_The House of the Seven Gables._ For the rest of the week I was every day at Grove End. I took long walks with Conny and her mamma, drove with them, wandered about the grounds, which were tolerably extensive and well wooded, smoked incessantly, listened to Conny playing the piano, read the papers, wrote to my father and to Lord Towers, whose reply I was anxious that my relations should see, and was, altogether, so perfectly contented, that I should have viewed my return to Longueville as a calamity. But where is the ointment without a fly in it? Where is the feast without a death’s head? I confess I regarded the prospect of mounting the high stool I had seen in the bank, and becoming the friend and colleague of Mr. Spratling, of the big head, and of Mr. Curling, of the cockneyfied forefinger, with little satisfaction. I felt myself much too fine a fellow to do the work that Curling and Spratling did. I had sometimes a hope that my aunt would snatch me from my fate, point out to her husband that my elegance might be damaged by a collision with coarse business details, and urge him either to adopt me, or to invent some graceful scheme for supplying me with money. However, it was out of my power to hint at such a measure; which I then considered a very great misfortune. I accompanied the family to church on Sunday. It was enough that I should be a stranger to get stared at. The congregation was almost entirely composed of old men and women--I don’t think I saw one young man. I must except Mr. Curling, who looked down upon us from the gallery: and, perhaps I may have indulged in a secret chuckle, when I thought if he were really in love with Conny, how mad he would be to see her and me bending over the hymn-book together, and praying side by side. I didn’t catch Conny looking at him once, which put me into a very good temper. The rector dined with us that day: a sober-faced, square-bodied man, who spoke in measured accents, and wore a beard. He professed to know Paris well, and asked me, in French, if I had ever dined at Philippe’s, in so vile an accent, that I could scarcely answer him for fear of bursting into a laugh. I observed by my aunt’s and uncle’s treatment of him, that they thought him a very considerable person; by which they paid me no compliment; for of what worth is the admiration that can fasten itself upon a being who has nothing in the wide world to recommend him, “but his calling?” Set a thief to catch a thief! In a very short time I found out that he was a boaster, and one egregious slip put him completely at my mercy. But I spared him: my idea being that every gentleman is bound to consider clergymen and women as being under his particular protection.