or his own entertainment. His sermons were poor; he had no
delivery and no gift of expression; he could not even give utterance to
the ideas that did, not infrequently, act on his brain, nor hardly to
the human tenderness which was his normal attitude towards mankind. But
he did go on writing fresh ones, stilted and commonplace as they were.
Mental activity was less of a burden to him than bodily activity, and he
had kept himself up to that part of what he thought to be his clerical
duty.

For the rest, he was fond of his books and his garden, fond of his
opulent, well-appointed house, and all that it contained, and fond of
the smaller distractions of a country life, but no sportsman. He had no
children, but a graceful, very feminine wife, who reacted pleasantly on
his intellect and looked well after the needs of his body. He sometimes
went to London for a week or two, and had been to Paris; but he liked
best to be at home. He watched the progress of the seasons with
interest, and knew something about birds, something about flowers and
trees, was a little of a weather prophet, and often thought he would
study some branch of natural science, but had lacked the energy to do
so. He liked the winter as well as the summer, for then his warm house
called him more seductively. He liked to tramp home along muddy country
roads in the gloaming, drink tea in his wife's pretty drawing-room, chat
to her a little, and then go into his cosy, book-lined study and read
till dinner-time. He would have been a happy man as a layman, relieved
of that gnawing conviction that his placid, easy life was rather far
from being apostolic. And nobody, not even his wife, had any idea that
he was not quite contented, and grateful for the good things that he
enjoyed.

"Well, Tom," said the Squire, "I'm infernally worried again. It's that
boy Walter. What do you think he wants to do now?" He spoke with none of
the heat of the morning. It might have been thought that he had already
accepted the inevitable and was prepared to make the best of it.

"I don't know, Edward," said the Rector; and the Squire told him.

"And you have a particular objection to this place, Melbury Park?"
inquired the Rector guilelessly.

"O my dear Tom," said the Squire impatiently, "have you ever seen the
place?"

"From the railway only," admitted the Rector; "and chiefly its
back-gardens. It left an impression of washing on my mind."

"It left an impression of _not_ was