CHAPTER V
Andy sat in his study, endeavouring to prepare a Sunday-morning sermon that should justify the high opinion of his preaching which had led Mr. Stamford to present him to the living of Gaythorpe.
A light rain fell outside and a scent of the honeysuckle—it being now June—came through the open window; but Andy was not yet aware that every wayside flower preaches the finest sermon man can preach to man, and says, more convincingly than any parson ever could, ‘God so loved the world.’
The new Vicar, therefore, had taken in turn such topics as the Origin of Evil and the Reason for Free Will, handling them with a courage perfectly remarkable when you consider how the saints of all ages have hesitated afraid before them. This morning, however, having settled these questions, he cast about him for something else which should be at once striking and profound, and it was some time before he noticed a gradually increasing noise in the other part of the house.
Even when he did become aware of it he brushed it aside from his mind and went peacefully on, reconciling the doctrine of evolution with the second chapter of Genesis. At last, however, the study door was burst open in a manner that even a poet could not ignore, and Mrs. Jebb paused, inarticulate with some unknown emotion, upon the threshold.
“Not the boiler burst again?” exclaimed Andy, who had already learned some of the trials of a housekeeper.
Mrs. Jebb swallowed, blinked, and demanded—
“Did you give that—female—permission to clean my furniture?”
It was a long way from the dawn of the world to Mrs. Simpson’s sideboard, and for the moment Andy felt nonplussed; then he remembered.