This conversation was interrupted by a knock at the door, which was evidently a very welcome sound to the old people, who displayed even more than their usual cordiality when the door of the parlour opened and Mr. Cattley was shown in. Mr. Cattley was the curate. He had held that position in the village of Edgeley-on-the-Moor since John’s childhood, having little influence, and no ambition, and finding himself in congenial society, which indisposed him to take any measures for ‘bettering himself’ or moving, as perhaps he would himself have said, to a wider sphere. As a matter of fact, if Mr. Cattley had ever possessed any friends who would have helped him to that wider sphere, they had forgotten him before now; and he had forgotten them, having succeeded in concentrating himself in the little rural parish as few people could have done. Perhaps his pupils had helped to weave that spell which bound him to the little place. He had taken charge of all the young Spencers in their earlier days. He had trained both Dick and Percy for their school, in which they had done him credit, at least, in the beginning of their career: but Elly and John were his favourites: and, as they had remained with him until now, his interest in his work had remained unbroken. Mr. Cattley was not a very frequent visitor at the house of the Sandfords. He was, to tell the truth, generally so absorbed by another friendship that he had no leisure to pay visits. This was in fact the secret, but it was no secret, of the good curate’s life. The rector, Mr. Spencer, was a widower, having been so for many years, and his house was ruled and presided over by a sister, also a widow, to whom _en tout bien et tout honneur_, the curate was devoted. It was such a devotion as from time to time arises without any blame on one side or another in the heart of a young man for a woman who is older than himself, and whom there is not the least possibility that he can ever marry. Such attachments are perhaps less uncommon than people think, and they are very warm, constant, and absorbing. Sometimes, as everybody knows, they do end in marriage, but that is a disturbance of the ideal, and brings in elements less delicate and exquisite than the tie which is more than friendship, yet a little less than love, and which by its nature can and ought to come to nothing.