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And the Rector, still moved at his uncle's lavish kindness, nodded grateful assent. They sat on in silence for a while. Tonet was all taken up with the game nearby, and did not try to follow the conversation which the two men were carrying on, as much with their eyes, almost, as with their lips, which hardly moved. And when were they intending to start, tio Mariano went on.

But my life hasn't been long enough for all that." The more Ralph's mind dwelt upon the matter, the more dissatisfied did he feel that this beautiful young creature should marry the rector. If, in truth, she applied the fable to him, this was all the more reason why he should feel sorry for her.

He had been telling her the substance of his conversation with the rector, and now curled up on the low wooden seat, his small legs crossed underneath him, he was gazing dreamily out into the sweet-scented garden.

The rector had a conviction on this point, and did not hesitate to state it without waiting to be enlightened as to the banker's views. "It would seem to me a wise decision," he said, looking out of the window, and wholly absorbed in the contemplation of the evidences of misery and vice, "with this poverty at the very doors of the church."

In his longing for comfort and advice he had seized upon the rector of the Nativity without remembering that he was the last person to whom he should come. "Ah," he said, "it was true!" Candish did not answer, and they went into the study in silence. The host sat down in the well-worn chair by his writing-table, while Philip took a seat facing him.

He was suffering from a low fever, and his sister had better be kept out of his room. He would not sleep, and was restless, and it might be some time before he could return to London. Early in the day the rector came into his son's bedroom, and told him and his mother, who was there, the news which he had just heard from the great house.

There the Rector performed two services a Sunday, celebrated the Holy Communion once a month, and preached his practical sermons, transcribed from his own execrable manuscript by a sedulous clerk. "I like," he said, "to look down upon my congregation to fire into them. The common people say I am a bould preacher, for I like to have my arms free, and to thump the pulpit."

Then the Misses Avery, school-teachers, and elderly, looked at one another. "Did you ever?" whispered the oldest Miss Avery, and the others slowly shook their heads. Now, think! Did you ever see a rector jumping a three-wire fence, and running full speed across his front yard, in pursuit of a flying family? It may possibly have occurred, we have never seen it. Neither had the Misses Avery.

Such was the confidence with which, for some reason, she inspired him, that he left with an easier mind. It was not until the rector had arrived at the vestibule of the apartment house next door that something of the difficulty and delicacy of the errand he had undertaken came home to him.

The rector the Rev. Joseph Armstrong? He must be the man: there was, at any rate, respectability in his profession; and he had sufficient worldly tact not easily to be thrust aside from his object: the difficulty would be, whether he had a coat sufficiently decent to appear in at Grey Abbey. After mature consideration he made up his mind that the parson should be his ambassador.