me surprise. I heard you were not at
the vicarage, or I would have called on you."

"Your lordship honours me," replied the curate. "For the first time for
thirty years I have been thus long absent from my cure; but I am now
returned, I hope, to end my days among my flock."

"And what," asked Vargrave,--"what--if the question be not
presumptuous--occasioned your unwilling absence?"

"My lord," replied the old man, with a gentle smile, "a new vicar has
been appointed. I went to him, to proffer an humble prayer that I might
remain amongst those whom I regarded as my children. I have buried one
generation, I have married another, I have baptized a third."

"You should have had the vicarage itself; you should be better provided
for, my dear Mr. Aubrey; I will speak to the Lord Chancellor."

Five times before had Lord Vargrave uttered the same promise, and the
curate smiled to hear the familiar words.

"The vicarage, my lord, is a family living, and is now vested in a young
man who requires wealth more than I do. He has been kind to me,
and re-established me among my flock; I would not leave them for a
bishopric. My child," continued the curate, addressing Evelyn with great
affection, "you are surely unwell,--you are paler than when I left you."

Evelyn clung fondly to his arm, and smiled--her old gay smile--as she
replied to him. They took the way towards the house.

The curate remained with them for an hour. There was a mingled sweetness
and dignity in his manner which had in it something of the primitive
character we poetically ascribe to the pastors of the Church. Lady
Vargrave seemed to vie with Evelyn which should love him the most.
When he retired to his home, which was not many yards distant from the
cottage, Evelyn, pleading a headache, sought her chamber, and Lumley, to
soothe his mortification, turned to Caroline, who had seated herself
by his side. Her conversation amused him, and her evident admiration
flattered. While Lady Vargrave absented herself, in motherly anxiety, to
attend on Evelyn, while Mrs. Leslie was occupied at her frame, and Mrs.
Merton looked on, and talked indolently to the old lady of rheumatism
and sermons, of children's complaints and servants' misdemeanours,--the
conversation between Lord Vargrave and Caroline, at first gay and
animated, grew gradually more sentimental and subdued; their voices took
a lower tone, and Caroline sometimes turned away her head and blushed.

CHAPTER