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 luncheon at the cottage was a feast compared to his ordinary dinner. He put aside the red books and took up the 'Times,' with a vague hope, of finding a very unusual advertisement of wanted, A Vicar for a good living &c., but found nothing more than a request from a poor curate with nine children, for cast-off clothes and postage stamps. The notion of marrying Janet on a settlement of twelve stamps, and the reversion for himself of another man's coat and waistcoat! and could it be expected that those whom Providence had blest with the extreme of affluence, should send Janet, in her utmost need, a light blue muslin with three flounces made in the last fashion? No, it would be madness to think of her, and that being established as a fact, he thought of nothing else during the hours—they were but few—in which he was not occupied in the high duties of his calling.