during the two last years of his life, and a succession of ill-paid curates took the duty at Beauchamp. One became ill and unfit for work from the effects of the damp; another, who had come fresh from a manufacturing town, where he had been accustomed to appeal to intellects as keen as his own, gave up his rural congregation in despair after he had examined a few of the most intelligent-looking members in the churchyard on the subject of the sermon he had just delivered; a third levelled such straightforward denunciations at what he considered the hopeless lethargy of his flock, that they grew too timid to venture into church at all. But in truth it was a discouraging field for action, for no one could look at the vacant eye and the meagre development of brain amongst the labouring population, and hope for much fruit from so sapless a tree. When death removed Mr. Nugent from the supervision of the work to which he had never had sufficient energy to put his own hand, it was owing to the fact of a sermon lying forgotten in the pocket of a coat that an industrious and earnest-minded man had come to fill his place.
CHAPTER II.
Mr. Wortleby lived in a large gloomy house in Chanleigh, of which the lower part was entirely set apart for the transaction of business. On either side of the street-door, which had a ponderous hard-headed looking knocker upon it, and a brass-plate, which was suffered to turn green, were the offices; behind the larger of the two was Mr. Wortleby’s private room. But into this he had not yet descended. He was at breakfast upstairs; at breakfast grimly, solemnly, in the midst of his family; the hush that pervades all atmospheres when the ruling spirit is a cruel one was perceptible in the room. Mr. Wortleby was somewhat past the prime of life; tall, and well-bred, looking with a cold blue eye, and a purple lip that only became life-like when his temper was roused. In his intercourse with his superiors his manners were exquisitely polished; with his equals he was haughty and arrogant; to his inferiors he was simply a tyrant. Amongst the latter class he reckoned his family. Early in life he had married the daughter of a farmer, for the sake of a little hoard of money, which served to buy the business of the solicitor to whom he had been articled, and to secure the best connection in the county. This object attained, he never professed to care whether Mrs. Wortleby lived or died. She bore him seven daughters: like herself, neither pretty nor remarkably ugly; ordinary in ability as in person. As they grew to womanhood, Mr. Wortleby would sit and gaze at them, his hand supporting his chin, almost savagely. Not one of them resembled him; not one of them had a redeeming point of beauty. Mr. Wortleby was a staunch Conservative: he numbered amongst his clients the representatives of the landed interest of the county; he was land-steward to three noblemen; he sat at their tables, he went on professional visits to their houses. Of course he never dreamt of presenting Mrs. Wortleby to their notice, but for a daughter he would have had no difficulty in procuring an introduction, provided she had beauty or talent, or, better still, the two requisites combined. To have heard “Wortleby’s daughter” praised for her beauty, for her singing, for any attraction or accomplishment that would entitle her to be “taken up” by the class he loved to be amongst—this was the craving of his heart, and in it he was doomed to a life-long disappointment. As one little snub-nose after another grew out of the age which their simple-hearted mother looked upon as cherubhood, Mr. Wortleby sighed bitterly, and wrapped himself still more closely in his selfishness. The girls were strongly attached to their mother, who drew all the sunshine of her existence from their kindness and affection. They were but little known amongst their own class in Chanleigh. If a neighbour chanced to call at any time after two o’clock in the day, by which hour the family dinner was concluded, Mrs. Wortleby invariably saluted her with a wistful request to “stay to tea”—provided, of course, as it generally happened, Mr. Wortleby was from home. This was the extent to which she indulged herself in the pleasures of society.
It was Saturday morning, and the usual supply of newspapers had arrived. Mr. Wortleby had a way of appropriating them to his own use which no one ever ventured to dispute. The “Economist” was thrust under the cushion of his chair; beneath his elbows were two county papers, and he held the “Times” in his hands. His attitude symbolised his life.
A knock at the door of the breakfast-room interrupted his study of the course of events, and a junior clerk, with cheeks that always became cherry-coloured at the sight of the seven Miss Wortlebys, announced “Miss Nevil, on business.” “Let her wait in my room,” said Mr. Wortleby. It was unnecessary for him to hurry himself on her account: her position did not justify such a proceeding. He had barely tolerated her since the day when Mrs. Wortleby had innocently let fall an observation on the fact of her mainly supporting herself by various kinds of intricate needlework, which were sent from time to time to an agent in London. It was sufficient to prove her loss of caste, Mr. Wortleby said, that Mr. Parkins, the grocer of Chanleigh, had made her an offer of marriage on becoming acquainted with the fact. How this had ever come to be a matter of public gossip had never clearly transpired. Mr. Parkins, a liberally-disposed man, giving credit for many an ounce of tea and rasher of bacon which he never expected to get paid for, had learnt to look on Miss Letitia as the perfection of womanly grace and sweetness. He was unprepared for the discovery that she took wages for her work, as Miss Simms the village dressmaker did for hers, and with a feeling of chivalry rather than of presumption, he had offered her his home and his honest heart as a desirable alternative. This he had done in a letter, to which Miss Letitia had replied; not accepting his proposal certainly, but declining it with so much gratitude and friendliness that it was generally supposed the publicity of the affair was owing to Mr. Parkins having been discovered opening Miss Letitia’s letter on the top of a tea canister, and sobbing “God bless her kind heart!” when he had