“The fact is,” at length said the memorial shadow of the dean deceased, “Mr. Wingfold is not a gentleman.  It grieves me to say so of the husband of my niece, who has been to me as my own child, but the truth must be spoken.  It may be difficult to keep such men out of holy orders, but if ever the benefices of the church come to be freely bestowed upon them, that moment the death-bell of religion is rung in England.  My late husband said so.  While such men keep to barns and conventicles we can despise them, but when they creep into the fold, then there is just cause for alarm.  The longer I live, the better I see my poor husband was right.”

“I should scarcely have thought such a man as you describe could have captivated Helen,” said the rector with a smile.

“Depend upon it she perceives her mistake well enough by this time,” returned Mrs. Ramshorn.  “A lady born and bred must make the discovery before a week is over.  But poor Helen always was headstrong!  And in this out-of-the-world place she saw so little of gentlemen!”

The rector could not help thinking birth and breeding must go for little indeed, if nothing less than marriage could reveal to a lady that a man was not a gentleman.

“Nobody knows,” continued Mrs. Ramshorn, “who or what his father—­not to say his grandfather, was!  But would you believe it! when I asked her who the man was, having a right to information concerning the person she was about to connect with the family, she told me she had never thought of inquiring.  I pressed it upon her as a duty she owed to society; she told me she was content with the man himself, and was not going to ask him about his family.  She would wait till they were married!  Actually, on my word as a lady, she said so, Mr. Bevis!  What could I do?  She was of age, and independent fortune.  And as to gratitude, I know the ways of the world too well to look for that.”

“We old ones”—­Mrs. Ramshorn bridled a little:  she was only fifty-seven!—­“have had our turn, and theirs is come,” said the rector rather inconsequently.

“And a pretty mess they are like to make of it!—­what with infidelity and blasphemy—­I must say it—­blasphemy!—­Really you must do something, Mr. Bevis.  Things have arrived at such a pass that, I give you my word, reflections not a few are made upon the rector for committing his flock to the care of such a wolf—­a fox I call him.”

“To-morrow I shall hear him preach,” said the parson.

“Then I sincerely trust no one will give him warning of your intention:  he is so clever, he would throw dust in any body’s eyes.”

The rector laughed.  He had no overweening estimate of his own abilities, but he did pride himself a little on his common sense.

“But,” the lady went on, “in a place like this, where every body talks, I fear the chance is small against his hearing of your arrival.  Anyhow I would not have you trust to one sermon.  He will say just the opposite the next.  He contradicts himself incredibly.  Even in the same sermon I have heard him say things diametrically opposite.”