But I must beg you to dismiss all such scenic prettiness, suitable as they may be to a clergyman’s character and complexion; for I have to confess that Mr. Tryan’s study was a very ugly little room indeed, with an ugly slapdash pattern on the walls, an ugly carpet on the floor, and an ugly view of cottage roofs and cabbage-gardens from the window.  His own person his writing-table, and his book-case, were the only objects in the room that had the slightest air of refinement; and the sole provision for comfort was a clumsy straight-backed arm-chair covered with faded chintz.  The man who could live in such a room, unconstrained by poverty, must either have his vision fed from within by an intense passion, or he must have chosen that least attractive form of self-mortification which wears no haircloth and has no meagre days, but accepts the vulgar, the commonplace, and the ugly, whenever the highest duty seems to lie among them.

‘Mr. Tryan, I hope you’ll excuse me disturbin’ on you,’ said Mr. Jerome.  ‘But I’d summat partickler to say.’

’You don’t disturb me at all, Mr. Jerome; I’m very glad to have a visit from you,’ said Mr. Tryan, shaking him heartily by the hand, and offering him the chintz-covered ‘easy’ chair; ’it is some time since I’ve had an opportunity of seeing you, except on a Sunday.’

‘Ah, sir! your time’s so taken up, I’m well aware o’ that; it’s not only what you hev to do, but it’s goin’ about from place to place; an’ you don’t keep a hoss, Mr. Tryan.  You don’t take care enough o’ yourself—­you don’t indeed, an’ that’s what I come to talk to y’ about.’

’That’s very good of you, Mr. Jerome; but I assure you I think walking does me no harm.  It is rather a relief to me after speaking or writing.  You know I have no great circuit to make.  The farthest distance I have to walk is to Milby Church, and if ever I want a horse on a Sunday, I hire Radley’s, who lives not many hundred yards from me.’

‘Well, but now! the winter’s comin’ on, an’ you’ll get wet i’ your feet, an’ Pratt tells me as your constitution’s dillicate, as anybody may see, for the matter o’ that, wi’out bein’ a doctor.  An’ this is the light I look at it in, Mr. Tryan:  who’s to fill up your place, if you was to be disabled, as I may say?  Consider what a valyable life yours is.  You’ve begun a great work i’ Milby, and so you might carry it on, if you’d your health and strength.  The more care you take o’ yourself, the longer you’ll live, belike, God willing, to do good to your fellow-creaturs.’

’Why, my dear Mr. Jerome, I think I should not be a long-lived man in any case; and if I were to take care of myself under the pretext of doing more good, I should very likely die and leave nothing done after all.’

‘Well! but keepin’ a hoss wouldn’t hinder you from workin’.  It ’ud help you to do more, though Pratt says as it’s usin’ your voice so constant as does you the most harm.  Now, isn’t it—­I’m no scholard, Mr. Tryan, an’ I’m not a-goin’ to dictate to you—­but isn’t it a’most a-killin’ o’ yourself, to go on a’ that way beyond your strength?  We mustn’t fling ower lives away.’