together to B, and with the manuscript was posted a note, informing Mr. Pembroke that if he condescended to make use of this, the writer guaranteed to supply him with a new one every week, so long as he continued curate of . The MSS. would be all original, and the strictest secrecy observed.
Full of curiosity, we entered church the next Sunday morning. Would Mr. Pembroke avail himself of the anonymously sent manuscript? The prayers seemed twice as long as usual, and the second hymn had six verses, long measure. Mr. Pembroke had reissued from the vestry, and ascended the pulpit, full five minutes before it came to an end. We heard him turn over the leaves of his sermon-book, for our pew was just beneath, and by looking up we could easily have discerned whether they bore recognisable features, but we all three felt too conscious to do so. At length the last notes of the hymn died into silence, the congregation seated themselves, the opening collect was pronounced, and the text about to be given out. Breathless we listened. It was Sarah’s text! With bended heads we heard each well-remembered following sentence. Would papa make any remark? Mr. Pembroke half obliterated the sense and destroyed the feeling of many a passage by his tasteless screaming; but in spite of this, we thought it must universally be felt that such a sermon had not been heard in church since the new curate was inducted. We were not disappointed. It was longer than usual before papa joined us in the garden after the service, and when he did so his words were:—
“I have been congratulating Pembroke on the sermon he gave us to-day. He spoilt it by his unfortunate delivery, else it was one that no young fellow of his age need have been ashamed of. Did not you girls observe a wonderful improvement?”
Rose and I at once answered in the affirmative; but Sarah, conscious and abashed, held her peace. Papa was not satisfied: Sarah had been from childhood his favourite daughter; he was proud of her abilities, and now wanted to have her opinion coincide with his own.
“Didn’t you think so, Sarah?” he repeated.
Poor Sarah was obliged to run away to hide her confusion, and I, in explanation, to say she had not been well for some time, and I was afraid she was to-day feeling unusually ill.
“Go, both of you, after her,” he ordered, and we obeyed. When we afterwards all three appeared at dinner, he looked anxiously at Sarah. She wore a pale, sea-green dress, and did look really ill.
“I shall send you from home before the winter if you are not better by that time,” papa said to her.
In vain she assured him she was quite well: his anxiety was now aroused, and daily she had to meet his look of solicitude, and to answer his inquiry how she felt.
Weeks passed on; the sermons were regularly written and as regularly posted, but not without difficulties. Though Sarah was clever, she required time for her work, and papa unfortunately discovered she sat and studied too much, and that fresh air and exercise were essentials in her case. This made her sit up late at nights writing; she grew paler and more pale, and under the shadow of the sea-green her appearance was ghastly. As the days grew shorter too, the Friday afternoon walks to B were not so easily accomplished. It was always quite dark before we reached home, and one evening, when we had had heavy rain as well as darkness to contend with, papa met us at the door, seriously angry, and forbade our staying out so late ever again. There was nothing for it now but to make it a morning instead of an afternoon walk, though this too had its difficulty. If there was one thing about which papa was particular it was punctuality at dinner, which being on the table at two o’clock, while breakfast was never off it before half-past nine, we had to scud over the moor like steam-engines, and often came in panting and puffing after the manner of those agents of locomotion.
Meanwhile Mr. Pembroke grew in papa’s favour; the latter became more and more friendly, and though he declared his curate’s powers of conversation did not progress in keeping with his power of writing, he added it was said of a greater man, that he “wrote like an angel, and talked like poor Poll.”
One day papa happened unexpectedly to ask Mr. Pembroke to dinner on a Friday, at our usual hour. It was Sarah and I who had taken the walk to B that morning; we entered the drawing-room on our return, tired and heated, and found him already there, in company with papa and Rose.
“Been taking one of your long walks I perceive, young ladies. I hear of your going as far as B almost every week,” was the curate’s greeting to us.
Could he have any suspicion of our errand? No; surely the remark betokened the innocence of ignorance rather than the impertinence of knowledge. But papa took up the word.
“In B every week—is that true?”
“We have gone there rather often lately,” I replied, apologetically. “We have wanted things that John could not attend to for us.”
John was a boy sent regularly once a week to the town to make the purchases required for our housekeeping.
“Then I must tell you I will not allow Sarah to take such long walks. But, indeed, she will not have the power of doing so much longer,” said papa.
Does papa then imagine Sarah so very ill, was my thought; but he soon proceeded to explain himself.
“I wrote a short time ago to your Aunt Markham, saying I should be happy if she would repeat the invitation I have so often declined, as I thought a little change of air and scene would be beneficial to Sarah. To-day I have received an answer expressive of your aunt’s delight. She hopes I will not delay fixing as early a day as possible for Sarah’s departure.”
Dismay sat on all our countenances. Aunt Markham was papa’s only sister, who had been a great beauty in her day, and had made what was