 the resolute suppression
of a pain in Mr. Farebrother's manner, made her feel suddenly miserable, as she
had once felt when she saw her father's hands trembling in a moment of trouble.
    »No, my dear, no. I must get back.«
    In three minutes the Vicar was on horseback again, having gone magnanimously
through a duty much harder than the renunciation of whist, or even than the
writing of penitential meditations.
 

                                  Chapter LIII

            It is but a shallow haste which concludeth insincerity from what
            outsiders call inconsistency - putting a dead mechanism of »ifs« and
            »therefores« for the living myriad of hidden suckers whereby the
            belief and the conduct are wrought into mutual sustainment.
 
Mr. Bulstrode, when he was hoping to acquire a new interest in Lowick, had
naturally had an especial wish that the new clergyman should be one whom he
thoroughly approved; and he believed it to be a chastisement and admonition
directed to his own shortcomings and those of the nation at large, that just
about the time when he came in possession of the deeds which made him the
proprietor of Stone Court, Mr. Farebrother »read himself« into the quaint little
church and preached his first sermon to the congregation of farmers, labourers,
and village artisans. It was not that Mr. Bulstrode intended to frequent Lowick
Church or to reside at Stone Court for a good while to come: he had bought the
excellent farm and fine homestead simply as a retreat which he might gradually
enlarge as to the land and beautify as to the dwelling, until it should be
conducive to the divine glory that he should enter on it as a residence,
partially withdrawing from his present exertions in the administration of
business, and throwing more conspicuously on the side of Gospel truth the weight
of local landed proprietorship, which Providence might increase by unforeseen
occasions of purchase. A strong leading in this direction seemed to have been
given in the surprising facility of getting Stone Court, when every one had
expected that Mr. Rigg Featherstone would have clung to it as the Garden of
Eden. That was what poor old Peter himself had expected; having often, in
imagination, looked up through the sods above him, and, unobstructed by
perspective, seen his frog-faced legatee enjoying the fine old place to the
perpetual surprise and disappointment of other survivors.
    But how little we know what would make paradise for our neighbours! We judge
from our own desires, and our neighbours themselves are not always open enough
even to throw out a hint of theirs. The cool and judicious Joshua Rigg had not
allowed his parent to perceive that Stone
