discipline upon which he
had not calculated, and which exceeded the bounds of endurance,
especially as Miss Leonora questioned him incessantly about his "work,"
and still dangled before him, like an unattainable sweet-meat before a
child, the comforts and advantages of Skelmersdale, where poor old Mr
Shirley had rallied for the fiftieth time. The situation altogether was
very tempting to Miss Leonora; she could not make up her mind to go away
and leave such a very pretty quarrel in progress; and there can be no
doubt that it would have been highly gratifying to her vanity as an
Evangelical woman to have had her nephew brought to task for missionary
work carried on in another man's parish, even though that work was not
conducted entirely on her own principles. She lingered, accordingly,
with a great hankering after Wharfside, to which Mr Wentworth steadily
declined to afford her any access. She went to the afternoon service
sometimes, it is true, but only to be afflicted in her soul by the sight
of Miss Wodehouse and Lucy in their grey cloaks, not to speak of the
rubric to which the Curate was so faithful. It was a trying experience
to his Evangelical aunt; but at the same time it was a "great work;" and
she could not give up the hope of being able one time or other to
appropriate the credit of it, and win him over to her own "views." If
that consummation could but be attained, everything would become simple;
and Miss Leonora was a true Wentworth, and wanted to see her nephew in
Skelmersdale: so it may easily be understood that, under present
circumstances, there were great attractions for her in Carlingford.

It was, accordingly, with a beating heart that Miss Dora, feeling a
little as she might have been supposed to feel thirty years before,
had she ever stolen forth from the well-protected enclosure of
Skelmersdale Park to see a lover, put on her bonnet in the early
twilight, and, escaping with difficulty the lively observations of her
maid, went tremulously down Grange Lane to her nephew's house. She
had never yet visited Frank, and this visit was unquestionably
clandestine. But then the news with which her heart was beating was
important enough to justify the step she was taking--at least so she
whispered to herself; though whether dear Frank would be pleased, or
whether he would still think it "my fault," poor Miss Dora could not
make up her mind. Nothing happened in the quiet road, where there were
scarcely any pa