neighbours declared that he scourged himself.

Mr Oriel was, as it has been said, a man of fortune; that is to say,
when he came of age he was master of thirty thousand pounds. When he
took it into his head to go into the Church, his friends bought for
him the next presentation to the living at Greshamsbury; and, a year
after his ordination, the living falling in, Mr Oriel brought himself
and his sister to the rectory.

Mr Oriel soon became popular. He was a dark-haired, good-looking
man, of polished manners, agreeable in society, not given to monkish
austerities--except in the matter of Fridays--nor yet to the
Low-Church severity of demeanour. He was thoroughly a gentleman,
good-humoured, inoffensive, and sociable. But he had one fault: he
was not a marrying man.

On this ground there was a feeling against him so strong as almost at
one time to throw him into serious danger. It was not only that he
should be sworn against matrimony in his individual self--he whom
fate had made so able to sustain the weight of a wife and family;
but what an example he was setting! If other clergymen all around
should declare against wives and families, what was to become of the
country? What was to be done in the rural districts? The religious
observances, as regards women, of a Brigham Young were hardly so bad
as this!

There were around Greshamsbury very many unmarried ladies--I believe
there generally are so round most such villages. From the great house
he did not receive much annoyance. Beatrice was then only just on the
verge of being brought out, and was not perhaps inclined to think
very much of a young clergyman; and Augusta certainly intended to fly
at higher game. But there were the Miss Athelings, the daughters of
a neighbouring clergyman, who were ready to go all lengths with him
in High-Church matters, except as that one tremendously papal step
of celibacy; and the two Miss Hesterwells, of Hesterwell Park, the
younger of whom boldly declared her purpose of civilising the savage;
and Mrs Opie Green, a very pretty widow, with a very pretty jointure,
who lived in a very pretty house about a mile from Greshamsbury, and
who declared her opinion that Mr Oriel was quite right in his view of
a clergyman's position. How could a woman, situated as she was, have
the comfort of a clergyman's attention if he were to be regarded
just as any other man? She could now know in what light to regard
Mr Oriel, and would be able without sc