“And everywhere else,” said the rector. “I only wish our Gilbert had half the chances of Margaret’s fatherless boy. Michael Fenner, though dead, has done more for his son than I for mine. Gilbert is selfish, idle, almost illiterate, and I look with shame on the virtues of my nephew who has had so much less done for him.”
“Why, Rector, what has given you such a fit of the blues this afternoon?” exclaimed Lady Elgitha, regarding him with amazed alarm.
The rector attempted some jest, and calling his little daughter, set out on his usual afternoon peregrination, while Lady Elgitha, seriously disturbed, reflected whether it would be advisable to calm his troubled mind by a course of globules, or to divert his thoughts by a dinner party or a tennis tournament.
(To be continued.)
VARIETIES.
Other People’s Vanity.—What renders the vanity of others insupportable is that it wounds our own.—La Rochefoucauld.
Busy with Trifles.—Those who bestow too much application on trifling things become generally incapable of great ones.—La Rochefoucauld.
Heads and Hearts.—A man with a bad heart has been sometimes saved by a strong head, but a corrupt woman is lost for ever.—Coleridge.
Love-Letters.—To write a good love-letter, you ought to begin without knowing what you mean to say and to finish without knowing what you have written.—Rousseau.