I assure you it surprises me more than I can explain, to find, said Vincent, hesitating for a proper expression, to find
Such a person as I am in Back Grove Street, interrupted his companion, quickly; yes and thereby hangs a tale. But I did not send for you to tell it. I sent for you for no particular reason, but a kind of yearning to talk to somebody. I beg your pardon sincerely but you know, she said, once more with a direct sudden glance and that half-visible movement in her face which meant mischief, you are a minister, and are bound to have no inclinations of your own, but to give yourself up to the comfort of the poor.
Without any irony, that is the aim I propose to myself, said Vincent; but I fear you are disposed to take rather a satirical view of such matters. It is fashionable to talk lightly on those subjects; but I find life and its affairs sufficiently serious, I assure you
Here she stopped her work suddenly, and looked up at him, her dark sharp eyes lighting up her thin sallow face with an expression which it was beyond his power to fathom. The black eyelashes widened, the dark eyebrows rose, with a full gaze of the profoundest tragic sadness, on the surface of which a certain gleam of amusement seemed to hover. The worn woman looked over the dark world of her own experience, of which she was conscious in every nerve, but of which he knew nothing, and smiled at his youth out of the abysses of her own life, where volcanoes had been, and earthquakes. He perceived it dimly, without understanding how, and faltered and blushed, yet grew angry with all the self-assertion of youth.
I dont doubt you know that as well as I do
perhaps better; but notwithstanding, I find my life leaves little room for laughter, said the young pastor, not without a slight touch of heroics.
Mr. Vincent, said Mrs. Hilyard, with a gleam of mirth in her eye, in inferring that I perhaps know better, you infer also that I am older than you, which is uncivil to a lady. But for my part, I dont object to laughter. Generally its better than crying, which in a great many cases I find the only alternative. I doubt, however, much whether life, from the buttermans point of view, wears the same aspect. I should be inclined to say not; and I daresay your views will brighten with your company, added the aggravating woman, again resuming, with eyes fixed upon it, her laborious work.
I perceive you see already what is likely to be my great trial in Carlingford, said young Vincent. I confess that the society of my office-bearers, which I suppose I must always consider myself bound to
That was a very sad sigh, said the rapid observer beside him; but dont confide in me, lest I should be tempted to tell somebody. I can speak my mind without prejudice to anybody; and if you agree with me, it may be a partial relief to your feelings. I shall be glad to see you when you can spare me half an hour. I cant look at you while I talk, for that would lose me so much time, but at my age it doesnt matter. Come and see me. Its your business to do me good and its possible I might even do some good to you.
Thank you. I shall certainly come, said the minister, rising with the feeling that he had received his dismissal for to-day. She rose, too, quickly, and but for a moment, and held out her hand to him.
Be sure you dont betray to the dairywoman what I had on my mind, and wanted to tell you, though she is dying to know, said his singular new acquaintance, without a smile, but with again a momentary movement in her thin cheeks. When she had shaken hands with him, she seated herself again immediately, and without a moments pause proceeded with her work, apparently concentrating all her faculties upon it, and neither hearing nor seeing more of her visitor, though he still stood within two steps of her, overshadowing the table. The young man turned and left the room with involuntary quietness, as if he had been dismissed from the presence of a princess. He went straight down-stairs without ever pausing, and hastened through the narrow back-street with still the impulse communicated by that dismissal upon him. When he drew breath, it was with a curious mixture of feelings. Who she was or what she was how she came there, working at those slops till the colour came off upon her hands, and her poor thin fingers bled she so strangely superior to her surroundings, yet not despising or quarrelling with them, or even complaining of them, so far as he could make out infinitely perplexed the inexperienced minister. He came away excited and bewildered from the interview, which had turned out so different from his expectations. Whether she had done him good, was extremely doubtful; but she had changed the current of his thoughts, which was in its way an immediate benefit. Marvelling over such a mysterious apparition, and not so sure as in the morning that nothing out of the most vulgar routine ever could occur in Carlingford, Mr. Vincent turned with meditative steps towards the little house at the extreme end of Grove Street, where his predecessor still lingered. A visit to old Mr. Tufton was a periodical once a-week duty, to be performed with the utmost regularity. Tozer and Pigeon had agreed that it would be the making of the young minister to draw thus from the experience of the old one. Whether Mr. Vincent agreed with them, may be apprehended from the scene which follows.