“Position,” said Mab.
“But I have just said position. ‘A clergyman who has long held the—an appointment as curate in charge’—there, that is better—‘wishes to hear of a similar position in a small parish.’ I think that will do.”
“Isn’t there a Latin word? Locum something or other; would not that be more dignified?” said Mab.
“Locum tenens. I prefer English,” said Cicely; “and now I suppose we must say something about his opinions. Poor dear papa! I am sure I do not know whether he is High, or Low, or Broad.”
“Not Broad,” said Mab, pointedly; for she was very orthodox. “Say sound; I have often seen that, and it does not commit you to anything,—sound, but not extreme, like Miss Blandy’s clergyman.”
“‘Of sound, but not extreme principles,’” wrote Cicely. “That sounds a little strange, for you might say that a man who could not tell a lie, but yet did not mind a fib, was sound, but not extreme. ‘Church principles’—is that better? But I don’t like that either. Stop, I have it—‘He is a sound, but not extreme Churchman’—that is the very thing—‘and has much experience’ (Ah, poor papa!) ‘in managing a parish. Apply’—but that is another question. Where ought they to apply? We cannot give, I suppose, the full name and address here?”
“I wonder if any one will apply? But, Cicely, suppose all comes right, as I am sure it will, you may be deceiving some one, making them think—Here is the very person I want; and then how disappointed they will be!”
“Oh, if there is only their disappointment to think of! Mab, you must not think there is any reliance to be put on Mr. Mildmay. He meant it; yes, tears came into his eyes,” cried Cicely, with a look of gratitude and pleasure in her own. “But when he goes back among those Oxford men, those dons, do you think they will pay any attention to him? They will laugh at him; they will say he is a Quixote; they will turn it all into fun, or think it his folly.”
“Why should Oxford dons be so much worse than other men?” said Mab, surprised. “Papa is an Oxford man—he is not hard-hearted. Dons, I suppose, are just like other people?”
“No,” said Cicely, who was arguing against herself, struggling against the tide of fictitious hope, which sometimes threatened to carry her away. “They live by themselves among their books; they have nobody belonging to them; their hearts dry up, and they don’t care for common troubles. Oh, I know it: they are often more heathens than Christians. I have no faith in those sort of people. He will have a struggle with them, and then he will find it to be of no use. I am as sure as if it had happened already,” cried Cicely, her bright eyes sparkling indignant behind her tears.