But he is so full of hobbies, and so energetic, and so determined not to be beaten, and takes such a lot of trouble, that even Elizabeth is astonished at the results.

She comes down here and gives him ideas, and then he works them out, or he potters about our place and talks to Johnson, and gets hints that way." "I never saw such a fellow for picking other people's brains," continued Cedric enthusiastically.

"Why, he got a splendid degree at Oxford; I remember how surprised his own father was." "Carlyon has a father then ?" Though Malcolm was so lukewarm on the subject of the young curate's merits, he felt some degree of curiosity about him.
"To be sure he has," replied Cedric.

"Carlyon senior is a dry, chippy sort of little man, as meek as a mouse and as good as gold.

He is curate-in-charge of an iron church at Stokeley; it is in the Black Country, you know--a regular inferno of a place--nothing but tall chimneys and blasting furnaces, heaps of slag and rows of miners' cottages.