aintance was therefore
somewhat moderated, and he was not prepared to answer her question
with much zeal.

"All parish clergymen have plenty of work, if they choose to do it."

"Ah, that is it; is it not, Mr. Robarts? If they choose to do it? A
great many do--many that I know, do; and see what a result they have.
But many neglect it--and see what a result _they_ have. I think it
ought to be the happiest life that a man can lead, that of a parish
clergyman, with a wife and family and a sufficient income."

"I think it is," said Mark Robarts, asking himself whether the
contentment accruing to him from such blessings had made him
satisfied at all points. He had all these things of which Miss
Dunstable spoke, and yet he had told his wife, the other day, that he
could not afford to neglect the acquaintance of a rising politician
like Harold Smith.

"What I find fault with is this," continued Miss Dunstable, "that we
expect clergymen to do their duty, and don't give them a sufficient
income--give them hardly any income at all. Is it not a scandal,
that an educated gentleman with a family should be made to work half
his life, and perhaps the whole, for a pittance of seventy pounds a
year!" Mark said that it was a scandal, and thought of Mr. Evan Jones
and his daughter; and thought also of his own worth, and his own
house, and his own nine hundred a year.

"And yet you clergymen are so proud--aristocratic would be the
genteel word, I know--that you won't take the money of common,
ordinary poor people. You must be paid from land and endowments, from
tithe and church property. You can't bring yourself to work for what
you earn, as lawyers and doctors do. It is better that curates should
starve than undergo such ignominy as that."

"It is a long subject, Miss Dunstable."

"A very long one; and that means that I am not to say any more about
it."

"I did not mean that exactly."

"Oh, but you did though, Mr. Robarts. And I can take a hint of that
kind when I get it. You clergymen like to keep those long subjects
for your sermons, when no one can answer you. Now if I have a longing
heart's desire for anything at all in this world, it is to be able to
get up into a pulpit, and preach a sermon."

"You can't conceive how soon that appetite would pall upon you, after
its first indulgence."

"That would depend upon whether I could get people to listen to me.
It does not pall upon Mr. Spurgeon, I suppose." Then her attention