“Oh, no; I could not punish you for your goodness in that way. But he would not go. He could go and leave me at home. Sometimes I have thought that it might be so, and I have done all in my power to persuade him. I have told him that if he could mix once more with the world, with the clerical world, you know, that he would be better fitted for the performance of his own duties. But he answers me angrily, that it is impossible—that his coat is not fit for the dean’s table,” and Mrs. Crawley almost blushed as she spoke of such a reason. “What! with an old friend like Dr. Arabin? Surely that must be nonsense.” “I know that it is. The dean would be glad to see him with any coat. But the fact is that he cannot bear to enter the house of a rich man unless his duty calls him there.” “But surely that is a mistake?” “It is a mistake. But what can I do? I fear that he regards the rich as his enemies. He is pining for the solace of some friend to whom he could talk—for some equal, with a mind educated like his own, to whose thoughts he could listen, and to whom he could speak his own thoughts. But such a friend must be equal, not only in mind, but in purse; and where can he ever find such a man as that?” “But you may get better preferment.” “Ah, no; and if he did, we are hardly fit for it now. If I could think that I could educate my children; if I could only do something for my poor Grace—” In answer to this Mrs. Robarts said a word or two, but not much. She resolved, however, that if she could get her husband’s leave, something should be done for Grace. Would it not be a good work? and was it not incumbent on her to make some kindly use of all the goods with which Providence had blessed herself? And then they went back to the sitting-room, each again with a young child in her arms, Mrs. Crawley having stowed away in the kitchen the chicken broth and the leg of pork and the supply of eggs. Lucy had been engaged the while with the children, and when the two married ladies entered, they found that a shop had been opened at which all manner of luxuries were being readily sold and purchased at marvellously easy prices; the guava jelly was there, and the oranges, and the sugar-plums, red and yellow and striped; and, moreover, the gingerbread had been taken down in the audacity of their commercial speculations, and the nuts were spread out upon a board, behind which Lucy stood as shop-girl, disposing of them for kisses. “Mamma, mamma,” said Bobby, running up to his mother, “you must buy something of her,” and he pointed with his fingers at the shop-girl. “You must give her two kisses for that heap of barley-sugar.” Looking at Bobby’s mouth at the time, one would have said that his kisses might be dispensed with. When they were again in the pony-carriage, behind the impatient Puck, and were well away from the door, Fanny was the first to speak. “How very different those two are,” she said; “different in their minds and in their spirit!”