do so."

"My dear cousin, are you not over-scrupulous? You would be an ornament
to the Church, sufficient in all else to justify your compulsory omission
of one duty, which a curate could perform for you."

Morley shook his head sadly. "One duty omitted!" said he. "But is it
not that duty which distinguishes the priest from the layman? and how
far extends that duty? Whereever there needs a voice to speak the word,-
not in the pulpit only, but at the hearth, by the sick-bed,--there should
be the Pastor! No: I cannot, I ought not, I dare not! Incompetent as
the labourer, how can I be worthy of the hire?" It took him long to
bring out these words: his emotion increased his infirmity. Lady
Montfort listened with an exquisite respect visible in her compassion,
and paused long before she answered.

George Morley was the younger son of a country gentleman, with a good
estate settled upon the elder son. George's father had been an intimate
friend of his kinsman, the Marquess of Montfort (predecessor and
grandsire of the present lord); and the marquess had, as he thought,
amply provided for George in undertaking to secure to him, when of
fitting age, the living of Humberston, the most lucrative preferment in
his gift. The living had been held for the last fifteen years by an
incumbent, now very old, upon the honourable understanding that it was to
be resigned in favour of George, should George take orders. The young
man, from his earliest childhood thus destined to the Church, devoted to
the prospect of that profession all his studies, all his thoughts. Not
till. he was sixteen did his infirmity of speech make itself seriously
perceptible: and then elocution masters undertook to cure it; they
failed. But George's mind continued in the direction towards which it