so in a very short time. He was not
a good economist; he despised everything in the nature of parsimony;
his ideal of the clerical life demanded a liberal expenditure of money
no less than unsparing personal toil. He had generously exhausted the
greater part of a small private fortune; from that source there
remained to him only about a hundred pounds a year. His charities must
needs be restricted; his parish outlay must be pinched; domestic life
must proceed on a narrower basis. And all this was to Mr. Lashmar
supremely distasteful.

Not less so to Mr. Lashmar's wife, a lady ten years his junior, endowed
with abundant energies in every direction save that of household order
and thrift. Whilst the vicar stood waiting for breakfast, tapping
drearily on the window-pane, Mrs. Lashmar entered the room, and her
voice sounded the deep, resonant note which announced a familiar
morning mood.

"You don't mean to say that breakfast isn't ready! Surely, my dear, you
could ring the bell?"

"I have done so," replied the vicar, in a tone of melancholy
abstraction.

Mrs. Lashmar rang with emphasis, and for the next five minutes her
contralto swelled through the vicarage, rendering inaudible the replies
she kept demanding from a half rebellious, half intimidated servant.
She was not personally a coarse woman, and her manners did not grossly
offend against the convention of good-breeding; but her nature was
self-assertive. She could not brook a semblance of disregard for her
authority, yet, like women in general, had no idea of how to rule. The
small, round face had once been pretty; now, with its prominent eyes,
in-drawn lips, and obscured chin, it inspired no sympathetic emotion,
rather an uneasiness and an inclination for retreat. In good humour or
in ill, Mrs. Lashmar was aggressive. Her smile conveyed an amiable
defiance; her look of grave interest alarmed and subdued.

"I have a line from Dyce," remarked the vicar, as at length he applied
himself to his lukewarm egg and very hard toast. "He thinks of running
down."

"When?"

"He doesn't say."

"Then why did he write? I've no patience with those vague projects. Why
did he write until he had decided on the day?"

"Really, I don't know," answered Mr. Lashmar, feebly. His wife, in this
mood, had a dazing effect upon him.

"Let me see the letter."

Mrs. Lashmar perused the half-dozen lines in her son's handwriting.

"Why, he _does_ say!" she exclaimed in her deepest an