Page:Eliot - Felix Holt, the Radical, vol. III, 1866.djvu/291

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FELIX HOLT.
281

But the majority of honest Trebians were affected somewhat in the same way as happy-looking Mr Wace was, who observed to his wife, as they walked from under the churchyard chestnuts, "It's wonderful how things go through you—you don't know how. I feel somehow as if I believed more in everything that's good."

Mrs Holt, that day, said she felt herself to be receiving "some reward," implying that justice certainly had much more in reserve. Little Job Tudge had an entirely new suit, of which he fingered every separate brass button in a way that threatened an arithmetical mania; and Mrs Holt had out her best tea-trays and put down her carpet again, with the satisfaction of thinking that there would no more be boys coming in all weathers with dirty shoes.

For Felix and Esther did not take up their abode in Treby Magna; and after a while Mr Lyon left the town too, and joined them where they dwelt. On his resignation the church in Malthouse Yard chose a successor to him whose doctrine was rather higher.

There were other departures from Treby. Mr Jermyn's establishment was broken up, and he was understood to have gone to reside at a great distance: some said "abroad," that large home of