an income.  She had no reliance on her own power of living on a potato, and with one new dress every year.  A comfortable home, with nice, comfortable things around her, ease in money matters and elegance in life, were charms with which she had not quarrelled, and, though she did not wish to be hard upon Mr. Saul on account of his mistake, she did feel that in making his proposition he had blundered.  Because she chose to do her duty as a parish clergyman’s daughter, he thought himself entitled to regard her as a devotee, who would be willing to resign everything to become the wife of a clergyman, who was active, indeed, but who had not one shilling of income beyond his curacy.  “Mr. Saul,” she said, “I can assure you I need take no time for further thinking.  It cannot be as you would have it.”

“Perhaps I have been abrupt.  Indeed, I feel that it is so, though I did not know how to avoid it.”

“It would have made no difference.  Indeed, indeed, Mr. Saul, nothing of that kind could have made a difference.”

“Will you grant me this—­that I may speak to you again on the same subject after six months?”

“It cannot do any good.”

“It will do this good—­that for so much time you will have had the idea before you.”  Fanny thought that she would have Mr. Saul himself before her, and that that would be enough.  Mr. Saul, with his rusty clothes and his thick, dirty shoes, and his weak, blinking eyes, and his mind always set upon the one wish of his life, could not be made to present himself to her in the guise of a lover.  He was one of those men of whom women become very fond with the fondness of friendship, but from whom young women seem to be as far removed in the way of love as though they belonged to some other species.  “I will not press you further,” said he, “as I gather by your tone that it distresses you.”

“I am so sorry if I distress you, but really, Mr. Saul, I could give you—­I never could give you any other answer.”

Then they walked on silently through the rain—­silently, without a single word—­for more than half a mile, till they reached the rectory gate.  Here it was necessary that they should, at any rate, speak to each other, and for the last three hundred yards Fanny had been trying to find the words which would be suitable.  But he was the first to break the silence.  “Good-night, Miss Clavering,” he said, stopping and putting out his hand.

“Good-night, Mr. Saul.”

“I hope that there may be no difference in our bearing to each other, because of what I have to-day said to you?”

“Not on my part—­that is, if you will forget it.”

“No, Miss Clavering; I shall not forget it.  If it had been a thing to be forgotten, I should not have spoken.  I certainly shall not forget it.”

“You know what I mean, Mr. Saul.”