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СКАЧАТЬ old folks! their daughter did very well for herself—and very well for them too,” said Mrs. Brown; “but it don’t make no difference in Mrs. Christian’s feelins: they’re living, like, on Mr. Brown the solicitor’s charity, you see, sir, instead of their own fortin, which makes a deal o’ difference. It would have been a fine thing for Salem too,” added Mrs. Brown, reflectively, “if they had had the old lady’s money; for Mrs. Christian was always one that liked to be first, and stanch to her chapel, and would never have been wanting when the collecting-books went round. But it wasn’t to be, Mr. Vincent—that’s the short and the long of it; and we never have had nobody in our connection worth speaking of in Carlingford but’s been in trade. And a very good thing too, as I tell Brown. For if there’s one thing I can’t abear in a chapel, it’s one set setting up above the rest. But bein’ all in the way of business, except just the poor folks, as is all very well in their place, and never interferes with nothing, and don’t count, there’s nothing but brotherly love here, which is a deal more than most ministers can say for their flocks. I’ve asked a few friends to tea, Mr. Vincent, on next Thursday, at six. As I haven’t got no daughters just out of a boarding-school to write notes for me, will you take us in a friendly way, and just come without another invitation? All our own folks, sir, and a comfortable evening; and prayers, if you’ll be so good, at the end. I don’t like the new fashion,” said Mrs. Brown, with a significant glance towards Mrs. Tozer, “of separatin’ like heathens, when all’s of one connection. We might never meet again, Mr. Vincent. In the midst of life, you know, sir. You’ll not forget Thursday, at six.”

      “But, my dear Mrs. Brown, I am very sorry: Thursday is one of the days I have specially devoted to study,” stammered forth the unhappy pastor. “What with the Wednesday meeting and the Friday committee——”

      Mrs. Brown drew herself up as well as the peculiarities of her form permitted, and her roseate countenance assumed a deeper glow. “We’ve been in the chapel longer than Tozer,” said the offended deaconess. “We’ve never been backward, in takin’ trouble, nor spendin’ our substance, nor puttin’ our hands to every good work; and as for makin’ a difference between one member and another, it’s what we ain’t been accustomed to, Mr. Vincent. I’m a plain woman, and speak my mind. Old Mr. Tufton was very particular to show no preference. He always said, it never answered in a flock to show more friendship to one nor another; and if it had been put to me, I wouldn’t have said, I assure you, sir, that it was us as was to be made the first example of. If I haven’t a daughter fresh out of a boarding-school, I’ve been a member of Salem five-and-twenty year, and had ministers in my house many’s the day, and as friendly as if I were a duchess; and for charities and such things, we’ve never been known to fail, though I say it; and as for trouble——”

      “But I spoke of my study,” said the poor minister, as she paused, her indignation growing too eloquent for words: “you want me to preach on Sunday, don’t you? and I must have some time, you know, to do my work.”

      “Sir,” said Mrs. Brown, severely, “I know it for a fact that Mr. Wentworth of St. Roque’s dines out five days in the week, and it don’t do his sermons no injury; and when you go out to dinner, it stands to reason it’s a different thing from a friendly tea.”

      “Ah, yes, most likely!” said Mr. Vincent, with a heavy sigh. “I’ll come, since you wish it so much; but,” added the unlucky young man, with a melancholy attempt at a smile, “you must not be too kind to me. Too much of this kind of thing, you know, might have an effect——” Here he paused, inclined to laugh at his own powers of sarcasm. As chance would have it, as he pointed generally to the scene before them, the little wave of his hand seemed to Mrs. Brown to indicate the group round the piano, foremost in which was Phœbe, plump and pink, and full of dimples. The good mistress of the Devonshire Dairy gave her head a little toss.

      “Ah!” said Mrs. Brown, with a sigh, “you don’t know, you young men, the half of the tricks of them girls that look so innocent. But I don’t deny it’s a pleasant party,” added the deaconess, looking round on the company in general with some complacency. “But just you come along our way on Thursday, at six, and judge for yourself if mine ain’t quite as good; though I have not got no daughters, Mr. Vincent,” she concluded, with severe irony, elevating her double chin and nodding her flowery head.

      The subdued minister made no reply; only deeper and deeper humiliation seemed in store for him. Was it he, the first prize-man of Homerton, who was supposed to be already smitten by the pink charms of Phœbe Tozer? The unfortunate young man groaned in spirit, and, seizing a sudden opportunity, plunged into the black group of deacons, and tried to immerse himself in chapel business. But vain was the attempt. He was recaptured and led back in triumph to Mrs. Tozer’s sofa. He had to listen to more singing, and accept another invitation to tea. When he got off at last, it was with a sensation of dreadful dwindlement that poor Vincent crossed the street again to his lonely abode. He knocked quite humbly at the big door, and, with a sensation of unclerical rage, wondered to himself whether the policeman who met him knew he had been out to tea. Ah, blessed Mr. Wentworth of St. Roque’s! The young Nonconformist sighed as he put on his slippers, and kicked his boots into a corner of his sitting-room. Somehow he had come down in the world all at once, and without expecting it. Such was Salem Chapel and its requirements: and such was Mr. Vincent’s first experience of social life in Carlingford.

      CHAPTER II.

       Table of Contents

      It was with a somewhat clouded aspect that the young pastor rose from his solitary breakfast-table next morning to devote himself to the needful work of visiting his flock. The minister’s breakfast, though lonely, had not been without alleviations. He had the “Carlingford Gazette” at his elbow, if that was any comfort, and he had two letters which were more interesting; one was from his mother, a minister’s widow, humbly enough off, but who had brought up her son in painful gentility, and had done much to give him that taste for good society which was to come to so little fruition in Carlingford. Mr. Vincent smiled sardonically as he read his good mother’s questions about his “dear people,” and her anxious inquiry whether he had found a “pleasant circle” in Salem. Remembering the dainty little household which it took her so much pains and pinching to maintain, the contrast made present affairs still more and more distasteful to her son. He could fancy her trim little figure in that traditionary black silk gown which never wore out, and the whitest of caps, gazing aghast at Mrs. Brown and Mrs. Tozer. But, nevertheless, Mrs. Vincent understood all about Mrs. Brown and Mrs. Tozer, and had been very civil to such, and found them very serviceable in her day, though her son, who knew her only in that widowed cottage where she had her own way, could not have realised it. The other letter was from a Homerton chum, a young intellectual and ambitious Nonconformist like himself, whose epistle was full of confidence and hope, triumph in the cause, and its perpetual advance. “We are the priests of the poor,” said the Homerton enthusiast, encouraging his friend to the sacrifices and struggles which he presumed to be already surrounding him. Mr. Vincent bundled up this letter with a sigh. Alas! there were no grand struggles or sacrifices in Carlingford. “The poor” were mostly church-goers, as he had already discovered. It was a tolerably comfortable class of the community, that dreadful “connection” of Browns, Pigeons, and Tozers. Amid their rude luxuries and commonplace plenty, life could have no heroic circumstances. The young man sighed, and did not feel so sure as he once did of the grand generalities in which his friend was still confident. If Dissenters led the van of progress generally, there was certainly an exception to be made in respect to Carlingford. And the previous evening’s entertainment had depressed the young minister’s expectations even of what he himself could do—a sad blow to a young man. He was less convinced that opportunity of utterance was all that was necessary to give him influence in the general community. He was not half so sure of success in opening the closed doors and sealed hearts of Grange Lane. On the whole, matters СКАЧАТЬ