The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1905-11-08
CHAPTER Nv.

In these later days Of earnestness
one seldom meets in real life-never. l
think, in f%ction-a clergyman so stoical-
" Indifferent to all parties and to all
party opinions as was Mr.. Follett.
Very early in life he had married,
and lost his wife in less than a year;
and, never having had any womanly
presence in his house since, all his hab-
it's and ways of thought were those of
a lonely, unloved man. He was neither
morose mol unkindly-only Indifferent
to whatever affairs of other people
were not actually thrust upon him;
and a good deal taken up in the farm
ing of his own glebe-and in his own
%garden-and in his own books.
If he had attained to all he hoped
for when he was a lad, would he, at
eight-and-thirty, rise, and walk, and
dine, and go to sleep again, with any
very greater zest than he did now, as
the lonely curate of souls in Chester
ford st. Mary? This, if it had been
put into words, would have pretty just
ly summed up the semi-consolatory,
semi-bitter view with which Mr.. Follett
had brought himself to think Of his
own moral state and Of his life.
But the world in general saw in the
| Vicar of Chesterford an excellent, quiet
| parson, of no particular views, char
liable to his poor, on terms Of good
| will with his richer neighbors-all that
a country clergyman ought to be. Es-
pecially did single ladies of a certain
age-inasmuch as he was a widower,
and possessed of a fair competency
give Mr.. Follett the palm over all his
| fellows, whether Wears or c%urates, in
the neighborhood.
And of all this band Of virgin con
| fessors Miss Lynch was the head and
| chief. Long ago, when she first came
to Chesterford, Mr.. Follett had been
sensible that this elderly woman perse-
cuted him, and had striven to avoid
her; but his constitution was too es-
sentially ayerse to trouble for him to
sustain any very heightened conflict on
such a point; and for many years now
lie had received all Miss Lynch's at
tentions without a struggle. They
wearied him, certainly; but would it
not have wearied him a vast deal more
to resist? And if he was obliged to
see much of Jane Grand's governess.
was he not also obliged to see much of
Jane Grand herseIf?. Not a shade of
sentiment which men of his age oc-
caSionally feel for very young girls,
and call love--not the remoteSt ap-
proach to personal admiration. even to
paternal tendernesS-had ever yet en-
tered into his feeling for her. Indeed,
if | had not just a horror of using an
affected term, 1 would say that (up to
the time when Clifford began to fall
in love with Jane Grand) Mr.. Follett's
regard for her was simply and purely
an aesthetic one; her fresh and graceful
youth ministering to his innate sense
of refinement, as a fine painting or eX-
auisite music might have done, could
such gifts have ~miraculously come to
him in his unlovely and prosaic life
among the Deyonshire marshes.
However this may have been, Miss
Lynch, with the one instinct that re
mains true even to the most foolish Of
women-Miss Lynch had early seen the
superior hold she maintained over the
vicar through little James agency; and
seeing. lad improved her position tc
the utiermost.
Mr.. I'oIlett was the only person tc
whom she felt it her duty to confde the
past history of her charge. In James
) childhood, Mr.. Follett must direct bel
education; as she grew older, would il
he asking too much of Mr.. Follett to &C
through a little course of English read
ing with the poor girl himself? All OF