raws
whether I was shocked or not. Naturally enough, after this I did not
like him.

This, however, is anticipating, for it was not till Ernest had been three
or four months in London that I happened to meet his fellow-curate, and I
must deal here rather with the effect he produced upon my godson than
upon myself. Besides being what was generally considered good-looking,
he was faultless in his get-up, and altogether the kind of man whom
Ernest was sure to be afraid of and yet be taken in by. The style of his
dress was very High Church, and his acquaintances were exclusively of the
extreme High Church party, but he kept his views a good deal in the
background in his rector's presence, and that gentleman, though he looked
askance on some of Pryer's friends, had no such ground of complaint
against him as to make him sever the connection. Pryer, too, was popular
in the pulpit, and, take him all round, it was probable that many worse
curates would be found for one better. When Pryer called on my hero, as
soon as the two were alone together, he eyed him all over with a quick
penetrating glance and seemed not dissatisfied with the result--for I
must say here that Ernest had improved in personal appearance under the
more genial treatment he had received at Cambridge. Pryer, in fact,
approved of him sufficiently to treat him civilly, and Ernest was
immediately won by anyone who did this. It was not long before he
discovered that the High Church party, and even Rome itself, had more to
say for themselves than he had thought. This was his first snipe-like
change of flight.

Pryer introduced him to several of his friends. They were all of them
young clergymen, belonging as I have said to the highest of the High
Church school, but Ernest was surprised to find how much they resembled
other people when among themselves. This was a shock to him; it was ere
long a still greater one to find that certain thoughts which he had
warred against as fatal to his soul, and which he had imagined he should
lose once for all on ordination, were still as troublesome to him as they
had been; he also saw plainly enough that the young gentlemen who formed
the circle of Pryer's friends were in much the same unhappy predicament
as himself.

This was deplorable. The only way out of it that Ernest could see was
that he should get married at once. But then he did not know any one
whom he wanted to marry. He did not know any woman, in fact,