The neighbourhood was not a large one: Mowbray Park, and the estate attached to it, stretched itself so far in all directions, that Oakley, the residence of Sir Gilbert Harrington, the nearest landed proprietor, was at the distance of more than a mile. The little village of Wrexhill, however, had one or two pretty houses in it, inhabited by ladies and gentlemen of moderate but independent fortune, with whom the family at the Park associated on terms of intimacy. Among these, the late Vicar and his family had been the decided favourites of the whole race of Mowbrays,--and most deservedly so; for the father was a man of piety, learning, and most amiable deportment; his wife, a being whose temper, to say nothing of sundry other good qualities, had made her the idol of the whole parish; and his two sons and two daughters, just such sons and daughters as such parents deserved to have. But, as Gregory Dobbs, the old parish clerk, observed, after officiating at the funeral of Mr. Mowbray, "Death seemed to have taken a spite against the village of Wrexhill, for within one short month he had mowed down and swept away the two best and _most powerful_ men in the parish, and 'twas no easy matter to say how long the inhabitants might be likely to wear mourning." The dispersion and departure of the good Vicar's family was an additional misfortune that his parishioners had not looked for. The living, more valuable for its pleasant house and pretty glebe than for its revenue, was in the gift of one who through life had been, not in appearance or profession only, but in most true sincerity, the attached friend of the late incumbent; and Edward Wallace, his eldest son, was bred to the church with the express understanding that the next presentation should be his. With this persuasion, the young man's first act on the death of his father was to tell his mother and sisters that they should continue to inhabit the home they had so long loved. But this arrangement was speedily overthrown; for in reply to the letter which announced the death of his father to Sir J. C. Blackhouse, the patron of the living, he received the following answer: "My dear Fellow,