He has not, it must be confessed, obtained any great hold on the parish. Mr. Woodward’s quiet, delicate, fatherly work has gone; but Mr. Cuthbert has a few women who attend confession, and he is content. He has adorned the church according to his views, and the congregation think it rather pretty. They do not dislike his sermons, though they do not understand them; and as for his vestments, they regard them with a mild and somewhat bewildered interest. They like to see Mr. Cuthbert, he is so pleasant and good-humoured. He is assiduous in his visiting, and very assiduous in holding daily services, which are entirely unattended. He has no priestly influence; and I fear it would pain him deeply if he knew that his social influence is considerable. Personally, I find him a pleasant neighbour and highly congenial companion. We have many agreeable talks; and when I am in that irritable tense mood which is apt to develop in solitude, and which can only be cleared by an ebullition of spleen, I walk up to the vicarage and have a theological argument. It does neither myself nor Mr. Cuthbert any harm, and we are better friends than ever—indeed, he calls me quite the most agreeable Erastian he knows. 21 [Sidenote: THE RECLUSE] Let me try to sketch the most Arcadian scholar I have ever seen or dreamed of; they are common enough in books; the gentleman of high family, with lustrous eyes and thin veined hands, who sits among musty folios—Heaven knows what he is supposed to be studying, or why they need be musty—who is in some very nebulous way believed to watch the movements of the heavens, who takes no notice of his prattling golden-haired daughter, except to print an absent kiss upon her brow—if there are such persons they are hard to encounter.