oque's, who was slightly hot-tempered, could not
help feeling himself disapproved of. It was not, on the whole, a
satisfactory evening. Mr Morgan talked rather big, when the ladies
went away, of his plans for the reformation of Carlingford. He went
into statistics about the poor, and the number of people who attended
no church, without taking any notice of that "great work" which Mr
Wentworth knew to be going on at Wharfside. The Rector even talked of
Wharfside, and of the necessity of exertion on behalf of that wretched
district, with a studious unconsciousness of Mr Wentworth; and all but
declined to receive better information when Mr Wodehouse proffered it.
Matters were scarcely better in the drawing-room, where Lucy was
entertaining everybody, and had no leisure for the Perpetual Curate.
He took his hat with a gloomy sentiment of satisfaction when it was
time to go away; but when the green door was closed behind him, Mr
Wentworth, with his first step into the dewy darkness, plunged
headlong into a sea of thought. He had to walk down the whole length
of Grange Lane to his lodging, which was in the last house of the row,
a small house in a small garden, where Mrs Hadwin, the widow of a
whilom curate, was permitted by public opinion, on the score of her
own unexceptionable propriety,[A] to receive a lodger without loss of
position thereby. It was moonlight, or rather it ought to have been
moonlight, and no lamps were lighted in Grange Lane, according to the
economical regulations of Carlingford; and as Mr Wentworth pursued his
way down the dark line of garden-walls, in the face of a sudden April
shower which happened to be falling, he had full scope and opportunity
for his thoughts.

These thoughts were not the most agreeable in the world. In the first
place it must be remembered that for nearly a year past Mr Wentworth had
had things his own way in Carlingford. He had been more than rector, he
had been archdeacon, or rather bishop, in Mr Proctor's time; for that
good man was humble, and thankful for the advice and assistance of his
young brother, who knew so much better than he did. Now, to be looked
upon as an unauthorised workman, a kind of meddling, Dissenterish,
missionising individual, was rather hard upon the young man. And then he
thought of his aunts. The connection, imperceptible to an ignorant
observer, which existed between the Miss Wentworths and Mr Morgan, and
Lucy, and many other matters interesting to t