"Certainly, my love. Brother, have you got your thick kerchief in your pocket?"
"No," said the Vicar, "I have not, and I don't mean to have."
Commencement of a sore-throat lecture from the window, cut short by the Vicar, who says,—
"My dear, I shall be late if you don't come;" (jesuitically on his part, for he was going nowhere.)
So she comes accordingly, as sweet-looking an old maid as ever you saw in your life. People have no right to use up such beautiful women as governesses. It's a sheer waste of material. Miss Thornton had been a governess all her life; and now, at the age of five-and-forty, had come to keep her brother's house for him, add her savings to his, and put the finishingtouch on Mary's somewhat rough education.
"My love," said she, "I have brought you your gloves."
"Oh, indeed, Auntie, I won't wear them," said Mary. "I couldn't be plagued with gloves. Nobody wears them here."
"Mrs. Buckley wears them, and it would relieve my mind if you were to put them on, my dear. I fear my lady's end was accelerated by, unfortunately, in her last illness, catching sight of Lady Kate's hands after she had been assisting her brother to pick green walnuts."
Mary was always on the eve of laughing at these aristocratic recollections of her aunt; and to her credit be it said, she always restrained herself, though with great difficulty. She, so wildly brought up, without rule or guidance in feminine matters, could not be brought to comprehend that prim line-and-rule life, of which her aunt was the very impersonation. Nevertheless, she heard what Miss Thornton had to say with respect; and if ever she committed an extreme GAUCHERIE, calculated to set her aunt's teeth on edge, she always discovered what was the matter, and mended it as far as she was able.
They stood on the lawn while the glove controversy was going on, and a glorious prospect there was that bright spring morning. In one direction the eye was carried down a long, broad, and rich vale, intersected by a gleaming river, and all the way down set thick with hamlet, farm, and church. In the dim soft distance rose the two massive towers of a cathedral, now filling all the countryside with the gentle melody of their golden-toned bells, while beyond them, in the misty south, there was a gleam in the horizon, showing where the sky