Page:Gissing - Workers in the Dawn, vol. I, 1880.djvu/35

Rh do, in consequence, prepare a memorial on this subject, to be duly presented to the Rev. Mr. Norman on the earliest fitting opportunity." This resolution was written out, with the due emphasis, by the secretary of the club, but the memorial was never presented, owing. I believe, to the fact that the personal amiability of the reverend gentleman in a very short time succeeded in utterly disarming the suspicions of the fair inquisitors. At that time a large majority of the club were unmarried ladies, and it may not unreasonably be concluded that the fact of Mr. Norman being then a bachelor of twenty-four had an appreciable influence in weakening their zeal for the preservation of the Creator's privacy. This had been some ten years since, and at present the only memorial of those early prejudices existed in the person of a poor old woman of the village, who, having gone harmlessly crazy just at the time when the rector's presumption had been the great topic of conversation, still never failed to pass him without asking, with a respectful curtesy—

"What's the latest news from heaven, my lord?"

The respectable subscribers to our circulating libraries would not owe me much thanks were ] to describe in detail the oft-treated history of a clergyman's search among his fair parishioners for a suitable partner of