Miss Mackenzie. Anthony Trollope

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      Here Mr. Maguire paused, and Miss Mackenzie, finding herself obliged to speak, said that she did not at all doubt it.

      "You need not doubt it, Miss Mackenzie. She is all that, I tell you; and more, too. Her manners may seem a little harsh to you at first. I know it is so sometimes with ladies before they know her well; but it is only skin-deep, Miss Mackenzie—only skin-deep. She is so much in earnest about her work, that she cannot bring herself to be light and playful as he is. Now, he is as full of play as a young lamb."

      "He seems to be very pleasant."

      "And he is always just the same. There are people, you know, who say that religion is austere and melancholy. They never could say that if they knew my friend Stumfold. His life is devoted to his clerical duties. I know no man who works harder in the vineyard than Stumfold. But he always works with a smile on his face. And why not, Miss Mackenzie? when you think of it, why not?"

      "I dare say it's best not to be unhappy," said Miss Mackenzie. She did not speak till she perceived that he had paused for her answer.

      "Of course we know that this world can make no one happy. What are we that we should dare to be happy here?"

      Again he paused, but Miss Mackenzie feeling that she had been ill-treated and trapped into a difficulty at her last reply, resolutely remained silent.

      "I defy any man or woman to be happy here," said Mr. Maguire, looking at her with one eye and at the corner of the wall with the other in a manner that was very terrible to her. "But we may be cheerful—we may go about our work singing psalms of praise instead of songs of sorrow. Don't you agree with me, Miss Mackenzie, that psalms of praise are better than songs of sorrow?"

      "I don't sing at all, myself," said Miss Mackenzie.

      "You sing in your heart, my friend; I am sure you sing in your heart. Don't you sing in your heart?" Here again he paused.

      "Well; perhaps in my heart, yes."

      "I know you do, loud psalms of praise upon a ten-stringed lute. But Stumfold is always singing aloud, and his lute has twenty strings." Here the voice of the twenty-stringed singer was heard across the large room asking the company a riddle.

      "Why was Peter in prison like a little boy with his shoes off?"

      "That's so like him," said Mr. Maguire.

      All the ladies in the room were in a fever of expectation, and Mr. Stumfold asked the riddle again.

      "He won't tell them till we meet again; but there isn't one here who won't study the life of St. Peter during the next week. And what they'll learn in that way they'll never forget."

      "But why was he like a little boy with his shoes off?" asked Miss Mackenzie.

      "Ah! that's Stumfold's riddle. You must ask Mr. Stumfold, and he won't tell you till next week. But some of the ladies will be sure to find it out before then. Have you come to settle yourself altogether at Littlebath, Miss Mackenzie?"

      This question he asked very abruptly, but he had a way of looking at her when he asked a question, which made it impossible for her to avoid an answer.

      "I suppose I shall stay here for some considerable time."

      "Do, do," said he with energy. "Do; come and live among us, and be one of us; come and partake with us at the feast which we are making ready; come and eat of our crusts, and dip with us in the same dish; come and be of our flock, and go with us into the pleasant pastures, among the lanes and green hedges which appertain to the farm of the Lord. Come and walk with us through the Sabbath cornfields, and pluck the ears when you are a-hungered, disregarding the broad phylacteries. Come and sing with us songs of a joyful heart, and let us be glad together. What better can you do, Miss Mackenzie? I don't believe there is a more healthy place in the world than Littlebath, and, considering that the place is fashionable, things are really very reasonable."

      He was rapid in his utterance, and so full of energy, that Miss Mackenzie did not quite follow him in his quick transitions. She hardly understood whether he was advising her to take up an abode in a terrestrial Eden or a celestial Paradise; but she presumed that he meant to be civil, so she thanked him and said she thought she would. It was a thousand pities that he should squint so frightfully, as in all other respects he was a good-looking man. Just at this moment there seemed to be a sudden breaking up of the party.

      "We are all going away," said Mr. Maguire. "We always do when Mrs. Stumfold gets up from her seat. She does it when she sees that her father is nodding his head. You must let me out, because I've got to say a prayer. By-the-bye, you'll allow me to walk home with you, I hope. I shall be so happy to be useful."

      Miss Mackenzie told him that the fly was coming for her, and then he scrambled away into the middle of the room.

      "We always walk home from these parties," said Miss Baker, who had, however, on this occasion, consented to be taken away by Miss Mackenzie in the fly. "It makes it come so much cheaper, you know."

      "Of course it does; and it's quite as nice if everybody does it. But you don't walk going there?"

      "Not generally," said Miss Baker; "but there are some of them who do that. Miss Trotter always walks both ways, if it's ever so wet." Then there were a few words said about Miss Trotter which were not altogether good-natured.

      Miss Mackenzie, as soon as she was at home, got down her Bible and puzzled herself for an hour over that riddle of Mr. Stumfold's; but with all her trouble she could not find why St. Peter in prison was like a little boy with his shoes off.

CHAPTER V

       Table of Contents

Showing How Mr. Rubb, Junior, Progressed at Littlebath

       Table of Contents

      A full week had passed by after Mrs. Stumfold's tea-party before Mr. Rubb called again at the Paragon; and in the meantime Miss Mackenzie had been informed by her lawyer that there did not appear to be any objection to the mortgage, if she liked the investment for her money.

      "You couldn't do better with your money—you couldn't indeed," said Mr. Rubb, when Miss Mackenzie, meaning to be cautious, started the conversation at once upon matters of business.

      Mr. Rubb had not been in any great hurry to repeat his call, and Miss Mackenzie had resolved that if he did come again she would treat him simply as a member of the firm with whom she had to transact certain monetary arrangements. Beyond that she would not go; and as she so resolved, she repented herself of the sherry and biscuit.

      The people whom she had met at Mr. Stumfold's had been all ladies and gentlemen; she, at least, had supposed them to be so, not having as yet received any special information respecting the wife of the retired coachbuilder. Mr. Rubb was not a gentleman; and though she was by no means inclined to give herself airs—though, as she assured herself, she believed Mr. Rubb to be quite as good as herself—yet there was, and must always be, a difference among people. She had no inclination to be proud; but if Providence had been pleased to place her in one position, it did not behove her to degrade herself by СКАЧАТЬ