The New Rector

"You want to know if he likes me?" the rector said, laughing.

"That is it," she answered, nodding.

But Kate, though she laughed, was inexorable. She bundled the big dog out. "Do you know, she has two more like that, Mr. Lindo?" she said, apologetically.

"Snip and Snap," said Daintry. "But they are not like that. They are smaller. Jack gave me Snorum, and Snip and Snap are Snorum's sons."

"It is quite a genealogy," the rector said, smiling.

"Yes, and Jack was the Genesis. Genesis means beginning, you know," Daintry explained.

"Daintry, you must go down-stairs if you talk nonsense," Kate said imperatively. She was looking, the young man thought, prettier than ever in a gray and blue plaid frock and the neatest of collars and cuffs. As for Daintry, she shrugged her shoulders under the rebuke, and lolled in one of the stiff-backed chairs, her attitude much like that of a vine clinging to a telegraph-post.

Her wilfulness had one happy effect, however. The rector in his amusement forgot the chill formality of the room and the dull respectability of the house's exterior. For half an hour he talked on without a thought of the gentleman whom he had come to see. Some inkling of the circumstances of the case which had entered his head before the sisters' appearance faded again, and in gazing on the pure animated faces of the two girls he quickly lost sight of the evidences of lack of taste which appeared in their surroundings. If Kate, on her side, forgot for a moment certain chilling realities and surrendered herself to the pleasure of the moment, it must be remembered that hitherto-in Claversham, at least-her experience of men had been confined to Dr. Gregg and his fellows, and also that none of us, even the wisest and proudest, are always on guard.

Mr. Bonamy not appearing, Reginald left at last, perfectly assured that the half-hour he had just spent was the pleasantest he had spent in Claversham. He went out of the house in a gentle glow of enthusiasm. The picture of Kate Bonamy, trim and neat, with her hair in a bright knot, and laughter softening her eyes, remained with him, and he walked half-way down the street lost in a delightful reverie.

He was aroused by the approach of a tall, elderly man who had just turned the corner before him, and was now advancing along the pavement with long, rapid strides. The stranger, who seemed about sixty, wore a wide-skirted black coat, and had a tall silk hat, from under which the gray hairs straggled thinly, set far back on his head. His figure was spare, his face sallow, his features prominent. His mouth was peevish, his eyes sharp and saturnine. As he walked he kept one hand in his trousers'-pocket, the other swung by his side. The rector looked at him a moment in doubt, and then stopped him. "Mr. Bonamy, I am sure?" he said, holding out his hand.

"Yes, I am," replied the other, fixing him with a penetrating glance. "And you, sir?"

"May I introduce myself? I have just called at your house, and, unluckily, failed to find you at home. I am Mr. Lindo."

"Oh, the new rector!" said Mr. Bonamy, putting out a cold hand, while the chill glitter of his eye lost none of its steeliness.

"Yes, and I am glad to have intercepted you," Lindo continued, with a little color in his cheek, and speaking quickly under the influence of his late enthusiasm, which as yet was proof against the lawyer's reserve. "For I have been extremely anxious to make your acquaintance, and, indeed, to say something particular to you, Mr. Bonamy."

The elder man bowed to hide a smile. "As church warden, I presume?" he said smoothly.

"Yes, and-and generally. I am quite aware, Mr. Bonamy," continued the rash young man in a fervor of frankness, "that you were not disposed to look upon my appointment-the appointment of a complete stranger, I mean-with favor."

"May I ask who told you that?" said Bonamy abruptly.

The young clergyman colored. "Well, I-perhaps you will excuse me saying how I learned it," he answered, beginning to see that he would have done better to be more reticent. There is no mistake which youth more often makes than that of arousing sleeping dogs, and trying to explain things which a wiser man would pass over in silence. Mr. Bonamy had his own reasons for regarding the parson with suspicion, and had no mind to be addressed in the indulgent vein. Nor was he propitiated when Lindo added, "I learned your feeling, if I may say so, by an accident."

"Then I think you should have kept knowledge so gained to yourself!" the lawyer retorted.

The rector started and turned crimson under the reproof. His dignity was new and tender, and the other's tone was offensive in the last degree. Yet the young man tried to control himself, and for the moment succeeded. "Possibly," he said, with some stiffness. "My only motive in mentioning the latter, however, was this, that I hope in a short time, by appealing to you for your hearty co-operation, to overcome any prejudices you may have entertained."

"My prejudices are rather strong," the lawyer answered grimly. "You are quite at liberty to try, however, Mr. Lindo. But I may as well warn you of one thing now, as frankness seems to be in fashion. I have just been told that you are meditating considerable changes in our church here. Now, I must tell you this, that I object to anything new-anything new, and not only to new incumbents!" with a smile which somewhat softened his last words.

"But who informed you," cried the rector in angry surprise, "that I meditated changes, Mr. Bonamy?"

"Ah!" the lawyer answered in his dryest and thinnest voice. "That is just what I cannot tell you. Let us say that I learned it-by accident, Mr. Lindo!" And his sharp eyes twinkled.

"It is not true, however!" the rector exclaimed.

"Is it not? Well," with a slight cough, "I am glad to hear it!"

Mr. Bonamy's tone as he made this admission, however, was such that it only irritated Lindo the more. "You mean that you do not believe me!" he cried, speaking so fiercely that Clowes the bookseller, who had been watching the interview from his shop-door, was able to repeat the words to a dozen people afterward. "I can assure you that it is so. I am not thinking of making any changes whatever-unless you consider the mere removal of the sheep from the churchyard a change!"

"I do. A great change," replied the church warden with grimness.

"But surely you do not object to it!" Lindo exclaimed in astonishment. "Every one must agree that in these days, and in town churchyards at any rate, the presence of sheep is unseemly."

"I do not agree to that at all!" Mr. Bonamy answered calmly. "Neither did Mr. Williams, the late rector, who had had long experience, act as if he were of that mind."

The present rector threw up his hands in disgust-in disgust and wonder. Remember, he was very young. The thing seemed to him so clear that he was assured the other was arguing for the sake of argument-a thing we all hate in other people-and he lost patience. "I do not think you mean what you say, Mr. Bonamy," he blurted out at last. He was much discomposed, yet he made an attempt to assume an air of severity which did not sit well upon him at the moment.

Mr. Bonamy grinned. "That you will see when you turn out the sheep, Mr. Lindo," he said. "For the present I think I will bid you good evening." and taking off his hat gravely-to the rector the gravity seemed ironical-he went his way.

Men take these things differently. To the lawyer there was nothing disturbing in such a passage of arms as this. He was never so happy-Claversham knew it well-as in and after a quarrel. "Master Lindo thought to twist me round his finger, did he?" he muttered to himself as he stopped on his own doorstep and thrust the key into the lock. "He has found out his mistake now. We will have nothing new here-nothing new while John Bonamy is warden, at any rate, my lad! It is well, however," continued Mr. Bonamy with a backward glance, "that Clode gave me a hint in time. Set a beggar on horseback and he will ride-we know whither!" And the lawyer went in and slammed the door behind him.

Meanwhile, what is sauce for the goose is not always sauce for the gander. The younger man turned away, at the moment, indeed, in a white heat, full of wrath at the other's unreasonableness, folly, churlishness. But the comfortable warmth which this engendered passed away quickly-alas! much too quickly-and long before Lindo reached the rectory, though the walk through the gray streets, where the shops were just being lighted, did not take him two minutes, a chill depression had taken its place. This was a fine beginning! This was a happy augury of his future administration of the parish! To have begun by quarrelling with his church warden-could anything have been worse? And the check had come so suddenly, so unexpectedly, and at a time when he had been on such good terms with himself, that he felt it the more sorely. He went into the house with his head bent, and was not best pleased to find Stephen Clode inquiring after him in the hall. He would rather have been alone.

The curate, as he came forward, did not fail to note that something was amiss, and a gleam of intelligence flashed for an instant across his dark face. "Come into the study," said the rector curtly. Since Clode was here, and could not be avoided, he felt it would be a relief to tell him all. And he did so, the curate listening and making no remark whatever, so that the rector presently looked at him in surprise. "What do you think of it?" he said, some impatience in his one. "It is unfortunate, is it not?"

"Well, I don't know," the curate answered, leaning forward in his chair, with his elbows on his knees and his eyes cast down upon the hat which he was slowly revolving between his hands. "I am not astonished, you know. What can you expect from a pig but a grunt?"

The rector got up, and, leaning his arm on the mantel-shelf, felt, if the truth be told, rather uncomfortable. "I do not understand you," he said at length.

"It is what I should have expected from Bonamy. That is all."

"Then you must think him a very ill-conditioned man!" Lindo retorted warmly, scarcely knowing whether the annoyance he felt was a reminiscence of his late conflict or caused by his companion's manner.

"Well, again, what else can you expect?" Clode replied sagely, looking up and shrugging his shoulders. "You know all about him, I suppose?"

"I know nothing," said the rector, frowning slightly.

"He is not a gentleman, you know," the curate answered, still looking up and speaking with languid indolence as if what he said must be known to everyone. "You have heard his history?"

"No, I have not."

"He was an office-boy with Adams & Rooke, the old solicitors here, swept out the office, and brought the coal, and so forth. He had his wits about him, and old Adams gave him his articles, and finally took him into partnership. Then the old men died off and it all came to him. He is well off, and has power of a sort in the town; but, of course," the curate added, getting up lazily and yawning-"well, people like the Hammonds do not visit with him."

There was silence in the room for a full minute. The rector had left the fireplace and, with his back to the speaker, was raising the lamp-wick. "Why did you not tell me this before?" he said at length, his voice hard.

"I did not see why I should prejudice you against the man before you saw him," replied the curate, with much reason. "Besides, I really was not sure whether you knew his history or not. I am afraid I did not give much thought to the matter."

"Umph!"

CHAPTER VII

THE HAMMONDS' DINNER PARTY

The new top, the new book, the bride-the first joy in the possession of each one of these fades, not gradually, but at a leap, as day fades in the tropics. A chip in the wood, the turning of the last page, the first selfish word, and the thing is done; ecstasy becomes sober satisfaction. It was so with the rector. The first glamour of his good fortune, of his new toy, died abruptly with that evening-with the quarrel with his church warden, and the discovery of the cause of that constraint which he had remarked in Kate Bonamy's manner from the first.

He was a conscientious man, and the failure of his good resolutions, his aspirations to be the perfect parish priest, fretted him. Moreover, he had to think of the future. He soon learned that Mr. Bonamy might not be a gentleman, and was indeed reputed to be a stubborn, queer-tempered curmudgeon; but he learned also that he had great influence in the town, though, except in the way of business, he associated with few, and that he, Reginald Lindo, would have to reckon with him on that footing. The certainty of this and of the bad beginning he had made naturally depressed the young man, his customary good opinion of himself not coming to his aid at once. And, besides, he carried about with him-sometimes it came between him and his book, sometimes he saw it framed by the autumn landscape-the picture of Kate's pure proud face. At such moments he felt himself humiliated by the slights cast upon her. The Hammonds did not think her fit company for them! The Hammonds!