Jack; "good-evening to you;" and he was "I think it is quite just that some provision actually going away. should be made for that."

And then there was a pause. Frank Wentworth was sufficiently aware after his first start of indignation that he had no right

"Look here," said Wodehouse, hastily, in his beard; "I aint a man to forsake old friends. If Jack Wentworth does not mean anything unreasonable or against a fellow's to interfere, as Mr. Proctor said, between the honor Hold your tongue, Waters; by Miss Wodehouses and their interest. He had Jove! I know my friends. I know you no means of providing for them, of setting would never have been one of them but for them above the chances of fortune. He reJack Wentworth. He's not the common flected bitterly that it was not in his power sort, I can tell you. He's the greatest swell to offer a home to Lucy, and through her to going, by Jove!" cried Jack's admiring fol- her sister. What he had to do was to stand lower, "and through thick and thin he's by silently, to suffer other people to discuss stood by me. I aint going to forsake him what was to be done for the woman whom he now that is, if he don't want anything that loved, and whose name was sacred to him. goes against a fellow's honor," said the re- This was a stretch of patience of which he pentant prodigal, again sinking the voice was not capable. "I can only say again," which he had raised for a moment. As he said the curate, "that I think this discussion spoke, he looked more wistfully than ever has gone far enough. Whatever matters of toward his leader, who said "pshaw!" with business there may be that require arrangean impatient gesture, and put back his ci- ment had better be settled between Mr. gar. Brown and Mr. Waters. So far as private feeling goes "

66

"Never fear, I'll manage it," said Jack

"This room is too hot for anything," said Jack; but don't open the window, I entreat of you. I hate to assist at the suicide Wentworth, "as well as a dozen lawyers. of a set of insane insects. For Heaven's Private feeling has nothing to do with it. sake, Frank, mind what you're doing. As Have a cigar, Wodehouse? We'll talk it for Mr. Wodehouse's remark," said Jack, over as we walk home," said the condescendlightly, "I trust I never could suggest any- ing potentate. These words dispersed the thing which would wound his keen sense of assembly which no longer had any object. honor. I advise you to marry and settle, as As Jack Wentworth sauntered out, his faithI am in the habit of advising young men; ful follower pressed through the others to and if I were to add that it would be seemly join him. Wodehouse was himself again. to make some provision for your sisters "— He gave a sulky nod to the curate, and said, Stop there!" said the curate, who had "Good-night, parson; I don't owe much to taken no part in the scene up to this moment. you," and hastened out close upon the heels He had stood behind rather contemptuously, of his patron and leader. All the authoridetermined to have nothing to do with his ties of Carlingford, the virtuous people who ungrateful and ungenerous protégé. But conferred station and respectability by a now an unreasonable impulse forced him into look, sank into utter insignificance in presthe discussion. "The less that is said on ence of Jack. His admiring follower went that part of the subject, the better," he said, after him with a swell of pride. He was a with some natural head. "I object to the poor enough rogue himself, hustled and mixing up of names which—which no one abused by everybody, an unsuccessful and here has any right to bandy about "shabby vagabond, notwithstanding his new fortune; but Jack was the glorified impersonation of cleverness and wickedness and triumph to Wodehouse. He grew insolent when he was permitted to put his arm through that of his hero, and went off with him trying to copy, in swagger and insolence, his careless step and well-bred ease. Perhaps Jack Wentworth felt a little ashamed of himself as he emerged from the gate of

"That is very true," said Mr. Proctor; "but still they have their rights," the late rector added, after a pause. "We have no right to stand in the way of their their interest, you know." It occurred to Mr. Proctor, indeed, that the suggestion was, on the whole, a sensible one. "Even if they were to-to marry, you know, they might still be left unprovided for," said the late rector.

the rectory with his shabby and disreputa- | brother.

"I don't understand how you are

ble companion. He shrugged his shoulders to give up your work. To-night even slightly as he looked back and saw Gerald "I did not forget myself," said Gerald; and Frank coming slowly out together." every man who can distinguish good from

66

I have not given up that common privilege— don't hope it, Frank," said the martyr, with a momentary smile.

taken place; but I can't understand the sacrifice of a man's life and work. Nothing is perfect in this world; but at least to do something in it-to be good for something-and with your faculties, Gerald!" cried the admiring and regretful brother. "Can abstract right in an institution, if that is what you aim at, be worth the sacrifice of your existence-your power of influencing your fellowcreatures?" This Mr. Wentworth said, being specially moved by the circumstances in which he found himself, for, under any other conditions, such sentiments would have produced the warmest opposition in his Anglican bosom. But he was so far sympathetic that he could be tolerant to his brother who had gone to Rome.

Coraggio! " said Jack to himself, "it is I│evil has a right to advise his fellow-creature. who am the true philanthropist. Let us do evil that good may come.' Notwithstanding, he was very thankful not to be seen by his father, who had wished to consult him as “If I could but understand why it is that a man of the world, and had shown certain you make this terrible sacrifice!" said the cuyearnings toward him, which, to Jack's infi-rate-" No, I don't want to argue-of course, nite surprise, awakened responsive feelings you are convinced. I can understand the in his own unaccustomed bosom. He was wish that our unfortunate division had never half ashamed of this secret movement of natural affection, which, certainly, nobody else suspected; but it was with a sensation of relief that he closed the rectory-gate behind him, without having encountered the keen, inquiring, suspicious glances of the squire. The others dispersed according to their pleasure, Mr. Waters joining the party up-stairs, while Mr. Proctor followed Jack Wentworth and Wodehouse to the door with naïve natural curiosity. When the excellent man recollected that he was listening to private conversation, and met Wodehouse's look of sulky insolence, he turned back again, much fluttered and disturbed. He had an interest in the matter, though the two in whose hands it now lay were the last whom he would have chosen as confidants; and to do him justice, he was thinking of Lucy only in his desire to hear what they decided upon. "Something might happen to me," he said to himself; " and even if all was well, she would be happier not to be wholly dependent upon her sister; " with which self-exculpatory reflection, Mr. Proctor slowly followed the others into the drawing-room. Gerald and Frank, who were neither of them dis- I take refuge in the true church; where posed for society, went away together. They alone there is certainty-where, "' said the had enough to think of, without much need convert, with a heightened color and a longof conversation, and they had walked half-drawn breath," there is authority clear and way down Grange Lane before either spoke. Then it was Frank who broke the silence abruptly with a question which had nothing to do with the business in which they had been engaged.

"And what do you mean to do?" said Frank, suddenly. It was just as they came in sight of the graceful spire of St. Roque's; and perhaps it was the sight of his own church which roused the Perpetual Curate to think of the henceforth aimless life of his

"I know what you mean," said Gerald; it is the prevailing theory in England that all human institutions are imperfect. My dear Frank, I want a church which is not a human institution. In England it seems to be the rule of faith that every man may believe as he pleases. There is no authority either to decide or to punish. If you can foresee what that may lead us to, I cannot.

decisive. In England you believe what you will, and the result will be one that I at least fear to contemplate; in Rome we believe what-we must," said Gerald. He said the words slowly, bowing his head more than once with determined submission, as if bending under the yoke. “Frank, it is salvation!" said the new Catholic, with the emphasis of a despairing hope. And for the first time Frank Wentworth perceived what it was which had driven his brother to Rome.

"I understand you now," said the Perpet-all that is most precious in life? My sister ual Curate; “it is because there is no room for our conflicting doctrines and latitude of belief. Instead of a church happily so far imperfect that a man can put his life to the best account in it, without absolutely delivering up his intellect to a set of doctrines, you seek a perfect church, in which, for a symmetrical system of doctrine, you lose the use of your existence ! " Mr. Wentworth uttered his opinion with all the more vehemence, that it was in direct opposition to his own habitual ideas; but even his veneration for his" Mother "yielded for the moment to his strong sense of his brother's mistake. “It is a hard thing to say," said Gerald; "but it is true. If you but knew the consolation, after years of struggling among the problems of faith, to find one's self at last upon a rock of authority, of certainty,-one holds in one's hand at last the interpretation of the enigma," said Gerald. He looked up to the sky as he spoke, and breathed into the serene air a wistful, lingering sigh. If it was certainty that echoed in that breath of unsatisfied nature, the sound was sadly out of concord with the sentiment. His soul, notwithstanding that expression of serenity, was still as wistful as the night.

"Have you the interpretation! " said his brother; and Frank, too, looked up into the pure sky above, with its stars which stretched over them serene and silent, arching over the town that lay behind, and of which nobody knew better than he the human mysteries and wonderful unanswerable questions. The heart of the curate ached to think how many problems lay in the darkness, over which that sky stretched silent, making no sign. There were the sorrowful of the earth, enduring their afflictions, lifting up pitiful hands, demanding of God in their bereavements and in their miseries the reason why. There were all the inequalities of life, side by side, evermore echoing dumbly the same awful question; and over all shone the calm sky which gave no answer. "Have you the interpretation?” he said. "Perhaps you can reconcile freewill and predestination the need of a universal atonement and the existence of individual virtue? But these are not to me the most difficult questions. Can your church explain why one man is happy and another miserable?—why one has everything and abounds, and the other loses

Mary, for example," said the curate, “she
seems to bear the cross for our family. Her
children die and yours live. Can you explain
to her why? I have heard her cry out to
God to know the reason, and he made no
answer.
Tell me, have you the interpreta-
tion?" cried the young man, on whom the
hardness of his own position was pressing at
the moment. They went on together in si-
lence for a few minutes, without any attempt
on Gerald's part to answer.
"You accept
the explanation of the church in respect to
doctrines," said the curate, after that pause,
"and consent that her authority is sufficient,
and that your perplexity is over; that is well
enough, so far as it goes; but outside lies a
world in which every event is an enigma,
where nothing that comes offers any explana-
tion of itself; where God does not show him-
self always kind, but by times awful, terri-
ble,-a God who smites and does not spare.
It is easy to make a harmonious balance of
doctrine; but where is the interpretation of
life?" The young priest looked back on his
memory, and recalled, as if they had been in
a book, the daily problems with which he
was so well acquainted. As for Gerald, he
bowed his head a little, with a kind of rev-
erence, as if he had been bowing before the
shrine of a saint.

"I have had a happy life," said the elder brother. "I have not been driven to ask such questions for myself. To these the church has but one advice to offer: Trust God."

"We say so in England," said Frank Wentworth; "it is the grand scope of our teaching. Trust God. He will not explain himself, nor can we attempt it. When it is certain that I must be content with this answer for all the sorrows of life, I am content to take my doctrines on the same terms, said the Perpetual Curate;—and by this time they had come to Miss Wentworth's door. After all, perhaps it was not Gerald, except so far as he was carried by a wonderful force of human sympathy and purity of soul, who was the predestined priest of the family. As he went up to his own room, a momentary spasm of doubt came upon the new convert,-whether, perhaps, he was making a sacrifice of his life for a mistake. He hushed the thought forcibly as it rose; such im pulses were no longer to be listened to. The

same authority which made faith certain de-reading as Lucy had done in writing it,— cided every doubt to be sin.

CHAPTER XLI.

66

balancing in his mind the maidenly "truly yours" of that subscription with as many ingenious renderings of its possible meaning as if Lucy's letter had been articles of faith. Truly mine," he said to himself, with a smile; which indeed meant all a lover could require; and then paused, as if he had been Dr. Lushington or Lord Westbury, to inquire into the real force of the phrase; for after all, it is not only when signing the Articles that the bond and pledge of subscription means more than is intended. When Mr. Wentworth was able to tear himself from the agreeable casuistry of this self-discussion, he got up in much better spirits to go about his daily business. First of all, he had to see his father, and ascertain what were the squire's intentions, and how long he meant to stay in Carlingford; and then It occurred to the Perpetual Curate that after that,

the Miss Wodehouses, who had, or at least one of them, expressed so frankly their confidence in him. He could not but call to thank her, to inquire into their plans, perhaps to back Aunt Leonora's invitation, which he was aware had been gratefully declined. With these ideas in his mind he went downstairs, after brushing his hat very carefully and casting one solicitous glance in the mir

NEXT morning the curate got up with anticipations which were far from cheerful, and a weary sense of the monotony and dulness of life. He had won his little battle, it was true; but the very victory had removed that excitement which answered in the absence of happier stimulants to keep up his heart and courage. After a struggle like that in which he had been engaged, it was hard to come again into the peaceable routine without any particular hope to enliven or happiness to cheer it, which was all he had at present to look for in his life; and it was harder still to feel the necessity of being silent, of standing apart from Lucy in her need, of shutting up in his own heart the longing he had toward her, and refraining himself from the desperate thought of uniting his genteel beg-politeness demanded that he should call on gary to hers. That was the one thing which must not be thought of, and he subdued himself with an impatient sigh, and could not but wonder, as he went down-stairs, whether, if Gerald had been less smoothly guided through the perplexing paths of life, he would have found time for all the difficulties which had driven him to take refuge in Rome. It was with this sense of hopeless restraint and incapacity, which is, perhaps, of all sen-ror as he passed,-which presented to him a sations the most humbling, that he went down-stairs, and found lying on his breakfast-table, the first thing that met his eye, the note which Lucy Wodehouse had written to him on the previous night. As he read it, the earth somehow turned to the sun; the dubious light brightened in the skies. Unawares, he had been wondering never to receive any token of sympathy, any word of encouragement from those for whom he had made so many exertions. When he had read Lucy's letter, the aspect of affairs changed considerably. To be sure, nothing that she had said or could say made any difference in the facts of the case; but the curate was young, and still liable to those changes of atmosphere which do more for an imaginative mind than real revolutions. He read the letter several times over as he lingered through his breakfast, making on the whole an agreeable meal, and finding himself repossessed of his ordinary healthful appetite. He even canvassed the signature as much in

very creditable reflection, an eidolon in perfect clerical apparel, without any rusty suggestions of a perpetual curacy. Yet a perpetual curacy it was which was his sole benefice or hope in his present circumstances, for he knew very well that, were all other objections at an end, neither Skelmersdale nor Wentworth could be kept open for him ; and that beyond these two he had not a hope of advancement,—and at the same time he was pledged to remain in Carlingford. All this, however, though discouraging enough, did not succeed in discouraging Mr. Wentworth after he had read Lucy's letter. He went down-stairs so lightly that Mrs. Hadwin, who was waiting in the parlor in her best cap, to ask if he would pardon her for making such a mistake, did not hear him pass, and sat waiting for an hour, forgetting, or rather neglecting to give any response, when the butcher came for orders,-which was an unprecedented accident. Mr. Wentworth, went cheerfully up Grange Lane,

meeting, by a singular chance, ever so many | immaculate breakfast" things," and indeed people, who stopped to shake hands with lay, with its broad black edge on the top of him, or at least bowed their good wishes and the snow-white lumps, in Miss Leonora's own friendly acknowledgments. He smiled in sugar-basin; and the news had been suffihimself at these evidences of popular peni- ciently interesting to suspend the operations of tence, but was not the less pleased to find tea-making, and to bring the strong-minded himself reinstated in his place in the affec- woman to her feet. The first words which tions and respect of Carlingford. "After were audible to Frank revealed to him the all, it was not an unnatural mistake," he nature of the intelligence which had prosaid to himself, and smiled benignly upon the duced such startling effects. excellent people who had found out the error "He was always a contradictory man," of their own ways. Carlingford, indeed, said Miss Leonora; "since the first hour he seemed altogether in a more cheerful state was in Skelmersdale, he has made a practice than usual, and Mr. Wentworth could not of doing things at the wrong time. I don't but think that the community in general was mean to reproach the poor man now he's glad to find that it had been deceived, and so gone; but when he has been so long of gowent upon his way, pleasing himself with ing, what good could it do him to choose those maxims about the ultimate prevalence this particular moment, for no other reason of justice and truth, which make it appar- that I can see, except that it was specially ent that goodness is always victorious, and uncomfortable to us? What my brother has wickedness punished, in the end. Somehow just been saying makes it all the worse,” even a popular fallacy has an aspect of truth said Miss Leonora, with a look of annoyance. when it suits one's own cuse. The Perpetual She had turned her head away from the door, Curate went through his aunt's garden with which was at the side of the room, and had a conscious smile, feeling once more master not perceived the entrance of the curate. of himself and his concerns. There was, to "As long as we could imagine that Frank tell the truth, even a slight shade of self- was to succeed to the rectory, the thing content and approbation upon his handsome looked comparatively easy. I beg your parcountenance. In the present changed state don, Gerald. Of course, you know how of public opinion and private feeling, he be-grieved I am,—in short, that we all feel the gan to take some pleasure in his sacrifice. deepest distress and vexation; but, to be sure, To be sure, a perpetual curate could not since you have given it up, somebody must marry; but perhaps Lucy-in short, there succeed you; there can be no doubt of was no telling what might happen; and it that." was accordingly with that delicious sense of goodness which generally attends an act of self-sacrifice, mingled with an equally delicious feeling that the act, when accomplished, might turn out no such great sacrifice after all-which it is to be feared is the most usual way in which the sacrifices of youth are made that the curate walked into the hall, passing his Aunt Dora's toy terrier without that violent inclination to give it a whack with his cane in passing which was his usual state of feeling. To tell the truth, Lucy's letter had made him at peace with all the world.

When, however, he entered the diningroom, where the family were still at breakfast, Frank's serenity was unexpectedly disturbed. The first thing that met his eye was his Aunt Leonora, towering over her tea-urn at the upper end of the table, holding in her hand a letter which she had just opened. The envelope had fallen in the midst of the

"Not the least, my dear aunt," said Ger

ald.

"I am glad you grant so much. It is well to be sure of something," said the incisive and peremptory speaker. "It would have been a painful thing for us at any time to place another person in Skelmersdale while Frank was unprovided for; but, of course," said Miss Leonora, sitting down suddenly, "nobody who knows me could suppose for a minute that I would let my feelings stand in the way of my public duty. Still it is very awkward just at this moment, when Frank, on the whole, has been behaving very properly, and one can't help so far approving of him"

“I am much obliged to you, Aunt Leonora," said the curate.

66

'Oh, you are there, Frank," said his sensible aunt; and strong-minded though she was, a slight shade of additional color