o, sir--no, no, sir; you're too hard upon me--there wasn't no such
meaning in my mind; but I don't make no question the ladies were
pleased with the church," said Elsworthy, with the satisfaction of a
man who had helped to produce an entirely triumphant effect. "I don't
pretend to be a judge myself of what you call 'igh art, Mr Wentworth;
but if I might venture an opinion, the altar was beautiful; and we
won't say nothing about the service, considering, sir--if you won't be
offended at putting them together, as one is so far inferior--that
both you and me--"

Mr Wentworth laughed and moved off his chair. "We were not appreciated
in this instance," he said, with an odd comic look, and then went off
into a burst of laughter, which Mr Elsworthy saw no particular
occasion for. Then he took up his glove, which he had taken off to
write the note, and, nodding a kindly good-night to little Rosa, who
stood gazing after him with all her eyes, went away to the Blue Boar.
The idea, however, of his own joint performance with Mr Elsworthy not
only tickled the Curate, but gave him a half-ashamed sense of the
aspect in which he might himself appear to the eyes of matter-of-fact
people who differed with him. The joke had a slight sting, which
brought his laughter to an end. He went up through the lighted street
to the inn, wishing the dinner over, and himself on his way back again
to call at Mr Wodehouse's. For, to tell the truth, by this time he had
almost exhausted Skelmersdale, and, feeling in himself not much
different now from what he was when his hopes were still green, had
begun to look upon life itself with a less troubled eye, and to
believe in other chances which might make Lucy's society practicable
once more. It was in this altered state of mind that he presented
himself before his aunts. He was less self-conscious, less watchful,
more ready to amuse them, if that might happen to be possible, and in
reality much more able to cope with Miss Leonora than when he had been
more anxious about her opinion. He had not been two minutes in the
room before all the three ladies perceived this revolution, and each
in her own mind attempted to account for it. They were experienced
women in their way, and found a variety of reasons; but as none of
them were young, and as people _will_ forget how youth feels, not one
of them divined the fact that there was no reason, but that this
improvement of spirits arose solely from the fact that the