She had another frequent visitor whom she received with almost more pleasure and sense of grateful esteem than any, and that was Mr. Cattley, who had not half so much to say as Percy, and yet seemed to feel in Susie’s parlour--the room which he had known so well in other times, when it was full of the ways of the old people, but which now was Susie’s parlour as if it never had belonged to anyone else--something of the same sweet calm and refreshment which the village life and quiet brought to her. Mr. Cattley knew the village as well as Susie knew the hospital: he wanted something more to refresh his spirit: and on the eve of going away from Edgeley, and breaking up all the old habits which had been his life for years, this new habit and association were more pleasant to him than it was easy to believe anything could be. He liked to sit and watch her, moving about, or sitting at work, or perhaps only looking up with a little interchange of simple talk. He told her when he got more familiar how long he had been here, and how little inclination he had to go away; and then he told her of his new parish, and its great unlikeness to this, and how reluctant he was to plunge into it, feeling as if he were about to plunge into a new world. ‘It will not seem so when you get used to it,’ Susie would say. ‘No, most likely not. It is the getting used to it that is the difficulty,’ he would reply: and looked at her in an anxious way, as if the sight of her made a difference. He did not himself understand yet what the difference was. When Percy came and found Mr. Cattley there, the new curate made it apparent in his manner that he thought the old one very much out of place. He would say, ‘Oh, I thought this was your day for the schools: but, of course, it is not important to keep that up now you are going away;’ or ‘I thought you said you would take the almshouses this evening. If I had known you were not going I should have gone, for the old people don’t like to be disappointed:’ which was half-amusing to Mr. Cattley, but not pleasant, as the pupil’s attempts to instruct his former master seldom are. But what the old curate felt most of all was when the young man said to him: ‘I thought you had some business with Aunt Mary! I know she was looking for you.’ When this was said, Mr. Cattley took up his hat and rose from his chair, giving Susie a glance which she did not understand--and perhaps neither did he: and Percy would settle himself in his chair to remain, while Mr. Cattley went away. CHAPTER XVII. JOHN’S RESOLUTION.