Halloway? What does anybody know about him beyond that the Bishop
recommended him, as if a Bishop must know what's what better than other
people, forsooth! Don't tell me!" said Mrs. Upjohn, in unutterable scorn.
"He's a new broom, and he's raising a big dust, and I would liefer have
Mr. White back and let the dust lie,--that's all!"

But the Joppites were far from sharing Mrs. Upjohn's sentiments. Mr.
Halloway did, it is true, belong to the wrong Church, but there was a
strong suspicion among them that neither had this man sinned, nor his
parents, that he was born to so grievous a fate. It was rather his
misfortune. And as for the rest, he was thoroughly a gentleman; was
excellently well educated; and was, moreover, comely to look upon, and
eminently agreeable in his bearing. No; Joppa was far from begrudging Mr.
White his departure to the land of the blessed. It was time the good old
man went to his reward, they said.

And as to Mrs. Whittridge, Mr. Halloway's sister, who kept house for him
at the rectory, through all the length and the breadth of Joppa there
were no two opinions with regard to her. She was a woman of about fifty,
enough older than her brother to have been his mother, and she seemed
indeed to cherish almost a mother's idolatrous affection for him. She had
lost her husband many years before, and had been left with considerable
fortune and no family besides this one brother. So much information,
after repeated and unabashedly point-blank questions, had the Joppites
succeeded in extracting from Mr. Halloway, who with all his apparent
frankness was the most difficult person in the world ever to be brought
to talk of himself and his own affairs. But just to see Mrs. Whittridge,
with her sweet face and perfect manners, was to recognize her at once for
a gentlewoman in every sense of the word, while to be in her society, if
but for ten minutes, was to come very nearly to loving her. The Joppites