"But what if I have no troubles to confide?" said Mr Wentworth; "a man and a boy are very different things. Come, aunt Dora, I'll see you safe to your inn. What should I have to grumble about? I have plenty to do, and it is Easter; and few men can have everything their own way."
"You won't acknowledge that you're vexed," said aunt Dora, almost crying under her veil, "but I can see it all the same. You always were such a true Wentworth; but if you only would give in and say that you are disappointed and angry with us all, I could bear it better, Frank. I would not feel then that you thought it my fault! And oh, Frank, dear, you don't consider how disappointed your poor dear aunt Leonora was! It's just as hard upon us," she continued, pressing his arm in her eagerness, "as it is upon you. We had all so set our hearts on having you at Skelmersdale. Don't you think, if you were giving your mind to it, you might see things in a different light?" with another pressure of his arm. "Oh, Frank, what does it matter, after all, if the heart is right, whether you read the service in your natural voice, or give that little quaver at the end? I am sure, for my part--"
"My dear aunt," said Mr Wentworth, naturally incensed by this manner of description, "I must be allowed to say that my convictions are fixed, and not likely to be altered. I am a priest, and you are--a woman." He stopped short, with perhaps a little bitterness. It was very true she was a woman, unqualified to teach, but yet she and her sisters were absolute in Skelmersdale. He made a little gulp of his momentary irritation, and walked on in silence, with Miss Dora's kind wistful hand clinging to his arm.
"But, dear Frank among us Protestants, you know, there is no sacerdotal caste," said Miss Dora, opportunely recollecting some scrap of an Exeter Hall speech. "We are all kings and priests to God. Oh, Frank, it is Gerald's example that has led you away. I am sure, before you went to Oxford you were never at all a ritualist--even Leonora thought you such a pious boy; and I am sure your good sense must teach you--" faltered aunt Dora, trying her sister's grand tone.
"Hush, hush; I can't have you begin to argue with me; you are not my aunt Leonora," said the Curate, half amused in spite of himself. This encouraged the anxious woman, and, clasping his arm closer than ever, she poured out all her heart.