 Mary
Garth's; our impartiality is kept for abstract merit and demerit, which none of
us ever saw. Will any one guess towards which of those widely different men Mary
had the peculiar woman's tenderness? - the one she was most inclined to be
severe on, or the contrary?
    »Have you any message for your old playfellow, Miss Garth?« said the Vicar,
as he took a fragrant apple from the basket which she held towards him, and put
it in his pocket. »Something to soften down that harsh judgment? I am going
straight to see him.«
    »No,« said Mary, shaking her head, and smiling. »If I were to say that he
would not be ridiculous as a clergyman, I must say that he would be something
worse than ridiculous. But I am very glad to hear that he is going away to
work.«
    »On the other hand, I am very glad to hear that you are not going away to
work. My mother, I am sure, will be all the happier if you will come to see her
at the vicarage: you know she is fond of having young people to talk to, and she
has a great deal to tell about old times. You will really be doing a kindness.«
    »I should like it very much, if I may,« said Mary. »Everything seems too
happy for me all at once. I thought it would always be part of my life to long
for home, and losing that grievance makes me feel rather empty: I suppose it
served instead of sense to fill up my mind?«
    »May I go with you, Mary?« whispered Letty - a most inconvenient child, who
listened to everything. But she was made exultant by having her chin pinched and
her cheek kissed by Mr. Farebrother - an incident which she narrated to her
mother and father.
    As the Vicar walked to Lowick, any one watching him closely might have seen
him twice shrug his shoulders. I think that the rare Englishmen who have this
gesture are never of the heavy type - for fear of any lumbering instance to the
contrary, I will say, hardly ever; they have usually a fine temperament and much
tolerance towards the smaller errors of men (themselves inclusive). The Vicar
was holding an inward dialogue in which he told himself that there was probably
something more between Fred and Mary Garth than the regard of old playfellows,
and replied with a question whether that bit of womanhood were not a great deal
too choice for that crude young gentleman. The
