, they brought him to a
level below contempt: though sometimes, indeed, they incensed her; for, a
Yorkshire girl herself, she hated to hear Yorkshire abused by such a pitiful
prater; & when wrought up to a certain pitch, she would turn and say
something of which neither the matter nor the manner recommended her to Mr.
Donne's good-will. She would tell him it was no proof of refinement to be ever
scolding others for vulgarity; and no sign of a good pastor to be eternally
censuring his flock. She would ask him what he had entered the church for, since
he complained there were only cottages to visit, and poor people to preach to? -
whether he had been ordained to the ministry merely to wear soft clothing, and
sit in king's houses? These questions were considered by all the curates as, to
the last degree, audacious and impious.
    Tea was a long time in progress: all the guests gabbled as their hostess had
expected they would. Mr. Helstone, being in excellent spirits, - when, indeed,
was he ever otherwise in society, attractive female society? - it being only
with the one lady of his own family that he maintained a grim taciturnity, -
kept up a brilliant flow of easy prattle with his right-hand and left-hand
neighbours, and even with his vis-a-vis, Miss Mary: though as Mary was the most
sensible, the least coquettish of the three, to her the elderly widower was the
least attentive. At heart, he could not abide sense in women: he liked to see
them as silly, as light-headed, as vain, as open to ridicule as possible;
because they were then in reality what he held them to be, and wished them to
be, - inferior: toys to play with, to amuse a vacant hour and to be thrown away.
    Hannah was his favourite. Harriet, though beautiful, egotistical, and
self-satisfied, was not quite weak enough for him: she had some genuine
self-respect amidst much false pride, and if she did not talk like an oracle,
neither would she babble like one crazy: she would not permit herself to be
treated quite as a doll, a child, a plaything; she expected to be bent to like a
queen.
    Hannah, on the contrary, demanded no respect; only flattery: if her admirers
only told her that she was an angel, she would let them treat her like an idiot.
So very credulous and frivolous was she; so very