"She shall pay for this!" whispered one of the little demons that nestled in the vicar's heart. "Stephen must absolve me of my promise for to-night; but if I do not keep it with him nobly on some future occasion, I will give him leave to tear in fragments the parchment which at this very moment is growing into a rod wherewith to scourge the insolence of this proud vixen."
It was probably not so much the failing to keep his promise with Corbold, which the late hour might readily excuse, as the displaying to his slave and curate that his power was not absolute, which galled him so severely. His wife and cousin, however, soon returned; they both looked placidly contented, as those do look, who, having had important business to transact, have done it well and thoroughly. Soon afterwards the numerous household were summoned to appear, and the labours of the day were closed with prayer, Mr. Hetherington uttering the extempore invocation, and the vicar pronouncing the blessing: an arrangement, by the way, approved by the master of Cartwright Park for three especial reasons. First, it gave to his establishment very greatly the effect of having a domestic chaplain at its head.
Secondly, it afforded an opportunity, which the worthy Mr. Hetherington never neglected, of calling down sundry especial blessings on the vicar's own particular head, and, which was perhaps more important still, of pronouncing a lofty eulogium on his transcendent virtues.
Thirdly, the having to rise from his knees and pronounce the final blessing, never failed to soothe his spirit with a delicious foreboding that he might one day do so likewise in his own cathedral, and from his own proper throne: this being an object of ambition to him as dear, or dearer still, than the possession of the precious will itself.
Rarely indeed did he seat himself in his own soft chair, in his own noble library, without seeing in his mind's eye a mitre, as distinctly visible as Macbeth's air-drawn dagger was to him; and the hope that this crowning blessing would one day fall upon his favoured head, not only cheered every waking, and often every sleeping hour, but made him so generously come forward upon all occasions when a penniless Whig was to be accommodated with a seat in a Parliament, or any other subscription set on foot to help the radical poor and needy into political power and place, that he was already considered in the high places as one of the most conscientious and right-minded clergymen within the pale of the Established Church, and almost supernaturally gifted (considering he was not a Roman Catholic priest) with the power of judging political characters according to their real value.
As soon as the prayers were ended, the blessing spoken, and the servants dismissed, Mr. Corbold, whose eyes had vainly wandered round the room in search of Helen, approached the vicar, and said in a very firm and intelligible tone, "I wish to speak to you, cousin Cartwright."
"Certainly!" replied his kinsman in a voice of the most cordial friendship. "Come into my library with me, cousin Stephen."
And into the library they went; and almost before the door was shut, Mr. Corbold exclaimed, "How am I to see Miss Helen, cousin Cartwright, if you have let her take herself off to bed?"
This very pertinent question was, however, only answered by another.
"Have you got the will, cousin Stephen?"