"Armstrong--" I repeated. "Is not that the name of the new curate?"

"To be sure. They are brothers. Henry, the doctor, is considerably
younger than the curate."

"Did the curate seek the appointment because the doctor was here
before him?"

"I suppose so. They are much attached to each other."

"If he is at all equal as a doctor to what I think his brother is as a
preacher, Purleybridge is a happy place to possess two such healers,"
I said.

"Well, time will show," returned Mr. Bloomfield.

All this time Percy sat yawning, and drinking claret. When we joined
the ladies, we found them engaged in a little gentle chat. There was
something about Mrs. Bloomfield that was very pleasing. The chief
ingredient in it was a certain quaint repose. She looked as if her
heart were at rest; as if for her everything, was right; as if she had
a little room of her own, just to her mind, and there her soul sat,
looking out through the muslin curtains of modest charity, upon the
world that went hurrying and seething past her windows. When we
entered--

"I was just beginning to tell Miss Cathcart," she said, "a curious
history that came under my notice once. I don't know if I ought
though, for it is rather sad."