THE dinners at the Hall had not, however, been entirely without fruit in the lives of the two inconsiderable people who first met there. Mary, it may be supposed, had regarded with a little interest the appearance of the stranger, who was quite a new thing in her life. Few strangers came at Horton even when Percy was at home, and Percy had not been at home since Mary had finally developed into a young woman, and been permitted to wear a long frock and put up her hair; so that she had no acquaintance with new faces, and the appearance of an individual unknown, even though he was only the curate, aroused the liveliest interest and curiosity in her. He was not a handsome man, but he had the air of having a will and meaning of his own which is always attractive to a woman, even though he did not sing, nor play upon any instrument, nor know any games to speak of. These deficiencies did not affect Mary, who only played a little upon the piano, and though she was constantly called upon to make up her uncle’s rubber, and had in consequence a very fair proficiency in whist, was not fond of games. Thus the remarks which were made upon Mr. Asquith afterwards were, Mary thought, so unjust so far beyond the measure of his delinquencies, even if he were a delinquent, that in her thoughts she immediately constituted herself his champion. In her thoughts, and a little in words too; she ventured to say: “I don’t think he looks stupid at all,” when Anna and Sophie, after the second entertainment to which he had been invited, broke forth simultaneously into the outcry, “Oh, what a stupid man!” The sound of this small voice, so unexpected, confounded the girls. They looked at her in amazement, and then they laughed.

“Why, here is a Daniel come to judgment,” cried Sophie, and “Here is Mary setting up to have an opinion,” said Anna. It was the most amusing thing that had happened for a long time.

“Well, why shouldn’t Mary have an opinion?” said her uncle, “and about the curate, too, which is a subject young ladies are always supposed to understand.”

“Mary must not trouble her head about curates,” said Mrs. Prescott. “She is a great deal too young for any nonsense of that kind.”

“Fancy calling Mr. Asquith nonsense!” cried both the girls again, with a burst of laughter. They were not in the least interested, so that Mary’s interference only amused them. If she had made herself the champion of a more eligible visitor, Sophie and Anna might not perhaps have taken it nearly so well.

“He doesn’t look stupid, and there is no nonsense about him, and I think he is very nice,” said Mary, but she was at that moment putting away her work, and spoke very low, almost to herself, and nobody paid any attention. She felt, however, a little excited at having thus, as it were, taken up her position and declared her sentiments. She felt like the champion of an injured but noble man—the defender of the unfortunate. This gives a sense of generosity, of fine elation to the mind. It seemed to Mary as if she were herself less insignificant in being thus the champion of another. And it gave her an interest in Mr. Asquith, which was entirely disinterested, but yet was akin, perhaps, to a sentiment more warm, of which as yet Mary had never thought even in her most romantic dreams.

And by-and-by it came to pass that these two met not unfrequently upon the roads, and sometimes in the cottages where Mary was often a visitor. She went there sometimes on charitable errands, and sometimes from mere kindness and liking for the good people, whom she had known all her life. The charity was not Mary’s charity, it need hardly be said, for she had nothing of her own to give. Mrs. Prescott was not rich nor very interesting, nor a woman who talked much on any subject, especially upon that of the poor and their claims: but she had a kind heart. When there was a very nice pudding at luncheon, she almost always remembered that poor Sally Williams, who was in “a deep decline,” and had no appetite, might be tempted by a bit of it, or if the chicken was very tender, she felt sure that old John Price, who had lost his teeth, or Mrs. Sims at the almshouses, would like it. “I will just put this nice little piece in a dish, and you will run down to the village with it, Mary,” she would say, “as soon as you have finished, my dear.”

“But why should Mary go?” some one remarked, at least three days out of five.

“She never has time to finish her luncheon,” said Mr. Prescott, who loved a good meal.

“And why can’t you send Pierce, mamma? I am sure she has always plenty of time for her dinner, and never hurries for any one.”

“Oh, my dears,” said kind Mrs. Prescott, “it tastes so much better when one of the young ladies takes it. Pierce would only go because she was obliged to go, and perhaps she would think it a bore, and fling it at them, so to speak.”

“I darethay Mary findth it a bore, too,” said John.

“Oh, never!” Mary would say. She was not one who cared to spend a great deal of time at table; and as soon as her aunt rose she was ready with her basket. She went so lightly skimming down the long shady avenue, like a bird or a fawn—but no—like nothing in the world, but a nice little happy-hearted, light-footed girl, conscious of going on an errand that would give pleasure, which is one of the sweetest, pleasantest, and fairest of sights to be seen in the world. She liked the errand dearly; she liked the little start of agreeable anticipation with which she was received (though her appearance could scarcely be said to be unexpected, it was so frequent), and the smile with which the invalid would greet her, and that delightful consciousness that it tasted sweeter from her kind little friendly hands than if Pierce had bounced in and thumped the basket down on the table, and taken no pains about it. Pierce did not always do this, but was kind, too, in her way. But nobody is quite just in their estimate of others, and this was what Mary thought.

And as often as not, Mr. Asquith would meet her on the way—sometimes as she was going, sometimes coming; sometimes in the cottages, sometimes as she came out smiling, with her empty basket. Of course Mr. Asquith gave all the credit of what was in reality Mrs. Prescott’s kindness to her little niece. He thought this practical little girl, with her basket, acted on her own impulse, and that it was altogether out of the tenderness of her own heart that she remembered the little fancies of the sick. Most likely he thought that these little delicacies were saved from her own share of the good things at the Hall, and never made account of Mrs. Prescott at all in the matter; for nobody is quite just, as has been said, and Mrs. Prescott was stout and entirely uninteresting, and her under lip projected a little, so that people sometimes thought her cross and sometimes sulky. But Mary was as bright as the day, and the village people were all fond of her. “Oh, come in, sir,” they said at first, when he lingered at the door, seeing a lady in the room. “I will come again another day, Mrs. Williams, for I see you have a visitor already.” “Oh, bless you, sir, come in, come in; why it’s only Miss Mary,” the good woman would say, laughing with amused surprise at the thought that on such a consideration the curate should be shy and hold back.

And in this way many meetings came about without either of the two being aware that they were becoming used to seeing each other, and that a little anticipation of this personal pleasure began to mingle with the kindness of their original motives.

When Mr. Asquith made the discovery that it was so, great discouragement fell upon his mind, such as had never moved it before. For nothing of the kind had ever before come in his hard-working way. What was Miss Mary to him, or Miss anything? He was a poor man, far too poor to marry. It had never occurred to him to think of his poverty before. Indeed, he was not poor, for he had few wants, and could always do very well with what he had; and he had never intended to marry, or thought of marrying. He might even, indeed—it was very likely, have said some things in his day about the iniquity of marrying when you have no means of supporting a wife, much less children, and when in all likelihood you are betraying some foolish girl who knows nothing of the world into lifelong penury, labour, and privation.

When he came to think of it, he felt sure that he had said many such things: and was it possible that he was so lost to every sense of duty, so forgetful of principle as to let himself fall into temptation in this way, and probably, possibly—a thought which made his grave face glow—lead another, another!—a young creature born to better fortune, almost a child—into the same snare? To describe the state of agitation into which the young man was brought by this sudden flash of perception is not easy—the sweetness of it, the misery of it, the keen, poignant, sharply-stinging delight. For though it was pain, it was delight, too. To be able to make her love him, that sweet little girl, Mary!

The world is hard, and it is bitter to give up, and to put a stop to that rising current of new life is enough to tax all a man’s powers. But when you have said everything that can be said in that respect, there still remains the fact that the curate had, in one flash of consciousness, a moment of delight which nobody could take from him. He had tasted the sweetness, though the cup might not be for him; and then he fell headlong into the bitter depths below.

There must be no more of it, he said to himself, no more! And the first thing he did was to shut himself up, to take to his books, to give up his visiting; he would not even walk out for exercise save in the evening, when he was sure he could not meet her? Sacrifice her because he loved her? Oh no, never; such a thing could not be; but to sacrifice himself, that was not so hard; he thought he could do that. Therefore he departed from all his good ways as a parish priest, saying to himself that it was only for a time, and praying God to pardon that temporary neglect of duty because of the other more urgent duty which he must, he must carry out, at whatever cost that might be.

And Mary meantime had her own little thoughts, which nobody made much account of, and which at the present moment nobody suspected. But what those thoughts were wants a longer space than the end of this chapter to say.