opportunity for her to see something of the world; and perhaps it may
bring her the chance of placing herself in life. We have got to consider
these things with reference to a young girl."

Mrs. Claxon said, "Of cou'se," but Claxon did not assent so readily.

"I don't feel as if I should want Clem to look at it in that light. If
the chance don't come to her, I don't want she should go huntin' round
for it."

"I thoroughly agree with you," said the rector. "But I was thinking that
there was not only no chance worthy of her in Middlemount, but there is
no chance at all."

"I guess that's so," Claxon owned with a laugh. "Well, I guess we can
leave it to Clem to do what's right and proper everyway. As you say,
she's got lots of sense."

From that moment he emptied his mind of care concerning the matter; but
husband and wife are never both quite free of care on the same point of
common interest, and Mrs. Claxon assumed more and more of the anxieties
which he had abandoned. She fretted under the load, and expressed an
exasperated tenderness for Clementina when the girl seemed forgetful of
any of the little steps to be taken before the great one in getting her
clothes ready for leaving home. She said finally that she presumed they
were doing a wild thing, and that it looked crazier and crazier the more
she thought of it; but all was, if Clem didn't like, she could come home.
By this time her husband was in something of that insensate eagerness to
have the affair over that people feel in a house where there is a
funeral.