"Well, Colin," said Ermine, on the Tuesday, "I have had a first-hand

confidence, though from a different quarter. Poor Mr. Touchett came to

announce his going away."

"Going!"

"Yes. In the very nick of time, it seems, Alick Keith has had a letter

from his uncle's curate, asking him to see if he could meet with a

southern clergyman to exchange duties for the winter with a London

incumbent who has a delicate wife, and of course. Mr. Touchett jumped at

it."

"A very good thing--a great relief."

"Yes. He said he was very anxious for work, but he had lost ground in

this place within the last few months, and he thought that he should

do better in a fresh place, and that a fresh person would answer better

here, at least for a time. I am very sorry for him, I have a great

regard for him."

"Yes; but he is quite right to make a fresh beginning. Poor man! he has

been quite lifted off his feet, and entranced all this time, and

his recovery will be much easier elsewhere. It was all that unlucky

croquet."

"I believe it was. I think there was at first a reverential sort of

distant admiration, too hopeless to do any one any harm, and that really

might have refined him, and given him a little of the gentleman-like

tone he has always wanted. But then came the croquet, and when it grew

to be a passion it was an excuse for intimacy that it would have taken a

stronger head than his to resist."

"Under the infection of croquet fever."

"It is what my father used to say of amusements--the instant they become

passions they grow unclerical and do mischief. Now he used, though not

getting on with the Curtises, to be most successful with the second-rate

people; but he has managed to offend half of them during this unhappy

mania, which, of course, they all resent as mercenary, and how he is

ever to win them back I don't know. After all, curatocult is a shallow

motive--Rachel Curtis might triumph!"

"The higher style of clergyman does not govern by curatocult. I hope

this one may be of that description, as he comes through Mr. Clare. I

wonder if this poor man will return?"

"Perhaps," said Ermine, with a shade of mimicry in her voice, "when Lady

Temple is married to the Colonel. There now, I have gone and told you! I

did try to resolve I would not."

"And what did you say?"

"I thought it due to Lady Temple to tell him exactly how she regarded

you."

"Yes, Ermine, and it is due to tell others also. I cannot go on on these

terms, either here or at Myrtlewood, unless the true state of the case

is known. If you will not let me be a married man, I must be an engaged

one, either to you or to the little Banksia."




readonlinefreebook.com Copyright 2016 - 2024