“Who would have done as Mr. Lake has done—given himself up solely and wholly to the duties of the church and the poor, for more years than I can count?” contended Mrs. Jonas, who was rich and positive, and wore this evening a black gauze dress, set off with purple grapes, and a spray of purple grapes in her black hair. “I say the living is due to him, and the Lord Chancellor ought to present him with it.”
Dr. Galliard gave a short laugh. He was a widower, and immensely popular, nearly as much so as Mr. Lake. “Did you ever know a curate succeed to a living under the circumstances?” he demanded. “The Lord Chancellor has enough friends of his own, waiting to snap up anything that falls; be sure of that, Mrs. Jonas.”
“Some dean will get it, I shouldn’t wonder,” cried Cattledon. For at this time we were in the prime old days when a Church dignitary might hold half-a-dozen snug things, if he could drop into them.
“Just so; a dean or some other luminary,” nodded the doctor. “It is the province of great divines to shine like lights in the world, and of curates to toil on in obscurity. Well—God sees all things: and what is wrong in this world may be set right in the next.”
“You speak of the Lord Chancellor,” quietly put in Miss Deveen: “the living is not in his gift.”
“Never said it was—was speaking generally,” returned the doctor. “The patron of the living is some other great man, nobleman, or what not, living down in the country.”
“In Staffordshire, I think,” said Miss Deveen, with hesitation, not being sure of her memory. “He is a baronet, I believe; but I forget his name.”
“All the same, ma’am: there’s no more chance for poor Lake with him than with the Lord Chancellor,” returned Dr. Galliard. “Private patrons are worse beset, when a piece of preferment falls in, than even public ones.”
“Suppose the parish were to get up a petition, setting forth Mr. Lake’s merits and claims, and present it to the patron?” suggested Mrs. Jonas. “Not, I dare say, that it would be of much use.”