Mirabel."

"After having only been a week in the same house with him!" Emily
exclaims.

"At any rate," said Cecilia, more smartly than usual, "she is jealous of
_you_."

CHAPTER XXXIX. FEIGNING.

The next morning, Mr. Mirabel took two members of the circle at
Monksmoor by surprise. One of them was Emily; and one of them was the
master of the house.

Seeing Emily alone in the garden before breakfast, he left his room
and joined her. "Let me say one word," he pleaded, "before we go to
breakfast. I am grieved to think that I was so unfortunate as to offend
you, last night."

Emily's look of astonishment answered for her before she could speak.
"What can I have said or done," she asked, "to make you think that?"

"Now I breathe again!" he cried, with the boyish gayety of manner which
was one of the secrets of his popularity among women. "I really feared
that I had spoken thoughtlessly. It is a terrible confession for a
clergyman to make--but it is not the less true that I am one of the most
indiscreet men living. It is my rock ahead in life that I say the first
thing which comes uppermost, without stopping to think. Being well aware
of my own defects, I naturally distrust myself."

"Even in the pulpit?" Emily inquired.

He laughed with the readiest appreciation of the satire--although it was
directed against himself.

"I like that question," he said; "it tells me we are as good friends
again as ever. The fact is, the sight of the congregation, when I get
into the pulpit, has the same effect upon me that the sight of the
footlights has on an actor. All oratory (though my clerical brethren are
shy of confessing it) is acting--without the scenery and the costumes.
Did you really mean it, last night, when you said you would like to hear
me preach?"

"Indeed, I did."

"How very kind of you. I don't think myself the sermon is worth the
sacrifice. (There is another specimen of my indiscreet way of talking!)
What I mean is, that you will have to get up early on Sunday morning,
and drive twelve miles to the damp and dismal little village, in which I
officiate for a man with a rich wife who likes the climate of Italy. My
congregation works in the fields all the week, and naturally enough
goes to sleep in church on Sunday. I have had to counteract that. Not by
preaching! I wouldn't puzzle the poor people with my eloquence for the
world. No, no: I tell them little stories out of the Bible--in a nice
easy gossipi