“No, no! this is not the letter; here is the letter I wish you to read. It has only come by this morning’s post, and I want to have your judgment on it before I speak of it to the girls.”
Calvert drew the letter slowly from its envelope, and, with a sort of languid resignation, proceeded to read it As he reached the end of the first page, he said, “Why, it would need a lawyer of the Ecclesiastical Court to understand this. What’s all this entangled story about irregular induction, and the last incumbent, and the lay impropriator?”
“Oh, you needn’t have read that! It’s the poor old gentleman’s account of his calamity; how he has lost his vicarage, and is going down to a curacy in Cornwall. Here,” said she, pointing to another page, “here is where you are to begin; ‘I might have borne--’”
“Ah, yes!” said he, reading aloud; “‘I might have borne up better under this misfortune if it had not occurred at such a critical moment of my poor boy’s fate, for I am still uncertain what effect these tidings will have produced on you. I shall no longer have a home to offer the young people, when from reasons of health, or economy, or relaxation, they would like to have left the town and come down to rusticate with us. Neither will it be in my power to contribute--even in the humble shape I had once hoped--to their means of living. I am, in short, reduced to the very narrowest fortune, nor have I the most distant prospect of any better: so much for myself As for Joseph, he has been offered, through the friendly intervention of an old college companion, an appointment at the Calcutta Bar. It is not a lucrative nor an important post, but one which they say will certainly lead to advancement and future fortune. Had it not been for his hopes--hopes which had latterly constituted the very spring of his existence--such an opening as this would have been welcomed with all his heart; but now the offer comes clouded with all the doubts as to how you may be disposed to regard it. Will you consent to separate from the dear girl you have watched over with such loving solicitude for years? Will she herself consent to expatriation and the parting from her sister and yourself? These are the questions which torture his mind, and leave him no rest day or night! The poor fellow has tried to plead his cause in a letter--he has essayed a dozen times--but all in vain.