"It is a mistake," was all he said; "I am leaving here, but not in disgrace, Dolly. I have accepted the Bishopric of the new see of Deringham. What a silly, loving, little girl it is! You may read the letter, my dear." And while Dolly, in radiant dishevelment, was striving to tell him her pleasure, he took an envelope from his pocket and held it out. Dolly seized it eagerly and opened it, and found within it not at all what the Archdeacon had thought was in it. The envelope contained no statesman's autograph, or courtly to-apron-inviting note from Downing Street, but only a white rose, a dried rose, flattened, but still sweet and fragrant. Almost as soon as the girl's fingers touched it the Archdeacon was aware of his mistake--surely a very curious mistake--and snatched it from her with some confused words and a reddening brow. But Dolly had seen it--had certainly seen it; and somehow it brought back to her memory the day of the curates' race; so that when the Archdeacon brusquely put another letter into her hand, she read it with her eyes, and not her mind. As for the Archdeacon, he sought the window, and hemmed and hawed, and at last said, hastily, without turning, "There, there, my dear, I think there is no more to be said. Will you kindly go and tell Granny?" and so affected to select a volume from a shelf of the Early Fathers.
But Dorothy did not move. She sat stooping forward, passing the hem of her much-bedabbled handkerchief through her fingers.
"Are you sure that you have told me all you wish to tell me?" she asked, slowly.
Her guardian started. "I think so," he answered, and plunged recklessly at a volume of Origen, or it might be St. Anthony, perhaps.
"Then why," cried Dolly, starting up and facing him, with crimson cheeks, "why did you call me your darling just now? You had no right to do it--no right, though you are my guardian, to say that--if you are going to say nothing more! If you want me, why don't you ask for me! Philip could, and Mr. Brune, and the other! I hate a coward. Why cannot you say, if--you--want me?"
There are men who have seen Deans in their shirt-sleeves, playing billiards. And there is one still living--chiefly on the fact--who once was last in a three-legged race in double harness with a Duke. So it is undeniable that great men do unbend at times to a surprising extent. But that the Archdeacon at the point of the story we have reached unbent in the manner much hinted at in Stirhampton, I shall ask no reader to believe. The more as the real facts which have been told fully explain the disorder of lace and neck-ribbon, the softness of eye, and crimson of cheek, which Granny noticed about the girl when she ran in upon her, all smiles and tears, knocking down the screen, and hugging the little old lady into a state of deep alarm.
Which took, of course, the old direction. But the Archdeacon came upstairs in time to anticipate the usual question. "No," he said, putting his hand on the kneeling girl's head, "the balance is all right, Granny--except in years. There is a heavy overdraft of those against me."
"And I will honor it," said Dolly, gravely, and took his hand and kissed it. As for what followed--we had better put up Granny's screen again. This the man of system, who had no taste for jests? But then it is just possible that Dolly did not mean it for a jest. The curates? Mr. Philip Emerson, Mr. Brune, and Mr. Bigham? Indeed I cannot say what became of them. I should suppose they died prematurely of broken hearts. But the next time that I visit Deringham I will call at the Palace and ask the Bishop.