im--that is to say, he would have taken the more
convenient side, and given his vote for the appointment of Tyke without
any hesitation--if he had not cared personally for Mr. Farebrother.

But his liking for the Vicar of St. Botolph's grew with growing
acquaintanceship. That, entering into Lydgate's position as a
new-comer who had his own professional objects to secure, Mr.
Farebrother should have taken pains rather to warn off than to obtain
his interest, showed an unusual delicacy and generosity, which
Lydgate's nature was keenly alive to. It went along with other points
of conduct in Mr. Farebrother which were exceptionally fine, and made
his character resemble those southern landscapes which seem divided
between natural grandeur and social slovenliness. Very few men could
have been as filial and chivalrous as he was to the mother, aunt, and
sister, whose dependence on him had in many ways shaped his life rather
uneasily for himself; few men who feel the pressure of small needs are
so nobly resolute not to dress up their inevitably self-interested
desires in a pretext of better motives. In these matters he was
conscious that his life would bear the closest scrutiny; and perhaps
the consciousness encouraged a little defiance towards the critical
strictness of persons whose celestial intimacies seemed not to improve
their domestic manners, and whose lofty aims were not needed to account
for their actions. Then, his preaching was ingenious and pithy, like
the preaching of the English Church in its robust age, and his sermons
were delivered without book. People outside his parish went to hear
him; and, since to fill the church was always the most difficult part
of a clergyman's function, here was another ground for a careless sense
of superiority. Besides, he was a likable man: sweet-tempered,
ready-witted, frank, without grins of suppressed bitterness or other
conversational flavors which make half of us an affliction to our
friends. Lydgate liked him heartily, and wished for his friendship.

With this feeling uppermost, he continued to waive the question of the
chaplaincy, and to persuade himself that it was not only no proper
business of his, but likely enough never to vex him with a demand for
his vote. Lydgate, at Mr. Bulstrode's request, was laying down plans
for the internal arrangements of the new hospital, and the two were
often in consultation. The banker was always presupposing that he
could count