"Thank you, Miss Seton. Good morning. Good morning, Mr. Seton." He again went round the room, shaking hands with everyone, and withdrew.
"Did you recognize the chairman of the Fellowship Meeting?" Elizabeth asked Arthur Townshend. "Isn't he a genteel young man?"
"He has very courtly manners," said Arthur.
"Yes; and his accent is wonderful, too. He hardly ever falls through it. I only once remember him forgetting himself. He was addressing the Young Women's Bible Class on Jezebel, and he got so worked up he cried, 'Oh, girrls, girrls, Jezebel was a bad yin, girrls.' I wonder why he didn't talk about the Social here and now? He will come trailing up to the house on Saturday and put off quite two hours."
"My dear," said her father, "don't grudge the time, if it gives him any pleasure. Remember what a narrow life he has, and be thankful little things count for so much to him. To my mind, Hugh M'Auslin is doing a very big thing, and the fine thing about him is that he doesn't see it."
"But, Father, what is he doing?"
"Is it a small thing, Lizbeth, for a young man to give up the best years of his life to a helpless invalid? Mr. M'Auslin," Mr. Seton explained to Arthur Townshend, "supports an old aunt who cared for him in his boyhood. She is quite an invalid and very cantankerous, though, I believe, a good woman. And—remember this, you mocking people, when you talk of courtly manners—his manners are just as 'courtly' when his old aunt upbraids him for not spending every minute of his sparse spare time at her bedside."
"I never said that Mr. M'Auslin wasn't the best of men," said Elizabeth, "only I wish he wouldn't be so coy. Well, my district awaits me, I must go. I wonder what you would like to do, Mr. Townshend? I can lend you something to read—The Newcomes is in the cupboard—and show you a quiet cubby-hole to read it in, if you would like that."
"That will be delightful, but—is it permitted to ask what you are going to do?"
"I? Going with my tracts. That's what we do between services. I have two 'closes,' with about ten doors to each close. Come with me, if you like, but it's a most unsavoury locality."