him thus to forego all the things that he had longed for from his youth up; but he was hopeful enough to believe that if a man can succeed in anything he can succeed in everything, and that success is a matter of character rather than a question of circumstance. Therefore Paul made up his mind that if he could not distinguish himself in law, he would distinguish himself in letters, and would be a great author as he might not be a great advocate; and in the meantime he worked and waited, and did all in his power to lighten the cloud which had fallen upon the little home at Chayford.

And things pressed heavily there at first, before Paul's salary had begun to come in, and before the necessary retrenchments had been put into practice: for one cannot reconstruct the management of a household in a day. But it was better for the Seatons than it might otherwise have been, because of that wonderful Methodist freemasonry.

"My husband and I want to know," said Mrs. Ford to the minister one day, "if—instead of renting another house, as you intend—you will do us the favour of living in our little cottage. We do not need it, as long as our son remains unmarried; and we should not like to let it, as Chayford Cottage has never been let. So it really will be a kindness to us if you and Mrs. Seaton will keep it warm for us till such time as we want it for Edgar and his wife."

The minister grasped her hand. "You are very good to us," he said, and his voice shook, "but I hardly like to take advantage of such generosity."

"Let me assure you that such a feeling is quite beside the mark. It is really far better for a house to be inhabited by gentlepeople than by caretakers; and yet I should not like to have any one living there with whom I was not on terms of the most intimate friendship. So you are really conferring the favour on us."

Mr. Seaton smiled. "There was once another great woman who builded a little chamber in the wall that a prophet might abide there, and who was careful for him with all care. And we do not read that the prophet's pride rebelled against the sense of obligation, nor that he hesitated to take a favour at the great woman's hands because she happened to be rich and he was poor."