“Don't call them absurd,” said Reginald, “indeed I can enter into them perfectly well. I don't know them, perhaps, in my own person; but I can perfectly understand the repugnance, the distress—”
“The words are too strong,” said Phœbe, “not so much as that; the—annoyance, perhaps, the nasty disagreeable struggle with one's self and one's pride; as if one were better than other people. I dislike myself, and despise myself for it; but I can't help it. We have so little power over ourselves.”
“I hope you will let my sister do what she can to deliver you,” said Reginald; “Ursula is not like you; but she is a good little thing, and she is able to appreciate you. I was to tell you she had been called suddenly off to the Dorsets', with whom my father and she have gone to pass the night—to meet, I believe, a person you know.”
“Oh, Clarence Copperhead; he is come then? How odd it will be to see him here. His mother is nice, but his father is——Oh, Mr. May! if you only knew the things people have to put up with. When I think of Mr. Copperhead, and his great, ugly, staring wealth, I feel disposed to hate money—especially among Dissenters. It would be better if we were all poor.”
Reginald said nothing; he thought so too. In that case there would be a few disagreeable things out of a poor clergyman's way, and assaults like that of Northcote upon himself would be impossible; but he could scarcely utter these virtuous sentiments.
“Poverty is the desire of ascetics, and this is not an ascetic age,” he said at length, with a half-laugh at himself for his stiff speech.
“You may say it is not an ascetic age; but yet I suppose the Ritualists——. Perhaps you are a Ritualist yourself, Mr. May? I know as little personally about the church here, as you do about Salem Chapel. I like the service—so does papa—and I like above all things the independent standing of a clergyman; the feeling he must have that he is free to do his duty. That is why I like the church; for other things of course I like our own body best.”
“I don't suppose such things can be argued about, Miss Beecham. I wish I knew something of my father's new pupil. I don't like having a stranger in the house; my father is fond of having his own way.”
“It is astonishing how often parents are so,” said Phœbe, demurely; “and the way they talk of their experience! as if each new generation did not know more than the one that preceded it.”
“You are pleased to laugh, but I am quite in earnest. A pupil is a nuisance. For instance, no man who has a family should ever take one. I know what things are said.”