and both physicians were much occupied by the condition of
Mr. Ramsden who was fast sinking, and, for some weeks, seemed only kept
alive by their skill. The struggle ended at last, and his forty
years' cure of Stoneborough was closed. It made Dr. May very sad--his
affections had tendrils for anything that he had known from boyhood;
and though he had often spoken strong words of the vicar, he now sat
sorrowfully moralising and making excuses. "People in former times had
not so high an estimate of pastoral duty--poor Mr. Ramsden had not much
education--he was already old when better times came in--he might have
done better in a less difficult parish with better laity to support him,
etc." Yet after all, he exclaimed with one of his impatient gestures,
"Better have my Harry's seventeen years than his sixty-seven!"

"Better improve a talent than lay it by!" said Ethel.

"Hush! Ethel. How do you know what he may have done? If he acted up to
his own standard, he did more than most of us."

"Which is best," said Ethel, "a high standard, not acted up to, or a
lower one fulfilled?"

"I think it depends on the will," said Margaret.

"Some people are angry with those whose example would show that there is
a higher standard," said Ethel.

"And," said Margaret, "some who have the high one set before them
content themselves with knowing that it cannot be fully attained, and
will not try."

"The standard is the effect of early impression," said Dr. May. "I
should be very sorry to think it could not be raised."

"Faithful in a little--" said Ethel. "I suppose all good people's
standard is always going higher."

"As they comprehend more of absolute perfection," said Margaret.

CHAPTER XV.

The city's golden spire it was,
When hope and health were strongest;
But now it is the churchyard grass,
We look upon the longest.--E. B. BROWNING.

A disinclination for exertion or going into public hung upon Dr. May,
but he was obliged to rouse himself to attend the Town Council meeting,
which was held a few days after the vicar's funeral, to decide on the
next appointment. If it had depended on himself alone, his choice would
have been Mr. Edward Wilmot, whom the death of his good old father had
uprooted from Settlesham; and the girls had much hope, but he was too
much out of spirits to be sanguine. He said that he should only hear a
great deal of offensive stuff from Tomkins the brewer; and that,