‘Not about fundamentals, my dear lady. I am not straitlaced; but there are some matters--on some things, I am sure, none of us would like to give an uncertain sound. Life, for example--human life, is too sacred to be trifled with; but there is a set of speculatists, of false philosophers--I don’t know what to call them--sceptics, infidels they generally are, and at the same time radicals, republicans----’ ‘Ah, politics? I dare say poor Annie was odd in politics. What did it matter? they were not political people. If James had been in Parliament, indeed, as I should like to have seen him--but unfortunately he was a man of fine tastes; that is fatal. A man of fine tastes, who is fond of travelling, and collecting, and rapt up in his wife, will never become a public man; and I should like to have seen James in Parliament. Strange ideas! oh, yes, queer to the last degree. If there is anything worse than republicanism (is there?) I should think poor Annie went in for that.’ ‘That is bad enough, but it is not exactly what I meant,’ said the Rector; and then he rose up with an air of the deepest conventional respect. ‘My dear, here is your kind friend, Miss Cherry,’ he said. Mrs. Burchell sprang up at the intimation, and rushed forward with open arms. She had put on a black merino dress instead of her usual silk, and a black shawl, to mark her sense of the calamity--and swallowed up poor slim Miss Cherry in the entanglements of that embrace, with solemn fervour. Cherry had not much sense of humour, and she was too good to pass any judgment upon the sudden warmth of affection thus exhibited; but it was a little confusing and suffocating to find herself without any warning engulfed in Mrs. Burchell’s old merino and the folds of her shawl. ‘Oh, my dear, dear Cherry, if I could but tell you how I feel for you! How little did we think when we last met----’ ‘You are very kind,’ said Miss Cherry, drawing herself forth somewhat limp and crushed from this embrace. ‘I am sure you are very kind.’ Her lips quivered and the tears came to her eyes; but she was not so overwhelmed as her consoler, who had begun to sob. ‘It is my poor brother I think of,’ said Miss Cherry. ‘It is little to us in comparison with, what it is to him. I think of him most; more than of poor Annie, who is safe out of all trouble.’ ‘We must hope so, at least,’ said the Rector, shaking his head; and his wife stopped sobbing, and interchanged a glance with him, which was full of meaning. ‘Poor Mrs. James! It was so sudden. I fear there was no time for preparation--no time even for thought?’ ‘Men soon get the better of these things,’ said Miss Charity, ‘and the more they feel it at the time the more easily they are cured. Cherry there will think of her longer than her husband will. I don’t mean to say your grief’s so great, my dear, but it will last.’