MR. MINCE, ruddy and effulgent, spread his palms to the glow of his study fire. Muddy boots steamed before the fender. Mrs. Mince, duster in hand, was brushing the rain and mud from her husband’s trousers. The vicarage cat, perched on a footstool as on a pulpit, purred forth a feline hymn of peace.
Mrs. Mince drew the tea-table before the fire, sat down with lavish lap in a basket-chair, took up the sugar-tongs, and held them poised like a miniature spear.
“So the old man is dying,” she said, with a slight sniff, thrusting out her slippered feet before the fire and taking the warmth into her bosom.
“Sinking fast,” the vicar answered her; “the last ebb of the tide. A singular man—a most singular man. Marjoy tells me he can’t last a week.”
Mrs. Mince dropped three cubes of sugar with deliberation into her husband’s cup.
“What a moral,” she observed, reflectively; “what a living text on the vanity of riches. Mammon deserts a rich man at the grave; he trusteth in gold and findeth it dust. Zeus Gildersedge might leave a legacy to the ‘living.’ The porch needs repairing, and we cannot afford to pay for dilapidations.”
Mr. Mince stared at the fire and smiled.
“There is that daughter,” the vicaress continued, “a dreadful drab; left her father in his old age to run away with that blackguard Gabriel Strong. I wonder what has become of them.”
“Can’t say,” said the clergyman.
“Gone to the bad, of course. Such women always gravitate to the gutter. I’ve no sympathy with the slut. He won’t leave her anything.”