He certainly had done as much as he could, and there was probably no one around who had done more.
'I think the dear child will be happy,' said Mrs.Babington to her old friend, Mrs.Munday,--the wife of Archdeacon Munday, the clerical dignitary who had given Mr.Smirkie so good a character.
'Of course she will,' said Mrs.Munday, who had already given three daughters in marriage to three clergymen, and who had, as it were, become used to the transfer.
'And that she will do her duty in it.' 'Why not?
There's nothing difficult in it if she only sees that he has his surplice and bands properly got up.

He is not, on the whole, a bad-tempered man; and though the children are rough, they'll grow out of that.

And she ought to make him take two, or perhaps three, glasses of port wine on Sundays.

Mr.Smirkie is not as young as he used to be, and two whole duties, with the Sunday school, which must be looked into, do take a good deal out of a man.

The archdeacon, of course, has a curate; but I suppose Mr.Smirkie could hardly manage that just at present ?' The views which had hitherto been taken at Babington of the bride's future life had been somewhat loftier than this.