CHAPTER VII

*

"Ha!" Father Mostyn played upon the note momentously, as though he were throwing open the grand double gates of discussion. "Pamela, you mean! I knew we should come to that before long. No help for it." He subpoenaed the Spawer for witness to the wisdom of his conclusions with a wagged forefinger. "But Pamela 's not Ullbrig. Pamela was n't fashioned out of our Ullbrig clay. She 's not like the rest of us; comes of a different class altogether. You can't mistake it. Take note of her when she laughs--you 're a musical man and you 'll soon see--she covers the whole diapason. Ullbrig does n't laugh like that. Ullbrig laughs on one note as though it were a plough furrow. There 's nothing of cadence about our Ullbrig laughter--that 's a thing only comes with breed. Notice her eyebrows, too, when she 's speaking, and see how beautifully flexible they are." The Vicar warmed to the subject with the enthusiasm of a connoisseur.

"No--there 's nothing of our clay in Pamela's construction. Pam is like charity; suffereth long and is kind. Envieth not; vaunteth not herself; is not puffed up. Doth not behave herself unseemly; seeketh not her own; is not easily provoked; thinketh no evil. Ullbrig does n't understand Pam any more than it understands the transit of Venus or the rings of Saturn. Pam 's above our heads and comprehension. Because she goes to church on Sunday, and does n't walk with our Ullbrig young men down Lovers' Lane at nightfall, we say she 's proud. Because she 's too generous to refuse them a word in broad daylight, when they ask for it, we say she 's forward. Because she never says unkind things of us all in turn behind our backs, and won't listen to any, we say she 's disagreeable. Because she does n't read the post-cards on her way round, and tell us whether Miss So-and-So ever hears from that Hunmouth young gentleman or not, we say she keeps a still tongue in her head--which is our Ullbrig idiom for a guilty conscience. That we had only a few more Pams--with due gratitude to Blessed Mary for the one we 've got."

"As a postman," said the Spawer, entering into the Vicar's appreciation, "she 's the most astonishing value I ever saw. The girl seems to have a soul. Who is she? And where does she come from?"

Father Mostyn's brows converged upon the pipe-bowl in the hollow of his knee, and his cassock swelled to a long breath of mystery. "Who is she? and where does she come from? ... Those are the questions. _A priori_, I 'm afraid there 's nothing to answer them. So far, it seems to have been Heaven's wise purpose to reveal her as a beautiful mystery; an incarnate testimony to the teaching of Holy Church--if only Ullbrig knew the meaning of the word testimony. She came to Ullbrig, in the first place, with her mother, as quite a little girl, and lodged with friend Morland at the Post Office. I believe there was some intention on her mother's part of founding a small preparatory school in combination with poultry farming at the time. Yes, poor woman, I rather fear that was her intention. She seemed to think it would yield them both a livelihood, and give Pamela the benefit of new-laid eggs; but she died suddenly, the very day after Tankard had agreed to let her the cottage down Whivvle Lane at four and sixpence a week--being three shillings the rent of the cottage, and eighteenpence because she was a lady. Ha! that 's the way with us. To try and do you one; do your father one; do your mother one; do your sister one; do your brother one; but particularly do one to them that speak softly with you, and his reverence the Vicar. Him do half a dozen if you can, being an ecclesiast, and so difficult to do." He wiped the smile off his mouth with one ruminative stroke of his sleek fingers--you might almost suppose he had palmed it, and slipped it up his sleeve, so quickly did it come away. "She died suddenly, poor woman, before I could get to her. Cardiac haemorrhage, commonly, and not always incorrectly, called a broken heart. No doubt about it. They sent for me three times, but it happened most grievously that I had tricycled off to Whivvle that day to inquire into a little matter concerning the nefarious sale of glebe straw--(I 'm afraid I shall have to be going there again before so long; the practice shows signs of revival)--and she was dead when I got back. We buried her round by the east window, where the grass turns over the slope towards the north wall. You can just see the top of the stone from the roadway." He indicated its approximate position with a benedictory cast of the signet hand. "After paying all funeral expenses, it was found that there remained a small balance of some thirty pounds odd--evidently the tail-end of their resources--in virtue whereof, friend Morland's heart was moved to take Pam to his bosom, and give her a granddaughter's place in the family circle. Thirty pounds, you see, goes a long way in Ullbrig, where we grow almost everything for ourselves except beer and tobacco. One mouth more or less to feed makes hardly any appreciable difference."

"But were there no relatives?" the Spawer suggested.

Father Mostyn shook his head significantly.

"And you were n't able to trace the mother's movements before she came to Ullbrig?"

"No further than Hunmouth." His Reverence tried the edge of the Spawer's interest with a keen eye through drawn lashes, as though it were a razor he was stropping. "Following up a theory of mine, we traced her as far as Hunmouth. But for that, if we 'd taken friend Morland's advice, we should have lost her altogether. As I predicted, we found she 'd been living for some time in small lodgings there.... There was some question of music teaching, I believe."

"Music teaching?" The Spawer leaned on the interrogative with all the weight of commiserative despair.

"I rather gathered so. She gave lessons to the landlady's daughter, I fancy, in return for the use of the piano, and she had a blind boy studying with her for a while. His family thought of making him a church organist, but unfortunately for all parties concerned, the boy's father failed. Yes, failed rather suddenly, poor man, and cast quite a gloom over the musical outlook. Then Pamela seems to have acquired diphtheria from a sewer opening directly under the bedroom window, and had a narrow squeak for it; and after that her terrified mother fled the town with her, and brought her into the country. There 's no danger of sewers in the country, you see. We have n't such things; we know better."

"And that's what brought them to Ullbrig?" asked the Spawer.

"That's what brought them to Ullbrig. What brought them to Hunmouth is still a matter for conjecture. I called upon the doctor subsequently who attended Pam there, but he could give me no information about them, beyond the fact that his bill had been paid before they left."

"I should have thought, though," said the Spawer, tipping his lips with golden Benedictine, and sending the bouquet reflectively through his nostrils, "that she would have left letters--or something of the sort--behind her, which might have been followed up."

"One would have thought so, naturally. But no; not a single piece of manuscript among all her possessions."

"That," said the Spawer, "looks awfully much as though they 'd been purposely destroyed."

Father Mostyn's lips tightened significantly, and he nodded his head with sagacious indulgence for the tolerable work of a novice.

"Moreover, in such books as belonged to her the flyleaf was invariably missing. Torn bodily out. Not a doubt about it."

"To remove traces of her identity?"

The Vicar slipped his forefinger into the pipe-bowl and gave the tobacco a quick, conclusive squeeze. "Unquestionably."

"But for what reason, do you think?"

His Reverence sat back luxuriously in the arm-chair, with fingers outspread tip to tip over the convex outline of his cassock, and legs crossed reposefully for the better enjoyment of his own discourse. "In the first place, she was a lady. Not a doubt about it. No mere professional man's daughter, brought up amid the varying circumstances incidental to professional society, and trained to consider her father's interests in all her actions--(the little professional discipline of conduct always shows)--but a woman of birth and position. Belonging to a good old military family, I should say, judging by her bearing, with a fine, sleek living or two in its gift for the benefit of the younger branch. Depend upon it. She would come of the elder branch, though, and I should take her to be an only daughter. There would be no sons. Unfortunately, a painful indisposition of a lumbaginous nature prevented my extending her more than the ordinary parochial courtesy at the first, and she died within a fortnight of her arrival. Otherwise, doubtless she would have sought to tell me her circumstances in giving the customary intimation of a desire to benefit by the blessed Sacraments of the Church--but there 's no mistaking the evidence." He recapitulated it over his fingers. "She was the daughter of a wealthy military man, a widower, who had possibly distinguished himself in the Indian service (most likely a major-general and K.C.B.), living on a beautiful estate somewhere down south--say Surrey or the Hampshire Downs."

"Could n't you have advertised in some of the southern papers?" suggested the Spawer.

"Precisely. We advertised for some time, and to some considerable extent, in such of them as would be likely to come under the General's notice--but without success. Indeed, none was to be expected. Men of the General's station in life don't trouble to read advertisements, much less answer them--and if, in this case, he 's read it, it would n't have changed his attitude towards a discarded daughter or induced a reply. Therefore, to continue advertising would have been merely to throw good money after bad.... Ha! Consequently the next step in our investigations is to decide what could be responsible for her detachment from these attractive surroundings, and her subsequent lapse into penurious neglect. It could n't have been the failure of her father's fortune. A catastrophe of this sort would n't have cut her off completely from the family and a few, at least, of her necessarily large circle of friends. Some of her clerical half-cousins, too, would have come forward to her assistance, depend upon it. But even supposing the probabilities to be otherwise, then there would be still less reason for her voluntary self-excision. Though under these circumstances, one might understand her never referring to her family connection, it 's inconceivable to suppose that she should have gone to any particular trouble to conceal traces of the fact. To have done so would have been a work of supererogation, besides running counter to all our priestly experience of the human heart and its workings. No. In the resolute attempt to cut herself off from her family the priestly eye perceives the acting hand of pride. Not a doubt about it. Pride did her. The pride of love. No mistaking it. The headstrong pride of love. Faith removes mountains, but love climbs over 'em, at all costs. Depend upon it, she 'd given her heart to some man against the General's will, and run away and married him. Marriage was the first step in her descent."

"Or do you think..." hazarded the Spawer, with all humility for intruding his little key into so magnificent a lock of hypothesis, "that marriage was a missing step altogether, and she tripped for want of it?"

Father Mostyn received the suggestion with magnanimous courtesy--almost as though it had been a duly expected guest. "I think not. Under certain conditions of life that would be an admirable hypothesis for working purposes. But it won't fit the present case. In the first instance, we must remember that those little idiosyncrasies of morality occur less frequently in the class of society with which we 're dealing, and that when they actually occur, the most elaborate precautions are taken against any leakage of the fact. Moreover, let's look at the actual evidence. All the woman's linen--the handkerchiefs, the underclothing, the petticoats, the chemises, and so forth--were embroidered with the monogram 'M.P.S.,' standing, not a doubt about it, for Mary Pamela Searle. Some of the child's things, bearing the identical monogram, showed that they 'd been cut down for her; while one or two more recent articles--of a much cheaper material--were initialled simply 'P.S.' in black marking-ink. It 's necessary to remember this. Now, if we turn from the linen to the books I spoke about and contrast their different methods of treatment, we shall find strong testimony to the support of my contention. On the one hand, linen, underclothing, chemises, petticoats, pocket-handkerchiefs, and so forth, marked plainly 'M.P.S.' and 'P.S.' On the other hand, a Bible, a book of Common Prayer in padded morocco, evidently the property of a lady; a Shakespeare; a volume of Torquato Tasso's 'Gerusalemme Liberato,' in levant; an old-fashioned copy of 'Mother Goose'; and one or two other volumes, all with the fly-leaf torn out. No mistaking the evidence. Searle was her rightful married name, and there was no need to suppress it. For all intents and purposes, it suited her as well as another. Besides, pride would n't allow her to cast aside the name of her own choosing. Pride had got too fast hold of her by the elbow, you see, for that. Keep a sharp look-out for the hand of pride in the case as we go along, and you won't be likely to lose your way. It will be a sign-post to you. Searle was the name she 'd given everything up for--her father, her home, her friends, her family, her position--and it had been bought too dear to throw aside. It was the other name pride wanted her to get rid of. That 's why the fly-leaves came out. Depend upon it. They were gift-books belonging to her unmarried days. The Shakespeare was a present from her father; Torquato Tasso came most likely from an Italian governess; some girl-friend gave her the Prayer-book--perhaps as a souvenir of their first Communion. The Bible would hardly be in the nature of a gift-book. People of social distinction, brought up in conformity with the best teachings of Holy Church, and abhorring all forms of unorthodoxy as they would uncleanliness, don't make presents to themselves of Bibles. That 's a plebeian practice, savoring objectionably of free-thinking and dissent. The Bible is not mentioned or made use of by well-bred people in that odious popular manner. No, the book would figure in her school-room equipment as part of a necessary instruction, but no more.

"... Ha!" His hand, on its way to the round table, arrested itself suddenly in mid-air as though to impose a listening silence. "... There goes friend Davidson--keeping his promise. I thought it was about his time. He gave me his sacred word he would n't touch a drop of liquor in Ullbrig for three months, so now he has to trot off to Shippus instead." The Spawer listened, but could get not the faintest hint of the delinquent's passage. "So now," Father Mostyn took up, starting his hand on again with a descriptive relaxation of its muscles, as though the culprit had just rounded the corner, and there were nothing further of him worth listening for, "... we 've got the whole case in the hollow of our hands. We see that the breach with the family was brought about by her own act, and that that act was marriage. But it was n't merely marriage against the General's consent or sanction. Marriages of disobedience and self-will are nearly always, in our priestly experience, forgiven at the birth of the first child; more especially, of course, if it happens to be a son.... Therefore we must find a stronger divisional factor than a marriage of disobedience. Ha! undoubtedly. A marriage of derogation. No mistaking it. A marriage of derogation. She married beneath her. That 's an unpardonable offence in families of birth and position. We can forgive a daughter for marrying above her, but we can't forgive a daughter for marrying beneath her--even when she 's the only daughter we 've got. Moreover, this case was badly aggravated by the fact that there was no money in it. She fell in love with some penniless scamp of a fellow, with an irresistible black moustache and dark eyes--there are plenty of 'em knocking about in London society, who could n't produce a receipted bill or a banker's reference to save their lives--got her trousseau together by stealth; had it all proudly embroidered with the name she was about to take; kissed her father more affectionately than usual one night ... and the next morning was up with the lark and miles away." He kept casting the ingredients one after another into the hypothetical pancheon with a throw of alternate hands--the right hand for the sin she had committed; the left hand for the penniless scamp of a fellow; the right hand again for her trousseau; the left hand for the elopement, and so on, with all the unction of a _chef_ engaged upon the preparation of some great dish, and stuck the spoon into it with a fine, conclusive "Ha!"

"After that," said he, interrupting the sentence for a moment to give two or three reclamatory puffs at his pipe, "the rest 's as plain as print. She 'd made a bad bargain with her family, and she 'd made a worse with her husband. Depend upon it. Searle was a gambler--an improvident, prodigal, reckless rascal--who tapped what money she had like a cask of wine. As soon as Pamela was born, the wretched woman began to see where things were drifting. She dared n't suggest retrenchment to her husband, but she began to practise a few feeble economies in the house and upon her own person. No more silks and satins after that. No more embroidered chemises. No more fine linen. Nothing new for Pamela, where anything could be cut down. Nothing new for herself, where anything old would do. Cheapen the living here, cheapen the living there--until at last, thank God! in the fourth year of his reign, this _monstrum nulla virtute redemptum a vitiis_ takes to his wife's bed--not having one of his own--and does her the involuntary kindness of dying in it. So our Blessed Lady leads Pamela and her mother to Ullbrig by gradual stages, and there, the mother's share in the work being done, she is permitted to fall asleep. Ha! Friend Morland"--he approached the tumbler to his lips under cover of the apostrophe, and sought the ceiling in drinking with a rapturous eye, "... you never drove a better bargain in your life than when you acquired a resident daughter of Mary with a premium of thirty pounds. Look at all the blessings that have been specially bestowed upon you for her sake. Look at the boots that get worn out in tramping backwards and forwards to the Post Office since Heaven put into our heads the notion of buying penny stamps in two ha'penny journeys, and calling round to let you know we shall be wanting a post-card in the morning. Did our young men do this before Pam's time? And where do we carry all our boots and shoes to when they have n't another ha'penny journey in their soles? Not to Cobbler Roden. Cobbler Roden does n't shelter a daughter of Mary. Cobbler Roden does n't shelter a daughter of anybody--not even his own--if he can help it. Not to Cobbler Dingwall. Cobbler Dingwall does n't shelter a daughter of Mary. Heaven sends down no blessing on Cobbler Dingwall's work. We find it 's clumsy and does n't last. No, we don't take 'em to any of these. We take 'em to Shoemaker Morland. That 's where we take 'em. Shoemaker Morland. He 's the man. All the rest are only cobblers, being under no patronage of Blessed Mary, but friend Morland 's a shoemaker. Moreover, the Post Office has n't lacked for lodgers since Pam came to it--there 's the schoolmaster there now. A strange, un-get-at-able sort of a fellow, to be sure, whom I strongly suspect of nursing secret aggression against the Church; still a payer of bills, and in that respect a welcome addition to the Morland household."

"Friend Morland, then," said the Spawer, "combines the offices of shoemaker and postmaster-general for Ullbrig?"

Father Mostyn forefingered the statement correctively.

"Those are his offices. But he does n't combine them. He keeps them scrupulously distinct. One half of him is postmaster-general and the other is shoemaker. I forget just at the moment which half of him you 've got to go to if you want stamps, but you might just as well try to get cream from a milk biscuit as buy stamps at the shoemaking side. Apart from these little peculiarities, however, he 's as inoffensive a specimen of dissent as any Christian might hope to find. Without a trained theological eye one might take him any day for a hard-working, respectable member of the True Body. His humility in spiritual matters is almost Catholic. You 'd be astonished to find such humility in the possession of a Non-conformist--until you knew what exalted influence had brought it about. He repudiates the Nonconformist doctrine that the Divine copyright of teaching souls goes along with the possession of a fourpenny Bible. His view on the question is that the Book 'takes overmuch understanding to try and explain to anybody else.' On this point, with respect to Pamela, I 'd never had any trouble with him. She 's been born and brought up in the Church; she 'd true Church blood in her veins. Her mother was a Churchwoman. Her grandfather, like the gallant old soldier that he was, was a Churchman; a strong officer of the Church Militant, occupying the family pew every Sunday morning, who would have died of apoplectic mortification at the thought that any descendant of his should ever sink so low as to sit on the varnished schismatical benches of an Ullbrig meeting-house. All which, when I put it before him, Friend Morland saw in a clear and catholic spirit. It 's true for a short time he wished to make a compromise--at the instigation of his wife, undoubtedly--whereby Pamela was to attend church in the mornings and meeting-house in the evening--a most odious and unscriptural arrangement, quite incompatible with canonical teaching. However, special light of grace was poured into his heart from above, and he perceived the aged General in such a vivid revelation trembling with martial anger at this act of indignity to one of his flesh and blood, that he woke up in a great sweat two nights successively, and came running before breakfast to tell me that the spiritual responsibility of a general's granddaughter was proving too much for him, and he 'd be humbly grateful if his Reverence the Vicar would take the matter on his own shoulders, and bear witness (should any be required) that he (John William Morland) had in all things done his utmost to act in conformity with what he thought to be the General's wishes. So I made him stand up in the hall and recite a proper _declaratio abjurationis_ before me then and there, gave him his coveted _ego te absolvo Joannes_, and received Pamela forthwith as spiritual ward in our most Catholic Church."

"But is she going to consecrate all her days to the carrying of letters?" asked the Spawer, in a voice of some concern. "_A dieu ne plaise_."

Father Mostyn knocked the ashes cautiously out of his pipe into a cupped palm and threw them over the hearth. "There 's the rub. That 's what I 've been wanting to have a little talk with you about. Her bringing up has been in the nature of a problem--a sort of human equation. We 've had to try and develop all her latent qualities of birth and breed, and maintain them in a state of exact equilibrium against the downward forces of environment. Just the slightest preponderance on one side or other might have done us. Two things we had to bear constantly in mind and reconcile, so far as we were able, from day to day." He ticked them off on his fingers like the heads of a discourse: "First. That she was a lady; the daughter of a lady; the granddaughter of a lady. Second. That she was become by adoption a daughter of the soil, dependent on her own exertions for her subsistence and happiness. At one time, so difficult did the two things seem to keep in adjustment, I had serious thoughts of taking her bodily under my own charge and packing her off to school. But after a while, I came to reflect that it would be an act of great unwisdom--apart from the fear that it might be making most impious interference with the designs of Providence. Providence plainly had brought her, and to send her off again for the purpose of having her trained exclusively in the accomplishments of a lady would simply have been contempt of the Divine laws and a deferment of the original difficulty to some more pressing and inopportune moment. My work, you see, was here in Ullbrig. His Reverence is tied to the soil like the rest of us--ploughing, sowing, harrowing, scruffling, hoeing, and reaping all his days--though, for the matter of that, there 's precious little ear he gets in return for his spiritual threshing. Moreover, there 's always the glorious uncertainty of sudden death in the harvest field; and then what would be likely to happen to a girl thrown on her own resources at the demise of her only friend and protector? Would she be better circumstanced to face the world bravely as a child with his Reverence helping her unostentatiously by her elbow and accustoming her to it, or as a young lady in fresh bewilderment from boarding-school, with his Reverence fast asleep in the green place he 's chosen for himself under the east window? Ha! no mistake about it. His Reverence has seen too many nursery governesses and mothers' helps and ladies' companions recruited straight from the school-room, with red eyes and black serge, to risk Pamela's being among the number. Out in the world there 's no knowing what might happen or have happened to her. Here in Ullbrig, you see, she stands on a pedestal to herself, above all our local temptations. Temptations, in the mundane sense of the word, don't exist for her. One might as well suppose the possibility of your being tempted from the true canons of musical art by hearing Friend Barclay sing through the tap-room window of the Blue Bell, or of his Reverence the Vicar's being proselytised to Methodism by hearing Deacon Dingwall Jackson pray the long prayer with his eyes shut. No; our local sins fall away from Pamela as naturally and unregarded as water off a duck's back. Such sins as she has are entirely spiritual--little sins of indiscrimination, we may term them. The sin of generosity--giving too much of her favor to the schismatical; the sin of toleration--inclining too leniently towards the tenets of dissent; the sin of forbearance--making too much allowance for the sins and wickednesses of others; the sin of equanimity--being too little angered by the assaults and designs of the unfaithful against Holy Church--all beautiful qualities of themselves when confined to the temporal side of conduct, but sinful when thoughtlessly prolongated into the domain of spirituals, where conduct should subordinate itself to the exact scale of scientific theology. Spiritual conduct without strict theological control is music without bars; poetry without metre; a ship without a rudder; free-will; nonconformity; dissent; infidelity; agnosticism; atheistic darkness. Ha! but our concern for her future is n't on these counts. The question that 's bothering us now, as you rightly put it, is: Is she going to consecrate all her days to the carrying of letters?"

"As a career," commented the Spawer, "I 'm afraid there 's not much to recommend it. The office of post-girl seems, from what I know about the subject, peculiar to Ullbrig. There 's precious little chance of promotion, I should think. She might slip into the telegraph department, perhaps, but from a place like Ullbrig even that 's something of a step."

"I was n't so much thinking of the telegraphic department," Father Mostyn explained, "... though, of course, it had suggested itself to me. But I 'd been thinking ... it came upon me rather forcibly ... partly since your arrival ... after our first little talk together ... and I wondered. Of course, the telegraph department could be held in view as a reserve. But I 'd rather got the idea..." a certain veil of obscurity seemed to settle down upon his Reverence at this point, as though a sea-mist were drifting in among his words. "You see," he said, suddenly abandoning the attempt at frontal clearance and making a detour to come round the thickness of his difficulty, "Pamela 's altogether a remarkable girl. She 's not the least bit like the rest of us. She can do everything under the sun, except kill chickens. She can't kill chickens; but she can cook 'em. And she can make Ullbrig pies till you could swear Mrs. Dixon had done 'em. And she can bake bread--white bread, as white as snow for Friend Morland's delicate stomach; and brown bread as brown as shoe-leather and mellow as honey for his Reverence the Vicar. Three loaves a week without fail, because there 's nobody else in Ullbrig can make 'em to his satisfaction--and she wanted to have the paying for 'em herself into the bargain. And she can paper-hang and paint. She and his Reverence are going to undertake a few matters of church decoration shortly. And she can milliner and dressmake. If it was n't for Pamela, Emma Morland would soon lose her reputation as our leading society _modiste_. Not even the brass plate would save her--if she polished it three times a day. Ullbrig does n't want brass plates; Ullbrig wants style. So when Ullbrig goes to Emma Morland for a new dress and Pamela 's not there, Ullbrig says, 'Oh, it does n't matter just then, it 'll call again.' Ha! says it 'll call again. But what I wanted to illustrate ... with regard to telegraphic departments, of course ... you see ... her remarkable versatility. Not only that..." the old fog showed signs of settling over him once more, but he shook it off with a decisive spurt. "She 's inherited music from her mother in a marked degree. It seems to come naturally to her. I think you 'd be surprised. What little bit I 've been able to do for her I 've done--taught her the proper value of notation, the correct observance of harmonies, clefs, solfeggio, scales, legato, contra punctum, and so forth. The amazing thing is the way she 's picked it up. Not a bit of trouble to her, apparently. What I should have done without her at the organ--she 's our ecclesiastical organist, you know--I dare n't think. And it occurred to me ... I felt it would be such a pity to let the chance go by ... if we could only induce you.... You see, she 's not exactly an ordinary girl. Different from the rest of us altogether.... And I thought if we could only induce you to give her the benefit of a little musical advice..." He paused inferentially.

"With a view," asked the Spawer, "to what is diabolically called the profession?"

Father Mostyn caught the note of dissuasive alarm.

"Ha! not exactly the profession..." he said. "I was n't so much meaning that. But I thought, you see, she 'd appreciate it so much ... and there 'd be no fear of her abusing your favor in the slightest degree. Unfortunately ... I 'm afraid you 'd find our piano rather below par ... the Ullbrig air has a peculiar corrodent action upon the strings. Tuning 's no good; indeed, it only seems to unsettle 'em. But if ... sometime when you 're here you would n't mind my asking her in ... just for a short while?"

"Not the least bit in the world," said the Spawer. "And for as long as you like."

"Ha!" The fog lifted off Father Mostyn's utterance in sudden illumination of sunlight, and he rubbed his knees jocosely. "I thought we should manage it. Capital! capital! We must fix up a sort of a soiree some night. That 's what we must do. Fix up a sort of soiree some night and feed you. We won't speak of dining; that 's a word we leave behind us when we come to Ullbrig. But we 'll feed you, and give Pamela a chance to display her culinary skill. Of course, we know all about our little business of last night, so we need n't speak darkly...."

"The deuce we do!" exclaimed the Spawer, laughing. "And I 've been thinking all the time we did n't."

Father Mostyn spread his fingers with priestly unction.

"That," said he, "is one of our fatal Ullbrig errors; always to think that his Reverence does n't know things. No matter how many times we prove to our cost that he does, we go on acting upon the supposition that he does n't. It 's a source of endless trouble to us. Of course, in the present instance, we absolve you. Your tongue was honorably tied. Pamela told me all about it this morning--she was full of the music and your goodness, and the desire to tell me what she 'd done before silence made a hypocrite of her. Indeed, she was horribly afraid, poor girl, that she was becoming an Ullbrig hypocrite already. As though there were a grain of hypocrisy in the whole of her nature. But that 's what we must do. We must rig up a sort of soiree some night and feed you."

How the soiree and the feeding were going to affect the vital question of the girl's future did not altogether transpire--though this one subject carried them henceforth into the small hours, and the Spawer used no inconsiderable skill to elicit some clear understanding on the point, and when finally the Spawer slid away from the Vicarage gate under a deep July skyful of stars, the words floated in mystic meaning about his ears like the ringing of sanctus bells.

And as far away as the very last gate of all, when the Spawer turned his head back towards the scene of his evening, he seemed to hear the bells wafting to him over the corn, as though languid with pursuit:

"... Feed you. Feed you. Feed ... you."

*