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 “Please,” said Louisa, looking up at the Vicar.

“No, no, I am a grave old parson. If I try to draw a story out of my bag a sermon comes instead. Shall I preach you a sermon?” said he, putting on his short-sighted glasses, and pursing up his lips.

“Yes,” said Louisa, falteringly.

“Let me see, then. Against cakes: how cakes are bad things, especially if they are sweet and have plums in them.”

Louisa took the affair rather seriously, and got down from the Vicar’s knee to go to Fred.

“Ah, I see it will not do to preach on New Year’s Day,” said Mr Farebrother, rising and walking away. He had discovered of late that Fred had become jealous of him, and also that he himself was not losing his preference for Mary above all other women.

“A delightful young person is Miss Garth,” said Mrs Farebrother, who had been watching her son’s movements.

“Yes,” said Mrs Vincy, obliged to reply, as the old lady turned to her expectantly. “It is a pity she is not better-looking.”

“I cannot say that,” said Mrs Farebrother, decisively. “I like her countenance. We must not always ask for beauty, when a good God has seen fit to make an excellent young woman without it. I put good manners first, and Miss Garth will know how to conduct herself in any station.”

The old lady was a little sharp in her tone, having a prospective reference to Mary’s becoming her daughter-in-law; for there was this inconvenience in Mary’s position with regard to Fred, that it was not suitable to be made public, and hence the three ladies at Lowick Parsonage were still hoping that Camden would choose Miss Garth.

New visitors entered, and the drawing-room was given up to music and games, while whist-tables were prepared in the quiet room on the other side of the hall. Mr Farebrother played a rubber to satisfy his mother, who regarded her occasional whist as a protest against scandal and novelty of opinion, in which light even a revoke had its dignity. But at the end he got Mr Chichely to take his place, and left the room. As he crossed the hall, Lydgate had just come in and was taking off his greatcoat.

“You are the man I was going to look for,” said the Vicar; and instead of entering the drawing-room, they walked along the hall and stood against the fireplace, where the frosty air helped to make a glowing bank. “You see, I can leave the whist-table easily enough,” he went on, smiling at Lydgate, “now I don’t play for money. I owe that to you, Mrs Casaubon says.”

“How?” said Lydgate, coldly.

“Ah, you didn’t mean me to know it; I call that ungenerous reticence. You should let a man have the pleasure of feeling that you have done him a good turn. I don’t enter into some people’s dislike of being under an obligation: upon my word, I prefer being under an obligation to everybody for behaving well to me.”