It was a fine night overhead, but the streets were sloppy; and the clergyman put his foot unavoidably in many a puddle. The streets through which his road lay were imperfectly lighted. The residence apportioned to the rector of this parish was adjoining a well-known square, fashionable in that day. It was a very good house, with a handsome outward appearance. If you judged by it, you would have said the living must be worth five hundred a year at least. It was not worth anything like that; and the parish treated their pastor liberally in according him so good a residence. A quarter of an hour's walk from the church brought Mr. Tait to it.
Until recently, a gentleman had shared this house with Mr. Tait and his family. The curate of a neighbouring parish, the Rev. John Acton, had been glad to live with them as a friend, admitted to their society and their table. It was a little help: and but for that, Mr. and Mrs. Tait would scarcely have thought themselves justified in keeping two servants, for the educational expenses of their children ran away with a large portion of their income. But Mr. Acton had now been removed to a distance, and they hoped to receive some one or other in his place.
On this evening, as Mr. Tait was picking his way through the puddles, the usual sitting-room of his house presented a cheerful appearance, ready to receive him. It was on the ground floor, looking upon the street, large and lofty, and bright with firelight. Two candles, not yet lighted, stood on the table behind the tea-tray, but the glow of the fire was sufficient for all the work that was being done in the room.
It was no work at all: but play. A young lady was quietly whirling round the room with a dancing step—quietly, because her feet and movements were gentle; and the tune she was humming, and to which she kept time, was carolled in an undertone. She was moving thus in the happy innocence of heart and youth. A graceful girl of middle height; one whom it gladdened the eye to look upon. Not for her beauty, for she had no very great beauty to boast of; but it was one of those countenances that win their own way to favour. A fair, gentle face, openly candid, with the same earnest, honest grey eye that so pleased you in Francis Tait, and brown hair. She was that gentleman's eldest child, and looked about eighteen. In reality she was a year older, but her face and dress were both youthful. She wore a violet silk frock, made with a low body and short sleeves: girls did not keep their pretty necks and arms covered up then. By daylight the dress would have appeared old, but it looked very well by candle-light.
The sound of the latch-key in the front door brought her dancing to an end. She knew who it was—no inmate of that house possessed a latch-key except its master—and she turned to the fire to light the candles.
Mr. Tait came into the room, removing neither overcoat nor hat. "Have you made tea, Jane?"
"No, papa; it has only just struck five."
"Then I think I'll go out again first. I have to call on one or two of the women, and it will be all one wetting. My feet are soaked already"—looking down at his buckled shoes and black gaiters. "You can get my slippers warmed, Jane. But"—the thought apparently striking him—"would your mamma care to wait?"
"Mamma had a cup of tea half an hour ago," replied Jane. "She said it might do her good; if she could get some sleep after it, she might be able to come down for a little before bedtime. The tea can be made whenever you like, papa. There's only Francis at home, and he and I could wait until ten, if you pleased."
"I'll go at once, then. Not until ten, Miss Jane, but until six, or about that time. Betty King is ill, but does not live far off. And I must step in to the Widow Booth's."
"Papa," cried Jane as he was turning away, "I forgot to tell you. Francis says he thinks he knows of a gentleman who would like to come here in Mr. Acton's place."
"Ah! who is it?" asked the rector.
"One of the masters at the school. Here's Francis coming down. He only went up to wash his hands."
"It is our new mathematical master, sir," cried Francis Tait, a youth of eighteen, who was being brought up to the Church. "I overheard him ask Dr. Percy if he could recommend him to a comfortable house where he might board, and make one of the family: so I told him perhaps you might receive him here. He said he'd come down and see you."
Mr. Tait paused. "Would he be a desirable inmate, think you, Francis? Is he a gentleman?"
"Quite a gentleman, I am sure," replied Francis. "And we all like what little we have seen of him. His name's Halliburton."
"Is he in Orders?"
"No. He intends to be, I think."
"Well, of course I can say nothing about it, one way or the other," concluded Mr. Tait, as he went out.
Jane stood before the fire in thought, her fingers unconsciously smoothing the parting of the glossy brown hair on her well-shaped head as she looked at it in the pier-glass. To say that she never did such a thing in vanity would be wrong; no pretty girl ever lived but was conscious of her good looks. Jane, however, was neither thinking of herself nor of vanity just then. She took a very practical part in home duties: with her mother, a practical part amidst her father's poor: and at this moment her thoughts were running on the additional work it might bring her, should this gentleman come to reside with them.
"What did you say his name was, Francis?" she suddenly asked of her brother.
"Whose?"
"That gentleman's. The new master at your school."
"Halliburton. I don't know his Christian name."
"I wonder," mused Jane aloud, "whether he will wear out his stockings as Mr. Acton did? There was always a dreadful amount of darning to be done to his. Is he an old guy, Francis?"
"Isn't he!" responded Francis Tait. "Don't faint when you see some one come in old and fat, with green rims to his spectacles. I don't say he's quite old enough to be papa's father, but–"
"Why! he must be eighty then, at least!" uttered Jane, in dismay. "How could you propose it to him? We should not care to have any one older than Mr. Acton."
"Acton! that young chicken!" contemptuously rejoined Francis. "Put him by the side of Mr. Halliburton! Acton was barely fifty."
"He was forty-eight, I think," said Jane. "Oh, dear! how I should like to have gone with Margaret and Robert this evening!" she exclaimed, forgetting the passing topic in another.
"They were not polite enough to invite me," said Francis. "I shall pay the old lady out."
Jane laughed. "You are growing too old now, Francis, to be admitted to a young ladies' breaking-up party. Mrs. Chilham said so to mamma–"
Jane's words were interrupted by a knock at the front door, apparently that of a visitor. "Jane!" cried her brother, in some trepidation, "I should not wonder if it's Mr. Halliburton! He did not say when he should come!"
Another minute, and one of the servants ushered a gentleman into the room. It was not an old guy, however, as Jane saw at a glance with a distinct feeling of relief. A tall, gentlemanlike man of five or six and twenty, with thin aquiline features, dark eyes, and a clear, fresh complexion. A handsome man, very prepossessing.
"You see I have soon availed myself of your permission to call," said he, in pleasant tones, as he took Francis Tait's hand, and glanced towards Jane with a slight bow.
"My sister Jane, sir," said Francis. "Jane, this is Mr. Halliburton."
Jane for once lost her self-possession. So surprised was she—in fact perplexed, for she did not know whether Francis was playing a trick upon her now, or whether he had previously played it; in short, whether this was, or was not, Mr. Halliburton—that she could only look from one to the other. "Are you Mr. Halliburton?" she said, in her straightforward simplicity.
"I am Mr. Halliburton," he answered, bending to her politely. "Can I have the pleasure of seeing Mr. Tait?"
"Will you take a seat?" said Jane. "Papa is out, but I do not think he will be very long."
"Where did he go to—do you know, Jane?" cried Francis, who was smothering a laugh.
"To Betty King's; and to Widow Booth's. He may have been going elsewhere