succeeded very effectively in getting rid of Manning. All he could do was to make the best of a bad business. Accordingly, in the first place, he decided that he had received a call from God "ad veritatem et ad seipsum"; and, in the second, forgetting Miss Deffell, he married his rector's daughter. Within a few months the rector died, and Manning stepped into his shoes: and at least it could be said that the shoes were not uncomfortable. For the next seven years he fulfilled the functions of a country clergyman. He was energetic and devout; he was polite and handsome; his fame grew in the diocese. At last he began to be spoken of as the probable successor to the old Archdeacon of Chichester. When Mrs. Manning prematurely died, he was at first inconsolable, but he found relief in the distraction of redoubled work. How could he have guessed that one day he would come to number that loss among "God's special mercies"? Yet so it was to be. In after years, the memory of his wife seemed to be blotted from his mind; he never spoke of her; every letter, every record, of his married life he destroyed; and when word was sent to him that her grave was falling into ruin: "It is best so," the Cardinal answered; "let it be. Time effaces all things." But, when the grave was yet fresh, the young Rector would sit beside it, day after day, writing his sermons.
