ting-case, smiling queerly to herself as
she bent over the table where it stood. She produced a sheet of paper, a
new pen, drew an arm-chair to the table, and presenting her hand to old
Helstone, begged permission to install him in it. For a minute he was a
little stiff, and stood wrinkling his copper-coloured forehead
strangely. At last he muttered, "Well, you are neither my wife nor my
daughter, so I'll be led for once; but mind--I know I _am_ led. Your
little female manoeuvres don't blind me."

"Oh!" said Shirley, dipping the pen in the ink, and putting it into his
hand, "you must regard me as Captain Keeldar to-day. This is quite a
gentleman's affair--yours and mine entirely, doctor" (so she had dubbed
the rector). "The ladies there are only to be our aides-de-camp, and at
their peril they speak, till we have settled the whole business."

He smiled a little grimly, and began to write. He soon interrupted
himself to ask questions, and consult his brethren, disdainfully lifting
his glance over the curly heads of the two girls and the demure caps of
the elder ladies, to meet the winking glasses and gray pates of the
priests. In the discussion which ensued, all three gentlemen, to their
infinite credit, showed a thorough acquaintance with the poor of their
parishes--an even minute knowledge of their separate wants. Each rector
knew where clothing was needed, where food would be most acceptable,
where money could be bestowed with a probability of it being judiciously
laid out. Wherever their memories fell short, Miss Ainley or Miss Hall,
if applied to, could help them out; but both ladies took care not to
speak unless spoken to. Neither of them wanted to be foremost, but each
sincerely desired to be useful; and useful the clergy consented to make
them--with which boon they were content.

Shirley stood behind the rectors, leaning over their shoulders now and
then to glance at the rules drawn up and the list of cases making out,
listening to all they said, and still at intervals smiling her queer
smile--a smile not ill-natured, but significant--too significant to be
generally thought amiable. Men rarely like such of their fellows as read
their inward nature too clearly and truly. It is good for women,
especially, to be endowed with a soft blindness; to have mild, dim eyes,
that never penetrate below the surface of things--that take all for what
it seems. Thousands, knowing this, keep their eyelids drooped on system;
but