entleness without weakness, a love of laughter
without malice, and a true loving heart, can qualify a woman to be a
parson's wife, then was Fanny Monsell qualified to fill that station.
In person she was somewhat larger than common. Her face would have
been beautiful but that her mouth was large. Her hair, which was
copious, was of a bright brown; her eyes also were brown, and, being
so, were the distinctive feature of her face, for brown eyes are not
common. They were liquid, large, and full either of tenderness or
of mirth. Mark Robarts still had his accustomed luck, when such a
girl as this was brought to Framley for his wooing. And he did woo
her--and won her. For Mark himself was a handsome fellow. At this
time the vicar was about twenty-five years of age, and the future
Mrs. Robarts was two or three years younger. Nor did she come quite
empty-handed to the vicarage. It cannot be said that Fanny Monsell
was an heiress, but she had been left with a provision of some few
thousand pounds. This was so settled, that the interest of his wife's
money paid the heavy insurance on his life which young Robarts
effected, and there was left to him, over and above, sufficient to
furnish his parsonage in the very best style of clerical comfort, and
to start him on the road of life rejoicing.

So much did Lady Lufton do for her protege, and it may well be
imagined that the Devonshire physician, sitting meditative over his
parlour fire, looking back, as men will look back on the upshot of
their life, was well contented with that upshot, as regarded his
eldest offshoot, the Rev. Mark Robarts, the vicar of Framley.

But little has as yet been said, personally, as to our hero himself,
and perhaps it may not be necessary to say much. Let us hope that by
degrees he may come forth upon the canvas, showing to the beholder
the nature of the man inwardly and outwardly. Here it may suffice
to say that he was no born heaven's cherub, neither was he a born
fallen devil's spirit. Such as his training made him, such he was.
He had large capabilities for good--and aptitudes also for evil,
quite enough: quite enough to make it needful that he should repel
temptation as temptation only can be repelled. Much had been done to
spoil him, but in the ordinary acceptation of the word he was not
spoiled. He had too much tact, too much common sense, to believe
himself to be the paragon which his mother thought him. Self-conceit
was not, perhaps, his grea