“I hope others will see it so.  Is not Whitlock to be mayor next time?”

“Yes.  He may do something.  Well, they will hardly unseat me!  I should not like to see Moy in my place, and it would be a sore thing for my mother; but,” he continued, in the same strange, dreamy manner, “everything has turned out so wretchedly that I hardly know or care how it goes.”

“My dear old fellow!”

Raymond had stopped to lean over a gate, where he could look up to the old red house in the green park, set in brightly-tinted trees, all aglow in the morning sunshine.  Tears had sprung on his cheeks, and a suppressed sob heaved his chest.  Julius ventured to say, “Perhaps there may yet be a change of mind.”

“No!” was the answer.  “In the present situation there is nothing for it but to sacrifice my last shred of peace to the one who has the chief right—­in a certain way.”

They walked on, and he hardly spoke again till, as they reached the Rectory, Julius persuaded him to come in and have a cup of tea; and though he said he must go back and see his friend off, he could not withstand the sight of Rosamond at the window, fresh and smiling, with her child in her arms.

“Not a bit the worse for her dissipation,” she merrily said.  “Oh, the naughty little thing!—­to have begun with the turf, and then the ‘Three Pigeons’!  Aren’t you ashamed of her, papa?  Sit down, Raymond; how horribly tired you do look.”

“Ha!  What’s this?” exclaimed Julius, who had been opening the post-bag.  “Here’s a note from the Bishop, desiring me to come to the palace to-day, if possible.”

“Oh!” cried Raymond.  “Where is there vacant—­isn’t there a canonry or a chaplaincy?”

“Or an archbishopric or two?” said Julius.  “The pony can do it, I think, as there will be a long rest.  If he seems fagged, I can put up at Backsworth and take a fly.”

“You’ll let James drive you,” said Rosamond.

“I had rather not,” said Julius.  “It may be better to be alone.”

“He is afraid of betraying his elevation to James,” laughed Rosamond.

“Mrs. Daniel Reynolds to see you, sir.”

This was with the information that that there trapezing chap, Drake, had fetched off poor Fanny in his van.  He had been in trouble himself, having been in custody for some misdemeanour when she was thrown down; but as soon as he was released, he had come in search of her, and though at first he seemed willing to leave her to be nursed at home, he had no sooner heard of the visitors of that morning than he had sworn he would have no parson meddling with his poor gal! she was good enough for him, and he would not have a pack of nonsense put in her head to set her against him.

“He’s good to her, sir,” said Mrs. Reynolds, “I think he be; but he is a very ignorant man.  He tell’d us once as he was born in one of they vans, and hadn’t never been to school nor nothin’, nor heard tell of God, save in the way of bad words:  he’ve done nothin’ but go from one races and fairs to another, just like the gipsies, though he bain’t a gipsy neither; but he’s right down attacted to poor Fanny, and good to her.”