"... You were with me much down at H—— in the spring, and saw many of the ins and outs of a certain affair then going on in which I was personally interested, and which took up a large portion of my time; and I think I owe it to you, Charles, to let you know how to all that foolishness there came a finish. This 'excellent bachelor' is not to be spoilt by matrimony. She wouldn't have me. And so on, and so on. I spare you all particulars, and you see that I am alive to tell the tale. It made things a little difficult at H——. I got away as soon as I could and met with another curacy in this place, and I write to you on the evening of my arrival. It looks a cheerful, pretty little spot, but I haven't shaken down yet, and thoughts of H——, and of last May when you were with me, keep turning up in my mind to-night.
"My vicar seems all right. I thought it very decent of him to meet me himself at the station. He apologised for having insisted on an answer to his written question—was I a confirmed bachelor? The ladies of the parish were in favour of a celibate curate, he said, and he himself did not want to be bothered by a man who would be getting married directly, and going away. I told him there would not be any fear of misdemeanour of that kind with me.
"He brought me on here—well no, he didn't, that was what I wished him to do. He took me to the vicarage and gave me tea. His daughter gave it, rather. You'd like the daughter. Not very young, and not pretending to be; filled with good sense, a practical, companionable sort of body. She, too, was good enough to approve my estate of confirmed bachelorhood. She said they had found things work so much pleasanter on these lines. The last three of her father's curates had been devoted to the single life. I asked, for the sake of conversation, what had become of them, and she told me, without the change of a muscle of her face, that they had married. The vicar awoke to the subject of our conversation here, and said that they had married his three other daughters.
"'Jessica is the only one left me now,' he said.
"'Jessica must always be left or what will become of you?' the sensible young woman said.
"A great many women would have felt it a little awkward, but she was quite unembarrassed. She very kindly put on her hat to show me the way to my rooms. Even came in, and sat talking for an hour. She said quite naturally that the best thing a woman got out of advancing years was the possibility of making of a man a friend. She is thirty-five, and isn't ashamed of the fact. Altogether a refreshing woman.
"My rooms are not like those at H——. Do you remember that evening in May when your sister had been on the river with the Hysopps, and she and Tom and the mother came in, and they brought Mary? The moon was on the water, and we would not have in the lamps, but sat and talked in that light. Well, there's no river here, and the moon doesn't shine, and there are one or two other things missing! But Mrs Bust, my landlady—what a name!—appears a decent sort, and to judge by my supper to-night, an excellent cook.
"By the way, every available jug and jar and glass is filled with chrysanthemums. No less than seven ladies, whose names she gave me, had brought up bunches during the day, Mrs Bust said.
"This really looks extremely kind of the people. I thought it such a pretty way of welcoming a stranger....