The Vicar of Wrexhill

by Frances Milton Trollope

The poor girl turned her eyes from the window whence she saw her brother and Rosalind walking gaily and happily, as she thought, in search of the old pony, and hastened to take refuge in her dressing-room, now rendered almost sacred in her eyes by the pastoral visit she had that morning received there.

The following hour or two gave Fanny her first taste of martyrdom. She was, or at least had been, devotedly attached to her brother, and the knowing him to be so near, yet so distant from her, was terrible. Yet was she not altogether without consolation. She opened the volume, that volume that he had so lately interpreted to her (fearful profanation!) in such a manner as best to suit his own views, and by means of using the process he had taught her, though unconsciously perhaps, she contrived to find a multitude of texts, all proving that she and the vicar were quite right, and all the countless myriads who thought differently, quite wrong. Then followed a thanksgiving which might have been fairly expressed in such words as "I thank thee, I am not like other men!" and then, as the sweet summer air waved the acacias to and fro before her windows, and her young spirit, panting for lawns and groves, sunshine and shade, suggested the idea of her brother and Rosalind enjoying it all without her, her poetical vein came to her relief, and she sat down to compose a hymn, in which, after rehearsing prettily enough all the delights of summer rambles through verdant fields, for four stanzas, she completed the composition by a fifth, of which "sin," "begin," and "within," formed the rhymes.

This having recourse to "song divine" was a happy thought for her, inasmuch as it not only occupied time which must otherwise have hung with overwhelming weight upon her hands, but the employment soon conjured up, as she proceeded, the image of Mr. Cartwright, and the pious smile with which he would receive it from her hands, and the soft approval spoken more by the eyes than the lips, and the holy caress—such, according to his authority, as that with which angel meets angel in the courts of heaven.

All this was very pleasant and consoling to her feelings; and when her hymn was finished she determined to go down stairs, in order to sing it to some (hitherto) profane air, which she might select from among the songs of her sinful youth.

As she passed the mirror she again glanced at her disfigured little head; but at that moment she was so strong in "conviction," that, far from wishing to accommodate her new birth of coiffure to worldly eyes, she employed a minute or two in sedulously smoothing and controlling her rebellious tresses, and even held her head in stiff equilibrium to prevent their escape from behind her ears.

"Good and holy man!" she exclaimed aloud, as she gave a parting glance at the result of all these little pious coquetries. "How well I know what his kind words would be if he could see me now! Such" she added with a gentle sigh, "will I strive to be, though all the world should join together to persecute me for it."

While Mr. Cartwright's prettiest convert was thus employed, Miss Torrington and Charles Mowbray, far from being engaged in chasing a pony, or even in looking at the summer luxury of bloom which breathed around them as they pursued their way through the pleasure-grounds, were very gravely discussing the symptoms of her case.

"It is a joke, Rosalind, and nothing more," said the young man, drawing her arm within his. "I really can do nothing but laugh at such folly, and I beg and entreat that you will do the same."

"Then you think, of course, Mr. Mowbray, that I have been supremely absurd in sending you the summons I did?"

"Far, very far otherwise," he replied gravely. "It has shown me a new feature in your character, Miss Torrington, and one which not to admire would be a sin, worse even than poor Mr. Cartwright would consider your wearing these pretty ringlets, Rosalind."