Page:Points of view (Repplier).djvu/226

214 a simple country maid; and when Bonny is formally introduced to "Mrs. Alec Doyle," she feels it time to withdraw from the scene and become a hospital nurse, until a convenient accident in the hunting-field removes the intrusive spouse, and reëstablishes her claim to the husband.

The same well-bred indifference is revealed in a more sensational story called "Elfrida's Wooing," where we have a villainous uncle foiled in his base plots; a father supposed to be drowned, but turning up just at the critical moment; a wicked lover baffled, a virtuous lover rewarded. This sounds promising, but in reality everything is taken with such wonderful calm that not a ripple of excitement breaks over the smooth surface of the tale. There is even an abduction, which surely cannot be an every-day occurrence in English clerical life,—I do not remember anything like it in one of Trollope's novels,—and by mistake the wrong girl, the vicar's daughter, is carried off by the rogues. But no matron of feudal times could have betrayed less annoyance at the incident than does the vicar's wife. "Rupert," she remarks placidly to her son, "it