Chapter II.
THE RECTORY.
Edward Norman had the good fortune, at a comparatively early age, to find himself comfortably established as incumbent of the parish of Bloomford, which comprised some five hundred inhabitants in all, and was delightfully situated in one of the pleasantest of the southern counties. The duties resulting from his position were, as may be imagined, not very arduous, and the compensation, from a purely sordid point of view—that treasure upon earth which the clergy doubtless prize merely as a type of the heavenly treasure which will one day be theirs—was far from doing discredit to those “pious ancestors” of the village, whose liberality, as in all such cases, it was pleasantly understood to represent. It would, however, have been a heart steeped to the very root in the poison of Democracy. Communism, and kindred evils which could have grudged Edward Norman his charming little rectory and the thousand a year which enabled him to keep it in repair, for, in very truth, it would have been difficult to find a clergyman of a sweeter disposition, a kindlier heart, a sunnier intellect than his.
