 of their parishes, - an even minute knowledge of
their separate wants. Each rector knew where clothing was needed, where food
would be most acceptable, where money could be bestowed with a probability of it
being judiciously laid out. Wherever their memories fell short, Miss Ainley or
Miss Hall, if applied to, could help them out; but both ladies took care not to
speak unless spoken to. Neither of them wanted to be foremost, but each
sincerely desired to be useful, and useful the clergy consented to make them:
with which boon they were content.
    Shirley stood behind the rectors, leaning over their shoulders now and then
to glance at the rules drawn up, and the list of cases making out, listening to
all they said, and still at intervals smiling her queer smile - a smile not
ill-natured, but significant: too significant to be generally thought amiable.
Men rarely like such of their fellows as read their inward nature too clearly
and truly. It is good for women, especially, to be endowed with a soft
blindness: to have mild, dim eyes, that never penetrate below the surface of
things - that take all for what it seems: thousands, knowing this, keep their
eyelids drooped, on system; but the most downcast glance has its loophole,
through which it can, on occasion, take its sentinel-survey of life. I remember
once seeing a pair of blue eyes, that were usually thought sleepy, secretly on
the alert, and I knew by their expression - an expression which chilled my
blood, it was in that quarter so wondrously unexpected - that for years they had
been accustomed to silent soul-reading. The world called the owner of these blue
eyes »bonne petite femme« (she was not an Englishwoman): I learned her nature
afterwards - got it off by heart - studied it in its farthest, most hidden
recesses - she was the finest, deepest, subtlest schemer in Europe.
    When all was at length settled to Miss Keeldar's mind, and the clergy had
entered so fully into the spirit of her plans as to head the subscription-list
with their signatures for £ 50 each, she ordered supper to be served; having
previously directed Mrs. Gill to exercise her utmost skill in the preparation of
this repast. Mr. Hall was no bon-vivant: he was naturally an abstemious man,
indifferent to luxury; but Boultby and Helstone both liked good cookery; the
recherché supper consequently put them into excellent humour: they did justice
to it, though in a gentlemanly way - not in the mode
