The only thing they did not see from where they
stood was the twinkle in his eye.
"I don't think," murmured Lady Shuttleworth, "I don't think, my dear,
that I quite care to go in to Mrs. Jones to-day. I--I think I'll go
home."
"So shall I," said Mrs. Morrison, biting her lips to keep them steady.
"I shall go and speak to the vicar."
XI
What she meant by speaking to the vicar was a vigorous stirring of him
up to wrath; but you cannot stir up vicars if they are truly good. The
vicar was a pious and patient old man, practiced in forgiveness, in
overlooking, in waiting, in trying again. Always slow to anger, as the
years drew him more and more apart into the shadows of old age and he
watched from their clear coolness with an ever larger comprehension
the younger generations striving together in the heat, he grew at last
unable to be angered at all. The scriptural injunction not to let the
sun go down upon your wrath had no uses for him, for he possessed no
wrath for the sun to go down upon. He had that lovable nature that
sees the best in everything first, and then prefers to look no
further.
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