siting some of his flock,
and in the exercise of the vocation which he had just been fulfilling,
he saw that something went ill with me, and taking my arm, forced me to
go home with him, for such comfort as he could give.

Parsons, above all men, are the better for wives and families; for,
without them, they are wonderfully apt to grow saturnine or stupid. Of
course there are exceptions. Vincent had a wife not much younger than
himself, to whom he always spoke with the courtiership of a _preux
chevalier_. A portrait of her in her bridal dress, showed that she had
been a pretty brunette in her youth; and her husband still evidently
gave her credit for all that she had been. They had, as is generally the
fate of the clergy, a superfluity of daughters, four or five I think,
creatures as thoughtless and innocent as their own poultry, or their own
pet-sheep. But all round their little vicarage was so pure, so quiet,
and so neat--there was such an aspect of order and even of elegance,
however inexpensive, that its contrast with the glaring and restless
tumult of the "great house" was irresistible. I never had so full a
practical understanding of the world's "pomps and vanities," as while
looking at the trimmings and trelisses of the parson's dwelling.

I acknowledge myself a worldling, but I suppose that all is not lead or
iron within me, from my sense of scenes like this. In my wildest hour,
the sight of fields and gardens has been a kind of febrifuge to me--has
conveyed a feeling of tranquillity to my mind; as if it drank the
silence and the freshness, as the flowers drink the dew. I have often
thus experienced a sudden soothing, which checked the hot current of my
follies or frenzies, and made me think that there were better things
than the baubles of cabinets. But it did not last long.

I mention this evening, because it decided my future life; or at least
the boldest, and perhaps the best portion of it. We had an hour or two
of the little variations of placid amusement which belong to all
parsonages in romances, but which here were reality; easy conversation
on the events of the county; a little political talking with the vicar;
a few details of persons and fashions at the castle, to which the ladies
listened as Desdemona might have listened to Othello's history--for the
Castle was so seldom visited by them, that it had almost the air of a
Castle of Otranto, and they evidently thought that its frowning towers
and gilde