Only one event of importance had occurred at Cherbury during these two
years, if indeed that be not too strong a phrase to use in reference
to an occurrence which occasioned so slight and passing an interest.
Lord Cadurcis had died. He had left his considerable property to his
natural children, but the abbey had descended with the title to a very
distant relative. The circle at Cherbury had heard, and that was all,
that the new lord was a minor, a little boy, indeed very little older
than Venetia herself; but this information produced no impression. The
abbey was still deserted and desolate as ever.




CHAPTER IV.


Every Sunday afternoon, the rector of a neighbouring though still
somewhat distant parish, of which the rich living was in the gift of
the Herberts, came to perform divine service at Cherbury. It was a
subject of deep regret to Lady Annabel that herself and her family
were debarred from the advantage of more frequent and convenient
spiritual consolation; but, at this time, the parochial discipline
of the Church of England was not so strict as it fortunately is at
present. Cherbury, though a vicarage, possessed neither parish church,
nor a residence for the clergyman; nor was there indeed a village. The
peasants on the estate, or labourers as they are now styled, a term
whose introduction into our rural world is much to be lamented, lived
in the respective farmhouses on the lands which they cultivated. These
were scattered about at considerable distances, and many of their