a little more despondent, and harder to cheer even for a moment; and the wall paper and the furniture grew more and more dingy and shabby.  The two cats, loved and ancient beasts, that he remembered when he was quite a little boy, before he went to school, died miserably, one after the other.  Old Polly, the pony, at last fell down in the stable from the weakness of old age, and had to be killed there; the battered old trap ran no longer along the well-remembered lanes.  There was long meadow grass on the lawn, and the trained fruit trees on the wall had got quite out of hand.  At last, when Lucian was seventeen, his father was obliged to take him from school; he could no longer afford the fees.  This was the sorry ending of many hopes, and dreams of a double-first, a fellowship, distinction and glory that the poor parson had long entertained for his son, and the two moped together, in the shabby room, one on each side of the sulky fire, thinking of dead days and finished plans, and seeing a grey future in the years that advanced towards them.  At one time there seemed some chance of a distant relative coming forward to Lucian’s assistance; and indeed it was quite settled that he should go up to London with certain definite aims.  Mr. Taylor told the good news to his acquaintances—­his coat was too green now for any pretence of friendship; and Lucian himself spoke of his plans to Burrows the doctor and Mr. Dixon, and one or two others.  Then the whole scheme fell through, and the parson and his son suffered much sympathy.  People, of course, had to say they were sorry, but in reality the news was received with high spirits, with the joy with which one sees a stone, as it rolls down a steep place, give yet another bounding leap towards the pool beneath.  Mrs. Dixon heard the pleasant tidings from Mrs. Colley, who came in to talk about the Mothers’ Meeting and the Band of Hope.  Mrs. Dixon was nursing little Athelwig, or some such name, at the time, and made many affecting observations on the general righteousness with which the world was governed.  Indeed, poor Lucian’s disappointment seemed distinctly to increase her faith in the Divine Order, as if it had been some example in Butler’s Analogy.

“Aren’t Mr. Taylor’s views very extreme?” she said to her husband the same evening.

“I am afraid they are,” he replied.  “I was quite grieved at the last Diocesan Conference at the way in which he spoke.  The dear old bishop had given an address on Auricular Confession; he was forced to do so, you know, after what had happened, and I must say that I never felt prouder of our beloved Church.”

Mr. Dixon told all the Homeric story of the conference, reciting the achievements of the champions, “deploring” this and applauding that.  It seemed that Mr. Taylor had had the audacity to quote authorities which the bishop could not very well repudiate, though they were directly opposed to the “safe” Episcopal pronouncement.