renouncing the religious forms in which she had been brought up. ‘You know,’ she said in confidence to her Church acquaintances, ‘I wouldn’t give no ear at all to Mr. Jerome at fust; but after all, I begun to think as there was a maeny things worse nor goin’ to chapel, an’ you’d better do that nor not pay your way. Mr. Jerome had a very pleasant manner with him, an’ there was niver another as kept a gig, an’ ’ud make a settlement on me like him, chapel or no chapel. It seemed very odd to me for a long while, the preachin’ without book, an’ the stannin’ up to one long prayer, istid o’ changin’ your postur. But la! there’s nothin’ as you mayn’t get used to i’ time; you can al’ys sit down, you know, before the prayer’s done. The ministers say pretty nigh the same things as the Church parsons, by what I could iver make out, an’ we’re out o’ chapel i’ the mornin’ a deal sooner nor they’re out o’ church. An’ as for pews, ourn’s is a deal comfortabler nor aeny i’ Milby Church.’
Mrs. Jerome, you perceive, had not a keen susceptibility to shades of doctrine, and it is probable that, after listening to Dissenting eloquence for thirty years, she might safely have re-entered the Establishment without performing any spiritual quarantine. Her mind, apparently, was of that non-porous flinty character which is not in the least danger from surrounding damp. But on the question of getting start of the sun on the day’s business, and clearing her conscience of the necessary sum of meals and the consequent ‘washing up’ as soon as possible, so that the family might be well in bed at nine, Mrs. Jerome was susceptible; and the present lingering pace of things, united with Mr. Jerome’s unaccountable obliviousness, was not to be borne any longer. So she rang the bell for Sally.
‘Goodness me, Sally! go into the garden an’ see after your master. Tell him it’s goin’ on for six, an’ Mr. Tryan ’ull niver think o’ comin’ now, an’ it’s time we got tea over. An’ he’s lettin’ Lizzie stain her frock, I expect, among them strawberry beds. Mek her come in this minute.’
No wonder Mr. Jerome was tempted to linger in the garden, for though the house was pretty and well deserved its name—‘the White House’, the tall damask roses that clustered over the porch being thrown into relief by rough stucco of the most brilliant white, yet the garden and orchards were Mr. Jerome’s glory, as well they might be; and there was nothing in which he had a more innocent pride—peace to a good man’s memory! all his pride was innocent—than in conducting a hitherto uninitiated visitor over his grounds, and making him in some degree aware of the incomparable advantages possessed by the inhabitants of the White House in the matter of red-streaked apples, russets, northern greens (excellent for baking), swan-egg pears, and early vegetables, to say nothing of flowering ‘srubs,’ pink hawthorns, lavender bushes more than ever Mrs. Jerome could use, and, in short, a superabundance of everything that a person retired from business could desire to possess himself or to share with his friends. The garden was one of those old-fashioned paradises which hardly exist any longer except as memories of our childhood: no finical separation between flower and kitchen garden there; no monotony of enjoyment for one sense to the exclusion of another; but a charming paradisiacal mingling of all that was pleasant to the eyes and good for food. The rich flower-border running along every walk, with its endless succession of spring flowers, anemones, auriculas, wall-flowers, sweet-williams, campanulas, snapdragons, and tiger-lilies, had its taller beauties, such as moss and Provence roses, varied with espalier apple-trees; the crimson of a carnation was carried out in the lurking crimson of the neighbouring strawberry-beds; you gathered a moss-rose one moment and a bunch of currants the next; you were in a delicious fluctuation between the scent of jasmine and the juice of gooseberries. Then what a high wall at one end, flanked by a summer-house so lofty, that after ascending its long flight of steps you could see perfectly well there was no view worth looking at; what alcoves and garden-seats in all directions; and along one side, what a hedge, tall, and firm, and unbroken, like a green wall!
It was near this hedge that Mr. Jerome was standing when Sally found him. He had set down the basket of strawberries on the gravel, and had lifted up little Lizzie in his arms to look at a bird’s nest. Lizzie peeped, and then looked at her grandpa with round blue eyes, and then peeped again.
‘D’ye see it, Lizzie?’ he whispered.
‘Yes,’ she whispered in return, putting her lips very near grandpa’s face. At this moment Sally appeared.
‘Eh, eh, Sally, what’s the matter? Is Mr. Tryan come?’
‘No, sir, an’ Missis says she’s sure he won’t come now, an’ she wants you to come in an’ hev tea. Dear heart, Miss Lizzie, you’ve stained your pinafore, an’ I shouldn’t wonder if it’s gone through to your frock. There’ll be fine work! Come alonk wi’ me, do.’
‘Nay, nay, nay, we’ve done no harm, we’ve done no harm, hev we, Lizzie? The wash-tub’ll make all right again.’
Sally, regarding the wash-tub from a different point of view, looked sourly serious, and hurried away with Lizzie, who trotted submissively along, her little head in eclipse under a large nankin bonnet, while Mr. Jerome followed leisurely with his full broad shoulders in rather a stooping posture, and his large good-natured features and white locks shaded by a broad-brimmed hat.
‘Mr. Jerome, I wonder at you,’ said Mrs. Jerome, in a tone of indignant remonstrance, evidently sustained by a deep sense of injury, as her husband opened the parlour door. ‘When will you leave off invitin’ people to meals an’ not lettin’ ’em know the time? I’ll answer for’t, you niver said a word to Mr. Tryan as we should take tea at five o’clock. It’s just like you!’
‘Nay, nay, Susan,’ answered the husband in a soothing tone, ‘there’s nothin’ amiss. I told Mr. Tryan as we took tea at five punctial; mayhap summat’s a detainin’ on him. He’s a deal to do, an’ to think on, remember.’
‘Why, it’s struck six i’ the kitchen a’ready. It’s nonsense to look for him comin’ now. So you may’s well ring for th’ urn. Now Sally’s got th’ heater in the fire, we may’s well hev th’ urn in, though he doesn’t come. I niver see’d the like o’ you, Mr. Jerome, for axin’ people an’ givin’ me the trouble o’ gettin’ things down an’ hevin’ crumpets made, an’ after all they don’t come. I shall hev to wash every one o’ these tea-things myself, for there’s no trustin’ Sally—she’d break a fortin i’ crockery i’ no time!’
‘But why will you give yourself sich trouble, Susan? Our everyday tea-things would ha’ done as well for Mr. Tryan, an’ they’re a deal convenenter to hold.’
‘Yes, that’s just your way, Mr. Jerome, you’re al’ys a-findin’ faut wi’ my chany, because I bought it myself afore I was married. But let me tell you, I knowed how to choose chany if I didn’t know how to choose a husband. An’ where’s Lizzie? You’ve niver left her i’ the garden by herself, with her white frock on an’ clean stockins?’
‘Be easy, my dear Susan, be easy; Lizzie’s come in wi’ Sally. She’s hevin’ her pinafore took off, I’ll be bound. Ah! there’s Mr. Tryan a-comin’ through the gate.’
Mrs. Jerome began hastily to adjust her damask napkin and the expression of her countenance for the reception of the clergyman, and Mr. Jerome went out to meet his guest, whom he greeted outside the door.
‘Mr. Tryan, how do you do, Mr. Tryan? Welcome to the White House! I’m glad to see you, sir—I’m glad to see you.’
If you had heard the tone of mingled good-will, veneration, and condolence in which this greeting was uttered, even without seeing the face that completely harmonized with it, you would have no difficulty in inferring the ground-notes of Mr. Jerome’s character. To a fine ear that tone said as plainly as possible—‘Whatever recommends itself to me, Thomas Jerome, as piety and goodness, shall have my love and honour. Ah, friends, this pleasant world is a sad one, too, isn’t it? Let us help one another, let us help one another.’ And it was entirely owing to this basis of character, not at all from any clear and precise doctrinal discrimination, that Mr. Jerome had very early in life become a Dissenter. In his boyish days he had been thrown where Dissent seemed to have the