We have already acknowledged, nor do we wish to retract the acknowledgment, that the rector of Neverden was a very conscientious, attentive, and upright parish priest; we will give him credit for great zeal and activity in the discharge of his pastoral duties; but, notwithstanding all this, he was grievously deficient in one part of the Christian character, seeing that he had very little of that "charity which thinketh no evil." We have seen other good people, besides the rector of Neverden, who, fancying themselves models of all that is right, and patterns for the rest of the world, have exercised a perverse ingenuity in discovering, and an unholy pleasure in displaying and condemning, their neighbours' faults, real or imaginary. These people imagine that they cannot show a dislike of what is wrong without exhibiting a degree of malignity against such as transgress. Now the late Dr Greendale, though a man of great purity and integrity, had no such feeling as this. He was as candid as he was pure, and his gentleness was equal to his integrity. And the people of his parish liked him very much for his goodness and gentleness, and so his character had a very powerful influence upon them. But Mr Darnley was a different kind of man. When Zephaniah Pringle therefore made his appearance at Neverden, and repeated the information which had already been conveyed to the rectory, as touching the arrival of Mr and Miss Primrose at Smatterton, the Rev. Mr Darnley expressed himself astonished at the indecorum and want of feeling which Miss Primrose manifested. "Mr Pringle, I am quite surprized at this intelligence. Your relative at Smatterton has certainly a right to let the parsonage-house if he pleases; but I must say that I could wish, for the sake of public morals, that it had a more respectable tenant." Now as Penelope had appeared most truly respectable, and not a little fascinating in the eyes of Zephaniah the critic, and as he was not quite certain that the rumour which he had been the means of circulating was quite founded on fact, and as his doubts were stronger after he had seen Penelope and her father, he wished to unsay or to soften down what he had said. He therefore replied to the above exclamation: "Why really, sir, I must say that I think Miss Primrose a respectable young lady, and it is probable that the report which I heard in town may not be perfectly correct. And indeed, as the lady is about to reside with her father, it is certainly not true to its full extent."