The Perpetual Curate. Mrs. Oliphant

possible that he could like her, and be jealous of her talk with—Sarah? Poor little foolish Rosa did not know what to think. She had read a great many novels, and knew that it was quite usual for gentlemen to fall in love with pretty little girls who were not of their own station;—why not with her? So she went on, half running, keeping up with Mr. Wentworth, and sometimes stealing sly glances at him to see what intention was in his looks. But his looks were beyond Rosa's reading. He walked by her side without speaking, and gave a glance up at the window of the summer-house as they passed. And strange enough, that evening of all others, Miss Dora, who had been the victim of some of Miss Leonora's caustic criticisms, had strayed forth, in melancholy mood, to repose herself at her favourite window, and look out at the faint stars, and comfort herself with a feeble repetition of her favourite plea, that it was not "my fault." The poor lady was startled out of her own troubles by the sight of her nephew's tall unmistakable figure; and, as bad luck would have it, Rosa's hat, tied insecurely by her agitated fingers, blew off at that moment, so that Mr. Wentworth's aunt became aware, to her inexpressible horror and astonishment, who his companion was. The unhappy Curate divined all the thoughts that would arise in her perturbed bosom, when he saw the indistinct figure at the window, and said something to himself about espionage, which was barely civil to Miss Dora, as he hurried along on his charitable errand. He was out of one trouble into another, this unlucky young man. He knocked sharply at Elsworthy's closed door, and gave up his charge without speaking to Rosa. "I brought her home because I thought it wrong to let her go up Grange Lane by herself," said the Curate. "Don't thank me; but if you have any regard for the child, don't send her out at night again." He did not even bid Rosa good-night, or look back at her, as she stood blushing and sparkling in confused childish beauty, in the doorway; but turned his back like any savage, and hastened home again. Before he entered his own apartments, he knocked at the door of the green room, and said something to the inmate there which produced from that personage a growl of restrained defiance. And after all these fatigues, it was with a sense of relief that the Curate threw himself upon his sofa, to think over the events of the afternoon, and to take a little rest. He was very tired, and the consolation he had experienced during the evening made him more disposed to yield to his fatigue. He threw himself upon the sofa, and stretched out his hand lazily for his letters, which evidently did not excite any special expectations in his mind. There was one from his sister, and one from an old university friend, full of the news of the season. Last of all, there was a neat little note, directed in a neat little hand, which anybody who received it would naturally have left to the last, as Mr. Wentworth did. He opened it quite deliberately, without any appearance of interest. But as he read the first lines, the Curate gradually gathered himself up off the sofa, and stretched out his hand for his boots, which he had just taken off; and before he had finished it, had walked across the room and laid hold of the railway book in use at Carlingford, all the time reading and re-reading the important little epistle. It was not so neat inside as out, and blurred and blotted, and slightly illegible; and this is what the letter said:—

      "Oh, Frank, dear, I am so anxious and unhappy about Gerald. I can't tell what is the matter with him. Come directly, for heaven's sake, and tell me what you think, and try what you can do. Don't lose a train after you get this, but come directly—oh, come if you ever loved any of us. I don't know what he means, but he says the most awful things; and if he is not mad, as I sometimes hope, he has forgotten his duty to his family and to me, which is far worse. I can't explain more; but if there is any chance of anybody doing him good, it is you. I beg you, on my knees, come directly, dear Frank. I never was in such a state in my life. I shall be left so that nobody will be able to tell what I am; and my heart is bursting. Never mind business or anything; but come, come directly, whether it is night or day, to your broken-hearted sister,

      "Louisa."

      "P.S.—In great haste, and so anxious to see you."

      Half an hour after, Mr. Wentworth, with a travelling-bag in his hand, was once more hastening up Grange Lane towards the railway station. His face was somewhat grey, as the lamps shone on it. He did not exactly know what he was anxious about, nor what might have happened at Wentworth Rectory before he could get there; but the express train felt slow to his anxious thoughts as it flashed out of the station. Mr. Morgan and his wife were in their garden, talking about the encounter in Prickett's Lane, when the train plunged past, waking all the echoes; and Mrs. Morgan, by way of making a diversion, appealed to the Rector about those creepers, with which she hoped in a year or two to shut out the sight of the railway. "The Virginian creeper would be the best," said the Rector's wife; and they went in to calculate the expenses of bringing Mr. Wentworth before Dr. Lushington. Miss Dora, at very nearly the same moment, was confiding to her sister Cecilia, under vows of secrecy, the terrible sight she had seen from the summer-house window. They went to bed with very sad hearts in consequence, both these good women. In the mean time, leaving all these gathering clouds behind him, leaving his reputation and his work to be discussed and quarrelled over as they might, the Perpetual Curate rushed through the night, his heart aching with trouble and anxiety, to help, if he could—and if not, at least to stand by—Gerald, in this unknown crisis of his brother's life.

CHAPTER XI.

       Table of Contents

      Miss Dora Wentworth rose very unrefreshed next morning from her disturbed slumbers. It was hard to sit at breakfast with Leonora, and not betray to her the new anxiety; and the troubled sister ran into a countless number of digressions, which would have inevitably betrayed her had not Miss Leonora been at the moment otherwise occupied. She had her little budget of letters as usual, and some of them were more than ordinarily interesting. She too had a favourite district, which was in London, and where also a great work was going on; and her missionary, and her Scripture-readers, and her colporteur were all in a wonderful state of excitement about a new gin-palace which was being fitted out and decorated in the highest style of art on the borders of their especial domain. They were moving heaven and earth to prevent this temple of Satan from being licensed; and some of them were so very certain of the Divine acquiescence in their measures, that they announced the success of their exertions to be a test of the faithfulness of God; which Miss Leonora read out to her sisters as an instance of very touching and beautiful faith. Miss Wentworth, perhaps, was not so clear on that subject. During the course of her silent life, she had prayed for various things which it had not been God's pleasure to grant; and just now she, too, was very anxious about Frank, who seemed to be in a bad way; so she rather shook her head gently, though she did not contravene the statement, and concluded with sadness that the government of the earth might still go on as usual, and God's goodness remain as certain as ever, even though the public-house was licensed, or Frank did fall away. This was the teaching of experience; but aunt Cecilia did not utter it, for that was not her way. As for Miss Dora, she agreed in all the colporteur's sentiments, and thought them beautiful, as Leonora said, and was not much disturbed by any opinion of her own, expressed or unexpressed, but interspersed her breakfast with little sighing ejaculations of the temptations of the world, and how little one knew what was passing around one, and "let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall," which could not have failed to attract Miss Leonora's attention, and draw forth the whole story of her sister's suspicions, had not that quick-witted iron-grey woman been, as we have already mentioned, too deeply engaged. Perhaps her nephew's imaginary backsliding might have excited even Miss Leonora to an interest deeper than that which was awakened by the new gin-palace; but as it happened, it was the humbler intelligence alone which occupied itself with the supposed domestic calamity. Miss Dora's breakfast was affected by it in a way which did not appear in the morning meal of her sister; for somehow the most fervent love of souls seldom takes away the appetite, as the love of some unlucky individual occasionally does.

      When breakfast was over, Miss Dora made a very elaborate excuse for going out by herself. She wanted to match some wool for a blanket she was making, "For Louisa's baby," the devoted aunt said, with a little tremor. "Poor Louisa! if Gerald were to go any further, you know, it would be so sad for her; and one would like to help to keep up her heart, poor dear, as much as one could."

      "By means of a blanket for the bassinet in scarlet and white," said Miss Leonora;