Valentine was at Melcombe again.  He had begun several improvements about the place which called for time, and would cost money.  It was not without misgiving that he had consented to enter on the first of them.

There was still in his mind, as he believed, a reservation.  He would give up the property if he ever saw fit cause.

Now, if he began to tie himself by engaging in expensive enterprises, or by undertaking responsibilities, it might be impossible to do this.

Therefore he held off for some little time.

He fell into his first enterprise almost unawares, he got out of his reluctant shrinking from it afterwards by a curious sophistry.  “While this estate is virtually mine,” he thought, “it is undoubtedly my duty to be a good steward of it.  If, in the course of providence, I am shown that I am to give it up, no doubt I shall also be shown how to proceed about these minor matters.”

He had learnt from his uncle the doctrine of a particular providence, but had not received with it his uncle’s habit of earnest waiting on providence, and straightforward desire to follow wherever he believed it to lead.

Valentine came almost at once under the influence of the vicar, Mr. Craik, the man who had always seen something so more than commonly mysterious about the ways of God to men.  Mr. Craik wanted Valentine to restore the old church, by which he meant to pull it almost to pieces, to raise the roof, to clear away the quaint old oaken galleries, to push out a long chancel, and to put in some painted windows, literally such, pictures of glass, things done at Munich.

When Valentine, always facile, had begun to consider this matter, a drawing of the building, as it was to look when restored, was made, in order to stir up his zeal, and make him long for a parish church that would do him and the vicar credit.  He beheld it, and forthwith vowed, with uncivil directness, that he would rather build the vicar a crack church to his mind, in the middle of the village, than help in having that dear old place mauled and tampered with.

Mr. Craik no sooner heard this than he began to talk about a site.

He was a good man, had learned to be meek, so that when he was after anything desirable he might be able to take a rebuff, and not mind it.

In the pleasant summer evenings he often came to see Valentine, and while the latter sauntered about with a cigar, he would carve faces on a stick with his knife, walking beside him.  He had given up smoking, because he wanted the poor also to give it up, as an expensive luxury, and one that led to drinking.  Valentine respected him, was sure the scent of a cigar was still very pleasant to his nostrils, and knew he could well have afforded to smoke himself.  That was one reason why he let himself be persuaded in the matter of the site (people never are persuaded by any reason worth, mentioning).  Another reason