cigars in consequence. He had an increased amount of time at his
disposal, but did not, therefore, give more time to his duties. Alas!
What time did he give to his duties? He kept a most energetic curate,
whom he allowed to do almost what he would with the parish. Every-day
services he did prohibit, declaring that he would not have the parish
church made ridiculous; but in other respects his curate was the pastor.
Once every Sunday he read the service, and once every Sunday he
preached, and he resided in his parsonage ten months every year. His
wife and daughters went among the poor--and he smoked cigars in his
library. Though not yet fifty, he was becoming fat and idle--unwilling
to walk, and not caring much even for such riding as the bishop had left
to him. And to make matters worse--far worse, he knew all this of
himself, and understood it thoroughly. "I see a better path, and know
how good it is, but I follow ever the worse." He was saying that to
himself daily, and was saying it always without hope.

And his wife had given him up. She had given him up, not with disdainful
rejection, nor with contempt in her eye, or censure in her voice, not
with diminution of love or of outward respect. She had given him up as a
man abandons his attempts to make his favorite dog take the water. He
would fain that the dog he loves should dash into the stream as other
dogs will do. It is, to his thinking, a noble instinct in a dog. But his
dog dreads the water. As, however, he has learned to love the beast, he
puts up with this mischance, and never dreams of banishing poor Ponto
from his hearth because of this failure. And so it was with Mrs.
Clavering and her husband at the rectory. He understood it all. He knew
that he was so far rejected; and he acknowledged to himself the
necessity for such rejection.

"It is a very serious thing to decide upon," he said, when his son had