EVEN in the quietest lives the first few years of married life are apt to bring changes: the ideal dies off, with its fairy colours; the realities of ordinary existence come with a leap upon the surprised young people, to whom everything has been enveloped in the glory and the brightness of a dream. That plunge into the matter-of-fact is often more trying to the husband—who rarely sees the bride of his visions drop into the occupations of the housewife and the mother without a certain pang—than to the young woman herself, who in the pride and delight of maternity finds a still higher promotion, and to whom the commonest cares, the most material offices, which she would have shrunk from a little while before, become half divine. But when the house is very poor to begin with, and there is no margin left for enlargements, this inevitable change is more deeply felt. By the time the third child arrived, the Asquiths had changed their ideas about many things. Mary’s help in the parish was now very fitful. She still accomplished what was a great deal “for her:” but there had been no conditions or limits to her labours in those early days, when she had worked like a second curate, bearing her full share of everything. These were the days in which so many things had been undertaken, more than any merely mortal curate could keep up; and in the meantime there had been a great many disappointments in the parish. Even before Mary’s powers failed, the influence of the new impulse was over. The people had got accustomed to all the many things that were being done for them: they were no longer taken by surprise. The ancient vis inertia—that desire to be let alone which is so strong in the English character—came uppermost once more. “Oh, here’s this botherin’ practice again!” the boys and girls began to say; or, “It’s club night, but I ain’t a-going. Them as gets the good of the money can come and fetch it!”—for the village people by this time had got it well into their heads that the custody of their pennies and sixpences was in some occult way to the curate’s advantage. And so in one way after another, ground was lost. Mr. Asquith got fagged and worn out in his efforts to do more than one man could do, without the help which had borne him up so triumphantly at first; he was deeply discouraged by the defection of so many; and he felt to the bottom of his soul the triumph in the eyes of Mrs. Prescott, at the rectory, who had always said nothing would come of it. The rector, for his part, would not show any triumph. He had behaved very well throughout; he had not resented the curate’s attempts to improve upon all his own ways, and do more than ever had been done before in Horton. And now when the fervour of these first reformations began to fail, he did not say, “I told you so,” as so many would have done. He was very moderate, very temperate, rather consoling than aggravating the disappointment. “Human nature is always the same,” he said. “Even when you get it stirred up for a time, it reclaims its right to do wrong—and yet all good work tells in the long run,” Mr. Prescott said, which was very good-natured of him, and was indeed straining a point; for he was by no means so sure that in the long run these Quixotic exertions did tell. But Mrs. Prescott was not so forbearing. “You might have known from the beginning this was how it would be,” she said to Mary. “You young people think you are the only people who have ever attempted anything; but it isn’t so—it’s quite the contrary. We have all tried what we could do, and we’ve all been disappointed. I could have told you so from the first, if you had shown any inclination to be guided by me!”

“Oh, Aunt Jane!” cried Mary, “it all went on beautifully at first. It is my fault, that have not kept up as I ought to have done. If I hadn’t been such a poor creature, everything would have gone well.”

“There is something in that,” said Mrs. Prescott, who had never had any babies. “It is always a sad thing when a young woman has so many children——”

“Aunt Jane!” cried Mary, almost with a scream. She gathered the little new baby to her bosom, and over its downy little head glared at her childless aunt. “As if they were not the most precious things in life—as if they were not God’s best gift! as if we could do without any one of them!”

“Perhaps not, my dear, now they are here,” said Mrs. Prescott; “but you may let your friends say that it would have been much better for you if they had not come so fast.”

To this Mary could not make any reply, though her indignation was scarcely diminished. She was, indeed, very indignant on this point. All of these ladies—her aunt at the Hall and the girls, as well as her aunt at the rectory—spoke and looked as if Mary was no better than a victim, helplessly overwhelmed with children; whereas she was a proud and happy mother, thinking none of them fit to be compared with her in her glory. That they should venture to pity her, and say poor Mary! she, who was in full possession of all that is most excellent in life, was almost more than the curate’s wife could bear. Her two little boys and her little girl were her jewels as they were those of the Roman woman whom Mary had heard of, but whom she would have thought it too high-flown to quote. She felt, all the same, very much like that classical matron. Anna and Sophie were very proud of their diamond pins, which even for diamonds were poor things; and they had the impertinence to pity her and her three children! Mary fumed all the time they paid her their visits, which had the air of being visits of condolence rather than of congratulation; and in her weakness cried with vexation and indignation after they had left. The curate came in before those angry tears were dried, and her agitated feelings burst forth. “They come to me and pity me,” she cried, “till I don’t know how to endure them! Oh, Harry, I wish we were not so near my relations! Strangers daren’t be so nasty to you as your relations!” Mary sobbed, with the long-pent-up feeling, which in that moment of feebleness she could not restrain.

“My dearest, never mind them,” he said soothingly. And then, after a pause, with some hesitation,—“Mary, this gives me courage to say what I never liked to say before. Don’t you find, even with your own little income, dear, which I was so anxious should not be touched, and with all the advantages here, that it is very difficult to make both ends meet?”

“Oh, Harry! I have been trying to keep it from you. I didn’t want to burden you with that too. Difficult! it is impossible! I must give Betsy warning. I have been making up my mind to it. After all, it is only pride, you know, for she is very little good. I have had most of the work to do myself all the time. I must give her warning as soon as I am well—or rather, we must try to find her a place, which is the best way.”

“What?” cried the curate. “Betsy, the only creature you have to do anything for you! No, no. I cannot allow that.”

“The housekeeping is my share,” said Mary, with a smile; “now that I can do so little in the parish, I may at least be of use at home. And if you only knew how little good she is! She can’t even amuse little Hetty, and Jack won’t go to her!” These frightful details Mary gave with the temerity they deserved. “I’ll tell you what I am going to do. There are the Woods, who have always been so nice, so regular at school, and attentive about the club. I mean to have Rosie, the eldest, to come in for an hour or two in the morning to look after the children while I get things tidy; and then Mrs. Wood herself will come on Saturdays and give everything a good clean up: and you will see we shall get on beautifully,” Mary said, smiling upon him with her dewy eyes, which were still wet. But the irritation had all died away, and in the pallor of her recent pangs, and the sacredness of her motherhood, no queen of a poet’s imagination could have looked more sweet.

“Oh, Mary, my darling!” cried the poor curate in his love and compunction. “To think I should have brought you to this!”

“To what?” said Mary radiant, “to the greatest happiness in life, to do everything for one’s own? Oh! Harry, I am afraid I have not the self-devotion a clergyman’s wife ought to have. I was happy to work in the parish—but, dear, if you won’t despise me very much—I think I am happier to work for the children and you.”

What could the poor man do? He kissed her and went away humiliated, yet happy. That he should have to consent to be served by her in the homeliest practical ways—she, who was his love and his lady—had something excruciating in it; and to think that his love should have brought her to this, and that he should have foreseen it, and yet done it in the weakness of his soul! But when he went back to that, the curate could not be sorry either that he had loved Mary, or that he had told her his love, or married her. She was not sorry—God bless her!—but radiant and happy as the day, and more sweet, and more sacred, and more beautiful than she had been even in her girlhood. What could he say? He would not even disturb that exquisite moment by telling her of the change that he was beginning to contemplate. Things could wait at least for a few days.

But when she told him that she had given Betsy warning, the curate did speak. “I have done it,” she said, partly by way of excuse for bringing in the tea herself, which she did, panting a little, but smiling over the tray. “We shall be so much better off with Mrs. Wood coming in one day in the week. Then we shall really have the satisfaction of knowing that everything is clean for once, and no little spy in the house to report to everybody what we have for dinner; but we must try and get her another place, Harry; for though the children don’t like her, and I should never recommend her for a nursery, there are some things that she can do.”

“Some things you have taught her to do,” Mr. Asquith said.

“So much the more credit to me,” said Mary, laughing, “for she is not very easy to teach.”

It was evening, and the children were in bed and all quiet. The little creature last born lay all covered up in the sitting-room beside them, in a cradle, which the ladies at the Hall, notwithstanding their indignation at his appearance, had trimmed with muslin and lace and made very ornamental: and Mary was glad to put herself in the rocking-chair which her cousin John had given her, and lie back a little and rest. “One never knows,” she said, “how pleasant it is to rock, till one knows what work is. But, Harry, you are over-tired, you don’t care for your tea.”

“I care a great deal more for seeing you tired,” he said. “Mary, I want to speak to you about something very serious. Would it break your heart, my dearest, if we were to go away from Horton? That is the question I didn’t venture to ask the other day.”

“Break my heart! when the children are well, and you? What a question to ask! Nothing could break my heart,” cried Mary, with a delightful laugh, “so long as all is right with you.”

And then he told her that another curacy had been offered him, a curacy in a large town. It would be very different from Horton. He would be under the orders of a very well-known clergyman, a great organiser, a man who was very absolute in his parish, instead of being free to do almost anything he pleased, as under Uncle Hugh’s mild sway. And he would have a great deal of work, but within bounds and limits, so that he would know what was expected from him, without having the general responsibility of everything. And though he would be under the rector, yet he would be over several younger curates, and in his way a sort of vice-bishop too. “But you must remember,” he said, “that we shall have to live in a street without any garden, with very little fresh air. It will be quite town, not even like a suburb—nothing but stone walls all round you.”

Mary’s countenance fell. “Oh, Harry! that will not be good for the children.”

“I believe there is a park in which the children can walk,” he said, upon which Mary brightened once more.

“In that case, I don’t mind the other things,” she said, rocking softly in her chair; “but, Harry, how shall you like to be dictated to, and told everything that you have to do?”

“I should like anything,” he said, “that gave you a little more comfort, my poor Mary. There is two hundred and fifty a year——”

He said it with solemnity, as was right—“Two hundred and fifty a year.” Few are the curates who rejoice in such an income. Mary brought her chair down upon the floor with a sound which but lightly emphasised her astonishment and awe. These feelings were so strong in her mind that they had to be expressed before pleasure came.

“And you really have this offered to you, Harry? offered, without looking for it?”

“Yes,” said the curate, with the hush and wonder of humility, feeling that he could not account for such a piece of good fortune.

“That shows,” cried she, “how much you are appreciated, how you are understood. Oh, Harry! the world is wonderfully kind and right-feeling, after all.”

“Yes,” he said, “sometimes; there are a great many kind people in the world. And you don’t mind it, my darling? you don’t mind leaving Horton and all your relations, and the neighbourhood you have lived in all your life?”

“Mind it!” she cried, and paused a little, and dried her eyes, which were full. “Harry,” she said, with a little solemnity, “I think when people marry and have a family of their own, it is always a little like the beginning of a new world; don’t you think so? Everything is changed. It seems natural to go to a new place, to make a real new start, more natural than to stay where one has always been. Then, when they grow up, there will be openings for the boys; and Hetty will be able to get a good education. Mind it! I am sure it is the right thing.”

“I am very glad, dear. I feared you might have doubts about leaving the parish.”

“After all,” said Mary, “we have done everything we could for the parish; and perhaps a little novelty would be good for them now. Uncle Hugh will be very particular in choosing a very good man to succeed you. And we have done everything we could; perhaps a new curate who is a novelty may be better for the parish too.”