Charlotte was amazed to see the old clergyman hasten through the plashing shower to speak to her.

"Surely Ducie's business must have a great deal of interest to the rector, mother: he has gone out to speak to her, and such weather too." "Ducie was always a favorite with him.

I hope, now that her affairs have been attended to, ours may receive some care." Charlotte answered only by a look of sympathy.

It had seemed to her a little hard that their urgent need must wait upon Ducie's business; that Stephen should altogether leave them in their extremity; that her anxious inquiries and suggestions, her plans and efforts about their new home, should have been so coldly received, and so positively put aside until Ducie and Stephen came back.

And she had a pang of jealousy when she saw the rector, usually so careful of his health, hasten with slippered feet and uncovered head, through the wet, chilling atmosphere, to speak to them.
He came back with a radiant face, however, and Charlotte could hear him moving about his study; now rolling out a grand march of musical Greek syllables from Homer or Euripides, anon breaking into some familiar verse of Christian song.