"Still, you might house your spiritual adviser better, Hendle."
"I don't think so. I look after the poor in the parish, and as one of the churchwardens I see that the church is all right. If Leigh choses to live in this way I can't prevent him. He's quite happy so long as he has a bed and a fire and a roof, with bread and cheese and his beloved books. What is the use of my giving him money to buy more volumes?"
Carrington nodded comprehendingly. "I understand. There are some people you cannot help, however much you may wish to."
"Precisely," murmured the big man indolently. "Leigh knows that I am willing to do anything in reason, but that I don't hold with his wasting money on books. His time also. The parson is here to look after his cure of souls; not to encourage a selfish hobby. Leigh loves books and dreams books and lives books and would spend a fortune in buying books. There is nothing he would not do to purchase more."
"A kind of clerical Eugene Aram?"
"Oh, no," replied Rupert hastily. "Leigh would never do wrong even to gratify his craze for books. He is a gentle soul."
"A character at all events, if nothing else," observed the barrister dryly.
In response to Hendle's loud rapping on the rusty panels of the door with the knob of his walking stick a slovenly, fat, old female waddled into sight, wiping her hands on a coarse apron. Her stout looks were in direct contradiction to the lean appearance of the place; but, judging from her inflamed countenance, these might have been due to a constant consumption of beer. She was arrayed in a dingy cotton gown, so dirty that it was difficult to guess at its original color, and her gray hair was as dishevelled as her shoes and stockings were untidy. This frowzy lady, who answered to the odd name of Selina Jabber, received the visitors with a good-natured smile which twinkled all over her plump face.
"To think, sir, that you should find me like this before I'm smartened for the afternoon," she cried, volubly addressing Rupert; "but washing has to be done, say what you like, though I do say that the master don't give me more to do than my weakness can deal with."
Talking all the time, the housekeeper had conducted the amused men through an entrance hall, narrowed by books heaped on the oilcloth, through a passage lined with crowded shelves and into a large bare room which appeared to be built up of many volumes. The walls could not be seen for these, and they were also piled in little heaps on the uncarpeted floor. The only articles of furniture were a large round table covered with green baize, standing directly in front of the undraped window, and a chair before it in which Mr. Leigh sat with a heavy tome on his knee. In spite of the sunshine pouring in, the apartment looked bleak and dreary, as there was no fireplace and no adornments or comforts of any sort. The vicar, a tall, lean, dreamy man with an ascetic, clean-shaven face and calm blue eyes, raised his head in response to the continuous ding-dong of Mrs. Jabber's voice: