"Oh," said the Rector, with a heavy sigh. Suddenly he turned and faced Mrs. Faithful.
"How, may I ask you a question?"
"Certainly. Twenty, if you like."
"Why do you call your rooms by these strange and peculiar names?"
"It is a fashion of my own," was the quiet reply. "I find by long experience that it works well. The idea was first presented to me by one of my dearest friends who keeps a similar school near London; but I assure you, kinsman, we are not unhappy at Felicity. Far, far from that. When once we submit to the rules, which cannot be broken, we feel—both teachers and pupils—a wonderful sense of pleasure, the sort of pleasure, my dear Patrick, which does not belong to this cold earth. Now for you, I have prepared the best bedroom in the house. I call it the Chamber of Peace. The idea was given to me by that noble man, George Macdonald, who kept such a chamber in his lovely Palace at Bordighera. He kept it for the sick and suffering of body, but I keep it for the few I think worthy. Now, come, kinsman, into Confidence. There we can have our talk out."
Mrs. Faithful was dressed in dark grey, very soft in texture. She wore over her head of snow-white hair a little mobcap of finest muslin. She had a bow at her breast of pale, lilac ribbon, while a similar bow reposed on her white cap. The whole effect was most graceful and pretty. The woman herself was not handsome, but there was something marvellously reposeful about her. Her eyes seemed to look through you. Anything approaching to falsehood could not live in the room with Jane Faithful. In short, she was one of the most highly-esteemed characters in the whole of Lutterworth.
She took her kinsman now into the room she called Confidence. She herself took a hard chair, but placed the Rector in an easy one.
"Now, Patrick, begin at once," she said. "Tell your story and get it off your mind, but I had better say frankly and at once that I am not particularly pleased with the appearance of the young people you have just brought here. I presume you hope to place them under my roof?"
"I indeed trust you will take them, Jane," and then the poor Rector began his sorry tale. He left out nothing, he abbreviated nothing, he told the simple truth from beginning to end. Mrs. Faithful was not one to interrupt.
When the Rector had ceased speaking she said, "This is awful, truly awful. What a girl! What a girl!"