was an _ennui_, the occupation was insufferably tedious; she
opened her desk and attempted to write a French composition--she wrote
nothing but mistakes.

Suddenly the door-bell sharply rang; her heart leaped; she sprang to the
drawing-room door, opened it softly, peeped through the aperture. Fanny
was admitting a visitor--a gentleman--a tall man--just the height of
Robert. For one second she thought it was Robert--for one second she
exulted; but the voice asking for Mr. Helstone undeceived her. That
voice was an Irish voice, consequently not Moore's, but the
curate's--Malone's. He was ushered into the dining-room, where,
doubtless, he speedily helped his rector to empty the decanters.

It was a fact to be noted, that at whatever house in Briarfield,
Whinbury, or Nunnely one curate dropped in to a meal--dinner or tea, as,
the case might be--another presently followed, often two more. Not that
they gave each other the rendezvous, but they were usually all on the
run at the same time; and when Donne, for instance, sought Malone at his
lodgings and found him not, he inquired whither he had posted, and
having learned of the landlady his destination, hastened with all speed
after him. The same causes operated in the same way with Sweeting. Thus
it chanced on that afternoon that Caroline's ears were three times
tortured with the ringing of the bell and the advent of undesired
guests; for Donne followed Malone, and Sweeting followed Donne; and more
wine was ordered up from the cellar into the dining-room (for though old
Helstone chid the inferior priesthood when he found them "carousing," as
he called it, in their own tents, yet at his hierarchical table he ever
liked to treat them to a glass of his best), and through the closed
doors Caroline heard their boyish laughter, and the vacant cackle of
their voices. Her fear was lest they should stay to tea, for she had no
pleasure in making tea for that particular trio. What distinctions
people draw! These three were men--young men--educated men, like Moore;
yet, for her, how great the difference! Their society was a bore--his a
delight.

Not only was she destined to be favoured with their clerical company,
but Fortune was at this moment bringing her four other guests--lady
guests, all packed in a pony-phaeton now rolling somewhat heavily along
the road from Whinbury: an elderly lady and three of her buxom daughters
were coming to see her "in a friendly way," as the custom of th