Augustine had a lantern, and was waiting with it at the front door for her charge; so there was no reason for Mr. David to offer his protection. He and Mr. Spangler went away together, and David twisted his head around several times to watch the spark of light jolting up the hill towards the burial-ground and the Stuffed-Animal House. When the two men said good-night, Mr. Spangler had a glimpse of a quickly opened door and heard an eager voice—"Come in, dear brother. Did you have a delightful evening?"
"How pleasing to be welcomed so affectionately!" said the Reverend Mr. Spangler to himself.
III
The gentle warmth of that welcome lingered persistently in Mr. Spangler's mind.
"I suspect that she kissed him," he said to himself; and a little dull red crept into his cheeks.
Miss Ellen, dark-eyed, gentle, with soft lips, made Mr. Spangler suddenly think of a spray of heliotrope warm in the sunshine. "That is a very poetical thought," he said, with a sense of regret that it probably could not be utilized in a sermon. But when he entered the study he banished poetry, because he had a letter to write. It was in answer to an offer of the secretaryship of a church publishing-house in a Western city.
Dr. Lavendar, it appeared, had mentioned Mr. Spangler's name to one Mr. Horatius Brown, stating that in his opinion Mr. Spangler was just the man for the place—"exact, painstaking, conscientious," Mr. Brown quoted in his letter; but forbore to add Dr. Lavendar's further remark that Mr. Spangler would never embarrass the management by an original idea. "He'll pick up pins as faithfully as any man I know," said Dr. Lavendar, "and that's what you religious newspapers want, I believe?" Mr. Spangler was not without a solemn pride in being thus sought out by the ecclesiastical business world, especially when he reflected upon the salary which Mr. Brown was prepared to offer; but acceptance was another matter. To leave his high calling for mere business! A business, too, which would involve exact hours and steady application;—Compared with that, and with the crude, smart bustle of the Western city, the frugal leisure of his placid days in Mercer assumed in his mind the sanctity of withdrawal from the world, and his occasional preaching took on the glow of missionary zeal. "No," said Mr. Spangler, "mercenary considerations do not move me a hair's-breadth." Mr. Spangler did not call his tranquil life in Mercer, his comfortable old house, his good cook, his old friends, his freedom from sermon-writing, mercenary considerations. On the contrary, he assured himself that his "circumstances were far from affluent; but I must endure hardness!" he used to add cheerfully. And very honestly his declination seemed to him something that Heaven would place to his credit. So he wrote to the publishing-house that he had given the proposition his most prayerful consideration, but that he believed that it was his duty to still labor at the sacred desk—and duty was, he hoped, the watchword of his life. And he was Mr. Brown's "obedient servant and brother in Christ—Augustus Spangler."
Then he settled down in Dr. Lavendar's armchair by the fire in the study; but he did not read the ecclesiastical paper which every week fed his narrow and sincere mind. Instead he wondered how often Dr. Lavendar called upon his female parishioners. Would twice in a fortnight be liable to be misunderstood? Mr. Spangler was terribly afraid of being misunderstood. Then he had a flash of inspiration: he ought, as rector, to visit the schools. That was only proper and could not possibly be misunderstood. "For an interest in educational affairs is part of a priest's duty," Mr. Spangler reflected.
If he was right, it must be admitted that Dr. Lavendar was very remiss. So far as we children could remember, he had never visited Miss Ellen's school and listened to recitations and heard us speak our pieces. Whether that was because he did not care enough about us to come, or because he saw us at Collect class and Sunday-school and church, and in the street and at the post-office and at home, until he knew us all by heart, so to speak, may be decided one way or the other; but certainly when Mr. Spangler came, and sat through one morning, and told us stories, and said we made him think of a garden of rosebuds, and took up so much of Miss Ellen's time that she could not hear the mental arithmetic, it was impossible not to institute comparisons. Indeed, some hearts were (for the moment) untrue to Mr. David. When Miss Ellen called on us to speak our pieces, we were so excited and breathless that, for my part, I could not remember the first line of "Bingen on the Rhine," and had to look quickly into the Fourth Reader; but before I could begin, Lydia Wright started in with "Excelsior," and she got all the praise; though I'm sure I—well, never mind! But Dr. Lavendar wouldn't have praised one girl so that all the others wanted to scratch her! All that first half, the pupils, bending over their copy-books, writing, "Courtesy to inferiors is true gentility," glanced at the visitor sideways, and if they caught his eye, looked down, blushing to the roots of their hair—which was not frizzled, if you please, or hanging over their eyes like the locks of Skye-terriers, but parted and tied with a neat ribbon bow on the tops of all the small heads. But Mr. Spangler did not look often at the pupils; instead he conversed in a low voice with Miss Ellen. Nobody could hear what he said, but it must have been very interesting, for when Miss Ellen suddenly looked at the clock she blushed, and brought her hand hurriedly down on the bell on her desk. It was ten minutes after the hour for recess!