“Are you fond of rectories?” said her kind companion. “But you might see a great many without seeing such a spot as Fanshawe Regis. It is a pretty house, and a good house; and, my dear, you can’t think what a pleasure it is to me to think that when we go, it will pass to my John.”
“Oh!” said Kate; and then, after a pause, “Has he quite made up his mind to be a clergyman?” she said.
“Yes, indeed, I hope so,” said his unsuspecting mother. “He is so well qualified for it. Not all the convenience in the world would have made me urge him to it, had I not seen he was worthy. But he was made to be a clergyman—even the little you have seen of him, my dear——”
“You forget I have only seen him to-day,” said Kate; “and then I don’t know much about clergymen,” she went on, demurely. “I have always thought, you know, they were people to be very respectful of—one can’t laugh with a clergyman as one does with any other man; indeed I have never cared for clergymen—please don’t be angry—they have always seemed so much above me.”
“But a good man does not think himself above any one,” said Mrs Mitford, falling into the snare. “The doctor might stand upon his dignity, if any one should; but yet, Kate, my dear, he was quite content to marry an ignorant little woman like me.”
“Do you think clergymen ought to marry?” said Kate, with great solemnity, looking up in her face.
Mrs Mitford gave a great start, and fell back from her young companion’s side. “Kate!” she cried, “you never told me you were High Church!”
“Am I High Church? I don’t think so; but one has such an idea of a clergyman,” said Kate, “that he should be so superior to all that. I can’t understand him thinking of—a girl, or any such nonsense. I feel as if he ought to be above such things.”
“But, my dear, after all, a clergyman is but a man,” said Mrs Mitford, suddenly driven to confusion, and not knowing what plea to employ.