It was receiving a
rude knock on its hopeful little head at this moment in old Mrs.
Jones's front garden, and naturally the author of its being winced.
Augustus, she feared, must be extremely far gone in love, and it was
not likely that the girl would let such a chance go. It was a
consolation that the marriage would be a scandal,--this person from
nowhere, this niece of a German teacher, carrying off the wealthiest
young man in the county. The ways of so-called Providence were quite
criminally inscrutable, she thought, in stark defiance of what a
vicar's wife should think; but then she was greatly goaded.
Priscilla herself came out of Mrs. Jones's door at that moment with a
very happy face. She had succeeded in comforting the sick woman to an
extent that surprised her. The sick woman had cheered up so suddenly
and so much that Priscilla, delighted, had at once concluded that work
among the sick poor was her true vocation. And how easy it had been! A
few smiles, a few kind words, a five-pound note put gently into the
withered old hands, and behold the thing was done.
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