did not as much bend as tumble down from a height. In fact, he
looked so carelessly fixed up that when he sat down he made the
onlooker feel quite nervous lest he should subside into a ruin, and
scatter his legs, arms, and head promiscuously all over the place.
He had a sad, pale, eager-looking face, with dreamy eyes, which
always seemed to be looking into the spiritual world. He wore his
brown hair long, as he always maintained a man's hair was as much
his glory as a woman's was hers, quoting Samson and Absalom in
support of this opinion. His arms were long and thin, and when he
gesticulated in the pulpit on Sundays flew about like a couple of
flails, which gave him a most unhappy resemblance to a windmill. The
'Lamentations of Jeremiah' are not the most cheerful of reading, and
Mr Marchurst, imbued with the sadness of the Jewish prophet,
drinking strong tea and sitting in a darkened room, was rapidly
sinking into a very dismal frame of mind, which an outsider would
have termed a fit of the blues. He sat in his straight-backed chair
taking notes of such parts of the 'Lamentations' as would tend to
depress the spirits of the 'Elect' on Sunday, and teach them to
regard life in a proper and thoroughly miserable manner.

He was roused from his dismal musings by the quick opening of the
door of his study, when Kitty, joyous and gay in her white dress,
burst like a sunbeam into the room.

"I wish, Katherine," said her father, in a severe voice, "I wish you
would not enter so noisily and disturb my meditations."

"You'll have to put your meditations aside for a bit," said Kitty,
disrespectfully, crossing to the window and pulling aside the
curtains, "for Madame Midas and M. Vandeloup have come to see you."