Miss Rachel; and one night, the excellent Zack excused his failure in
geography by saying that Mr. Touchett had thrown away his book, and said
that it was no better than sacrilege, omitting, however, to mention that
he had been caught studying it under his surplice during the lessons.

At last, with his usual fatality, the curate fixed the grand practice
for the Saturday evenings that were Rachel's great days for instruction
in the three R's, and for a sort of popular lecture. Cricket was to
succeed the singing, and novelty carried the day, but only by the
desertion of her scholars did Rachel learn the new arrangement, and she
could hardly credit the assertion that the curate was not aware that it
was her day. In fact, it was the only one when the fisher lads were sure
not to be at sea, and neither party would yield it. Mr. Touchett was
determined not to truckle to dictation from the great house; so when
Rachel declared she would have nothing to do with the boys unless the
Saturdays were conceded to her, he owned that he thought the clergyman
had the first right to his lads, and had only not claimed them before
out of deference for the feelings of a well-meaning parishioner.

Both parties poured out their grievances to the same auditor, for Mr.
Touchett regarded Ermine Williams as partly clerical, and Rachel could
never be easy without her sympathy. To hear was not, however, to make
peace, while each side was so sore, so conscious of the merits of its
own case, so blind to those of the other. One deemed praise in its
highest form the prime object of his ministry; the other found the
performance indevotional, and raved that education should be sacrificed
to wretched music. But that the dissension was sad and mischievous,
it would have been very diverting; they were both so young in their
incapacity of making allowances, their certainty that theirs was the
theory to bring in the golden age, and even in their magnanimity of
forgiveness, and all the time they thought themselves so very old. "I
am resigned to disappointments; I have seen something of life."--"You
forget, Miss Williams, that my ministerial experience is not very
recent."

There was one who would have smoothed matters far better than any, who,
like Ermine, took her weapons from the armoury of good sense; but that
person was entirely unconscious how the incumbent regarded her soft
eyes, meek pensiveness, motherly sweetness, and, above all, the refined
gracef