At another time, Mr. McLeod had wonderful stories to tell of spiritual manifestations, and on his last visit he had been overflowing with indignation against society on the score of woman's rights and wrongs.
Yet, notwithstanding these peculiarities, Mrs. Atwood loved and esteemed Mr. McLeod with a sincerity that redeemed her otherwise worldly and timid character. Her husband had been left dependent on his half brother, and owed to him his education and his establishment in the world; and, when a fortune was left by some relation of their mother to be equally divided between them, Mr. McLeod refused to take any portion of it, saying that he had more than enough. These, with many other instances of his generosity and affection which Mrs. Atwood had received since her widowhood, made her forget his eccentricities, and listen with forbearance to his impetuous outbursts of zeal or indignation.
There was another person in Westbridge who shared Mrs. Atwood's affectionate gratitude to Mr. McLeod, and from similar causes; and this was Professor Mainwaring. He was the professor of ancient languages in the college at Westbridge, and the society of the place, as well as the members of the college, thought it a high honor to be able to number such a man as one of themselves. He combined, in a manner that is seldom seen, the high-bred gentleman with the accomplished scholar and the strict and severe theologian, for he was a clergyman as well as a professor; and when to this it is added that he was still unmarried, it will hardly be wondered at if he were an object of general attention, carefully restrained though within its proper limits.
He also had been indebted in early life to Mr. McLeod; for, although brought up in the habits, and with the expectation of being a rich man, he found himself in the second year of his college life left, by the sudden death of his father, Judge Mainwaring, entirely destitute. With no friends who were able or willing to assist him, George Mainwaring was about to give up reluctantly all hopes of completing the studies in which he had so far been eminently successful, and had already begun to look about for some means of obtaining a present support, when Mr. McLeod heard of his position, and, with the prompt and delicate generosity peculiar to him, came forward with offers of assistance. He claimed a right, as an old friend of George Mainwaring's father, to interest himself in the young student's welfare; and, with some hesitation, such as every independent mind naturally feels, Mr. Mainwaring accepted the offered aid.