In the golden harvest time, just after they had celebrated Nelly’s nineteenth birthday, a new face appeared in Huntsdean, and a new influence began to work among the villagers. The rector, who had grown old and feeble, was at last induced to secure the services of a curate. And Robert Channell, having been a good friend to the people for many a day, felt almost disposed to look jealously upon the stranger.
But before a month had passed by, Mr. Channell and the curate had found out that they were of one mind. The new-comer did not want to upset any of the old plans, but he showed himself capable of improving them. He was no shallow boy, inflated with vast notions of his own self-importance, but a[117] thoughtful, active man, whose wisdom and experience were far beyond his years. And Robert liked Morgan Foster all the better because he was the son of poor parents, and had worked hard all his days, first as a grammar-school boy, and then as a sizar at Cambridge.
Nelly liked his sermons, which were never above her comprehension; and yet she liked him none the less, perhaps, because her instincts told her that he could have soared higher if he had chosen. She fell into the habit of comparing him with all the men she had ever known, and found that he always gained by the process.
Even in person this son of the people could hold his own against the descendants of the old county families. He was a tall, broad-shouldered man; and Nelly, whose stature was above middle height, secretly took a pleasure in feeling that she must look up to him. They were seen walking side by side along the Huntsdean lanes, and folks began to say that they were a fine couple.
[118]
Those calm autumn days were very sweet days to Nelly Channell. The summer lingered long; no wild winds suddenly stripped the trees, and so the woods kept their leafiness, and stood, in all their gorgeous apparel, under the pale blue skies. Nelly thought it must be the peace of this slow decay and tranquil sunshine that made her life so happy at this time. She did not own to herself that every bit of the old scenery had become dearer because Morgan Foster was learning to love it too. Her father and mother discovered the secret long before she had found it out; and they smiled over it together, not ill-pleased.
She had more than one offer just at this period. The neighbouring country houses were full of men who had come to Huntsdean for the shooting. They admired Nelly riding by her father’s side, and looking vigorous and blooming in her habit and hat. They met her now and then at a dinner-party, and straightway fell in love with her chestnut hair and brown eyes, and were not unmindful of the[119] handsome dowry that would go with these charms. She was wont to say, long afterwards, that her unconscious attachment to another was a safeguard of God’s providing. Many a woman speaks the fatal Yes, because her heart furnishes her with no reason for saying No.
Robert Channell encouraged the curate to come often to his house; but no one hinted that he thought of him as a possible son-in-law. It was too absurd to suppose that he would give his Nelly to a man who had only a hundred-and-fifty a year, and was encumbered with an old father and mother, living in obscurity. Some of the disappointed suitors remarked that Channell was a fool to have the parson hanging about the place;—there was no counting on the whims of a spoiled beauty, who might take it into her head to fling herself away on a curate. But this noti............