acquaintance of Heavens himself for the first time. The doctor was not at home, being just then out on his professional rounds; and when Jenny entered the parlour she found a priest she had never seen before sitting near the sewing-table of the lady of the house, and engaged in a lively conversation with her.
The doctor’s wife was turning over the leaves of a new book that Cvok had brought her. Jenny knew at the first glance that it must be Father Heavens, and she could not help feeling her heart immediately drawn to him. Half an hour later they understood each other as well as if they had been acquainted all their lives. Cvok spoke freely, without any constraint, but at the same time with the wisdom of a Socrates. During the conversation he called the gracious mistress of Labutín “an over-bearing old hag”— words that Jenny in her heart considered to be well deserved, and quite an objective, truthful criticism; the harshness of which Heavens softened, however, by adding, “The baroness would be, doubtless, a better woman and more humane, if she had only had a more natural education, if the late baron had been a wiser and more energetic man, and if she were not surrounded by a set of mere puppets and sycophants, who, from want of character and for fear of losing their bread, flatter and pamper all her whims, and confirm her in her faults.”
Jenny blushed slightly at the last words; but good Father Cvok did not even remark it, and immediately turned the conversation to another person.
“Baron Mundy is essentially better than his mother. For a man of his age he submits only too patiently, perhaps, to her leading-strings; though I must say I do
