Page:Gissing - Workers in the Dawn, vol. I, 1880.djvu/44

34 he would not once more bid defiance to the world by taking to wife his housekeeper? The more prudish even whispered that it really was not very delicate in Mr. Norman to permit the residence in his ladyless house of a “female” of Mrs. Cope’s years and appearance.

The rector’s eyes were still fixed upon the figures on the lawn, when a sudden ring at the door-bell announced the arrival of a visitor. A moment after a servant tapped at the door, and proclaimed—

“Mr. Whiffle.”

This gentleman was no other than the curate of the parish. His appearance and character appear to me to merit a few lines of description. In stature he stood some five feet, no more, and his head looked very much too large for this diminutive body. Probably this effect was increased by the peculiarities of his hair, which stood almost on end in large, coarse, reddish clusters over the top of his head; the pressure of a hat seemed to have not the slightest effect upon its stubborn elasticity. He wore extremely stiff whiskers, also red in hue, but no moustache. The habitual expression of his face was irresistibly comic; the eyes being very large and constantly moving in the drollest manner, whilst his nose, slightly celestial in tendency, and the peculiar conformation of his mouth and chin gave his countenance something of a