further end of the street.




CHAPTER III.

THE MANOR HOUSE.


Mr. Bevis drove up to the inn, threw the reins to his coachman, got
down, and helped his wife out of the carriage. Then they parted, she to
take her gift of flowers and butter to her poor relation, he to call
upon Mrs. Ramshorn.

That lady, being, as every body knew, the widow of a dean, considered
herself the chief ecclesiastical authority in Glaston. Her acknowledged
friends would, if pressed, have found themselves compelled to admit that
her theology was both scanty and confused, that her influence was not of
the most elevating nature, and that those who doubted her personal piety
might have something to say in excuse of their uncharitableness; but she
spoke in the might of the matrimonial nimbus around her head, and her
claims were undisputed in Glaston. There was a propriety, springing from
quite another source, however, in the rector's turning his footsteps
first toward the Manor House, where she resided. For his curate, whom
his business in Glaston that Saturday concerned, had, some nine or ten
months before, married Mrs. Ramshorn's niece, Helen Lingard by name, who
for many years had lived with her aunt, adding, if not to the comforts
of the housekeeping, for Mrs. Ramshorn was plentifully enough provided
for the remnant of her abode in this world, yet considerably to the