"The Miss Wentworths don't approve of memorial windows, Elsworthy," he said; "and, indeed, if you think it necessary to cut off one of the chief people in Carlingford by way of supplying St Roque's with a little painted glass—"
"No, sir—no, no, sir; you're too hard upon me—there wasn't no such meaning in my mind; but I don't make no question the ladies were pleased with the church," said Elsworthy, with the satisfaction of a man who had helped to produce an entirely triumphant effect. "I don't pretend to be a judge myself of what you call 'igh art, Mr Wentworth; but if I might venture an opinion, the altar was beautiful; and we won't say nothing about the service, considering, sir—if you won't be offended at putting them together, as one is so far inferior—that both you and me—"
Mr Wentworth laughed and moved off his chair. "We were not appreciated in this instance," he said, with an odd comic look, and then went off into a burst of laughter, which Mr Elsworthy saw no particular occasion for. Then he took up his glove, which he had taken off to write the note, and, nodding a kindly good-night to little Rosa, who stood gazing after him with all her eyes, went away to the Blue Boar. The idea, however, of his own joint performance with Mr Elsworthy not only tickled the Curate, but gave him a half-ashamed sense of the aspect in which he might himself appear to the eyes of matter-of-fact people who differed with him. The joke had a slight sting, which brought his laughter to an end. He went up through the lighted street to the inn, wishing the dinner over, and himself on his way back again to call at Mr Wodehouse's. For, to tell the truth, by this time he had almost exhausted Skelmersdale, and, feeling in himself not much different now from what he was when his hopes were still green, had begun to look upon life itself with a less troubled eye, and to believe in other chances which might make Lucy's society practicable once more. It was in this altered state of mind that he presented himself before his aunts. He was less self-conscious, less watchful, more ready to amuse them, if that might happen to be possible, and in reality much more able to cope with Miss Leonora than when he had been more anxious about her opinion. He had not been two minutes in the room before all the three ladies perceived this revolution, and each in her own mind attempted to account for it. They were experienced women in their way, and found a variety of reasons; but as none of them were young, and as people will forget how youth feels, not one of them divined the fact that there was no reason, but that this improvement of spirits arose solely from the fact that the Perpetual Curate had been for two whole days miserable about Skelmersdale, and had exhausted all his powers of misery—and that now youth had turned the tables, and he was still to see Lucy tonight.
CHAPTER VII.
"Your Rector is angry at some of your proceedings," said Miss Leonora. "I did not think a man of your views would have cared for missionary work. I should have supposed that you would think that vulgar, and Low-Church, and Evangelical. Indeed, I thought I heard you say you didn't believe in preaching, Frank?—neither do I, when a man preaches the Tracts for the Times. I was surprised to hear what you were doing at the place they call Wharfside."
"First let me correct you in two little inaccuracies," said Mr Wentworth, blandly, as he peeled his orange. "The Rector of Carlingford is not my rector, and I don't preach the Tracts for the Times. Let us always be particular, my dear aunt, as to points of fact."
"Exactly so," said Miss Leonora, grimly; "but, at the same time, as there seems no great likelihood of your leaving Carlingford, don't you think it would be wise to cultivate friendly relations with the Rector?" said the iron-grey inexorable aunt, looking full in his eyes as she spoke. So significant and plain a statement took for an instant the colour out of the Curate's cheeks—he pared his orange very carefully while he regained his composure, and it was at least half a minute before he found himself at leisure to reply. Miss Dora of course seized upon the opportunity, and, by way of softening matters, interposed in her unlucky person to make peace.
"But, my dear boy, I said I was sure you did not mean it," said Miss Dora; "I told Mr Morgan I felt convinced it could be explained. Nobody knows you so well as I do. You were always high-spirited from a child, and never would give in; but I know very well you never could mean it, Frank."
"Mean it?" said the Curate, with sparkling eyes: "what do you take me for, aunt Dora? Do you know what it is we are talking of? The question is, whether a whole lot of people, fathers and children, shall be left to live like beasts, without reverence for God or man, or shall be brought within the pale of the Church, and taught their duty? And you think I don't mean it? I mean it as much as my brother Charley meant it at the Redan," said young Wentworth, with a glow of suppressed enthusiasm, and that natural pride in Charley (who got the Cross for valour) which was common to all the Wentworths. But when he saw his aunt Leonora looking at him, the Perpetual Curate stood to his arms again. "I have still to learn that the Rector has anything to do with it," said the young Evangelist of Wharfside.
"It is in his parish, and he thinks he has," said Miss Leonora. "I wish you could see your duty more clearly, Frank. You seem to me, you know, to have a kind of zeal, but not according to knowledge. If you were carrying the real Gospel to the poor people, I shouldn't be disposed to blame you; for the limits of a parish are but poor things to pause for when souls are perishing; but to break the law for the sake of diffusing the rubric and propagating Tractarianism—"