n to be thought of, and the rector, who was full of energy, would
have thought it wasteful extravagance to give a hundred pounds a year to
another clergyman, in order that he might have the lessons read for
him and the responses led by an educated voice. Ideas about educated
voices, as well as about vestments and lights on the altar, have all
developed since that time. People in general were quite satisfied with
the clerk in those days, or, if they were not satisfied, at least accepted
him as a necessary evil, at which one was free to laugh, but against
which there was nothing to be said. The morning service on Sunday was
the only one that was of much importance, to which the whole parish
came. That in the afternoon was attended only by the village people, and
did not count for much. The rector would not have said in so many words,
like a French cure, that vespers was _pas obligatoire_, but he had the
same feeling. Both he and his wife felt kindly to the people who came,
as if it were a personal compliment. It is needless to say that things
ecclesiastical have very, very much changed since, and that this easy
indulgence exists no longer.

Thus there was evidently no need of a curate at Underwood proper. But
the parish was now a double one. Once "St Mary's Underwood," it was now
"Underwood-cum-Pierrepoint;" and the condition of drawing the revenues
of the latter district was, that the rector should always provide for
the duty in the little church at Pierrepoint, which was considered a
fine specimen of early architecture, though not much adapted to modern
needs. It had been usually some shabby old parson, some poor gentleman
who had been a failure in life, one of those wonderful curates who are
rich in nothing but children, and to whom the old, rambling, out-at-elbows
parsonage house at Pierrepoint was of itself an attraction, who had taken
this appointment. And it had been a great surprise to the neighbourhood
when it was known that the Honourable and Reverend Eustace Thynne (to
say the Reverend the Honourable, which is now the highest fashion in such
matters, postponing, as is meet, secular rank to that of the Church, was
unknown in those pre-Ritualistic days), a young man, an earl's son, an
entirely unexceptionable and indeed every way laudable individual, had
accepted this post. A greater surprise it would be impossible to imagine.
The Warrenders had been as much interested as anybody before the death
in the family had